Since its closure in 2007, Saidah Tower, an abandoned 28-story building located in Cawang, East Jakarta, has been attracting a lot of curious minds.

The building stands tall with dark grey Roman-style architecture surrounded by a zinc fence, barring people from going inside.

Its walls have started decaying, the paint is faded and a lot of its windows are broken. As years passed, the dilapidated building started gaining an infamous reputation as one the most haunted places in the capital city, luring many horror fans to view its empty rooms.

Dede, a 41-year-old man who has been living right behind the tower for the last two years, said he had seen a lot of people going to the tower late at night, trying to get inside.

“People go to the tower almost every day trying to get inside and test their courage. I’ve seen teenagers, students, adults, people from TV stations, even foreigners trying to get inside the tower, but the tower’s security guards don’t let them in,” he told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Dede said visitors had tried various ways to get inside the old building.

“Some sent formal letters to the local authorities and community unit head in the area; some try to bribe the security guards; some even try climbing the fence,” he said.

Dede said despite rumors circulating about the tower being haunted, he never saw anything out of the ordinary in the building.

“I often talk with my neighbors in a security post behind the tower until 1 a.m. or 2 a.m., but I’ve never seen or heard anything unusual from the tower. Usually visitors who come here claim they have seen something supernatural inside the building,” he said.

Another local, 50-year-old Jafis, who also frequently hangs out at the security post, shares similar experiences.

“I often heard horror stories from people visiting the tower, but I’ve never witnessed anything strange myself. The only ghost story I heard from locals is when one of my neighbors claimed he saw a pair of bare feet dangling from the security post’s roof in the middle of the night,” he said.

Living in the area for all of his life, Jafis explained that the building had some scary history. “The land where the building stood used to be a graveyard, but it was removed when the building started being constructed. Three construction workers fell to their deaths during the construction of the building.”

Meanwhile, another resident, Rohimah, said she heard many scary stories about the Saidah Tower from her nephew who used to work as a security guard in the building.

“He said even when the building was still being used for offices, he often saw a lady in a white gown near a water fountain in front of the building,” she told the Post.

The abandoned building had recently been put back under a spotlight following after horror stories about it trended on Twitter. Netizens shared information regarding the building, as well as mystery fueled stories happening in the building. One of the stories related to food deliveries by ride-hailing app drivers who got mysterious orders from the building.

Rohimah confirmed that many drivers came to the building to deliver food or packages.

“They claimed they were asked to deliver it for people who work inside the tower. Many of them did not know that the building has been closed for more than a decade,” she said.

Behind its reputation as a haunted place, the building has raised safety concerns for people living around the area.

The building's construction started in 1995 and it was officially opened for tenants in 1998. It was closed down in 2007 reportedly because it was tilting. In 2017 land subsided in front of the building because of heavy rainfall.

The building's infamous reputation as a haunted place has caused people to take extreme measures to get behind its closed gate.

Dede said he has seen teenagers get hurt after climbing the fence surrounding the tower. “One kid broke his ankle and cut his hand after falling from the fence when trying to get inside the tower.”

He also said that some residents had expressed concerns as many of them had seen a six-meter-long python lurking around the building. They were worried that the snake would go to their houses.

Property expert, Aleviery Akbar, said private abandoned buildings were not regulated.

“There is no rule available at the moment. For safety measures the building owner usually only forbids unauthorized parties from going inside the building,” he said, adding that based on the current laws, multi-storage buildings were designed to be able to last up to 50 years and to survive earthquakes up to magnitude 7.

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