Searching through an abandoned house may seem scary, especially with spooky season upon us, but a recent find by popular YouTube explorer Dave Conlon turned up a cool trick that turned into a treat.
A friend had told Conlon about an abandoned house in Halton Region, so he grabbed his camera and went to check it out over the summer.
“I headed down a really long driveway – you can’t even see the house from the road; it’s completely covered by overgrown trees,” Conlon recalls in his YouTube video. “The whole property is overgrown, tree trunks, and trees falling down.”
When he arrived at the house, the front door and side door were “wide open.”
“So, I go inside, and it’s just a mess,” Conlon explains. “You know somebody’s been in there and tossed everything around, looking for things of value.”
Built in 1859, according to an inscription in the bricks on an exterior wall, the house has seen better days.
As Conlon tours through the building, he looks for clues about who may have once lived in the old brick home.
He comes across the interior of a car – which appeared as though someone had been using it as a couch to watch television – Halloween masks, broken appliances, old TVs, and some cassette tapes.
Good taste in music … and newspapers
Conlon provides commentary in his video as he passes through each space – the resident has good taste in music, he notes, after assessing the collection.
“You can tell it was a man that lived there because there’s Playboy posters on the wall and girls on the wall,” he explains. “So I get into what looks like an office, or a living room area. And there’s a Sunshine Girl. And it’s her clipping from November 1993 still hanging on the wall. I find stuff like that fascinating. Some guy, 32 years ago, saw this picture in the Toronto Sun, clipped it, and put it on his wall and it’s still sitting there.”
With the camera pointed at the newspaper page, Conlon makes a comment in his video that would lead to one of his most interesting finds yet.
“We got a Sunshine Girl, Colleen. This is from November 25, 1993. I wonder if this girl ever imagined that after having been a Sunshine Girl in 1993, that she would end up on some schmuck’s YouTube video? Colleen, she was 27 in 1993. I wonder if we could find Colleen, that would be interesting.”
Conlon carries on with the tour, locating other items within the house.
After editing his video, he posted the footage on his YouTube channel, Freaktography, on Oct. 19. With nearly 100,000 subscribers, Conlon’s channel has a wide reach, but he wasn’t expecting one of his followers, @siph2o, to comment the next day, “I know who that sunshine girl is at 6:43. I’ve sent her the video.”
Colleen Sauve got a message from an old friend saying he saw her in a YouTube video – although she admits she didn’t watch it right away.
“I thought it was spam,” she said with a laugh. “My friend Frank Drinkwater is a huge follower of Dave’s and right away, he messaged me.”
And when she finally did watch it?
“I was so shocked. I was with my husband and I was like, ‘Oh my God, Grant, you gotta check this out. It’s actually me!'”
Sauve explained the clipping was of her first Sunshine Girl photo – published about a month after the Toronto Blue Jays last World Series win – and that she went on to appear a total of five more times as a Sunshine Girl, as well as in a calendar, and as a Moonlight Lady.
“So, Frank asked, ‘Is it okay if I send him your email address?’ and since then, Dave and I have been talking back and forth. He said, ‘I can’t believe you emailed me. We actually found the girl!'”
Conlon was equally surprised to hear from Sauve.
“It’s just so funny that I make that comment, ‘I wonder what she would think of this,’ and ‘what if we can find her’ and here we are – but it never even crossed my mind to actually do that,” he said.
Sauve agreed.
“I was just as equally shocked to see a picture of myself, my 27-year-old self, and now I’m a 59-year-old grandmother. It really brought back a lot of memories for me,” she said.
“Being a Sunshine Girl, it led me to be an international fitness model with Muscle Mag. It got me used to being in front of the camera. I was on the cover of Oxygen magazine. It really led me to realize that I like this kind of industry, and it exposed me to a lot of opportunities in life.”
Sauve now a flight attendant
Sauve worked for many years as a model and appeared in commercials for Fitness Depot. She currently works as a flight attendant and has more than 1,500 videos on her TikTok channel.
Sauve’s family is currently going through a difficult time, so this walk down memory lane has been welcome.
“It was such a good time in my life – our lives – my husband and I, my kids. My kids actually remember (Sun photographer) Stan Behal coming to our pool in Oakville and taking that last Sunshine Girl picture of me coming out of our pool … they were hiding behind the bushes!”
Hiding in the bushes these days is more Conlon’s gig, as he explores abandoned houses, which he wanted to add, “I suggest people do not do this, it’s considered trespassing.” And while his hobby is technically illegal (and sometimes nets him angry messages from viewers who own the abandoned properties), experiences like connecting with Sauve make it worthwhile.
“I love when this happens – it’s one of the things I love about what I do,” Conlon said.
