Inside abandoned million-dollar beach house among those being washed away in South Carolina

With rows of beautiful ocean-front homes lining crystal clear water, Harbor Island looks like a postcard-perfect town, but behind the pastel-colored façade, erosion and rising sea levels have resulted in the once-beautiful beach houses now in a state of complete disrepair.

While properties on the water have been in decline for years, a recent TikTok video showing a dilapidated house in South Carolina - estimated have once been worth millions of dollars - that was completely abandoned by its owners and left to decay captured the attention of public.

TikTok user Mitch Jones posted a video showing himself investigating an abandoned home on the coast in Harbor Island, where dazzling beach-front mansions have gone from a luxurious stay to condemned nightmares.

'As you can see the sand is completely washed from under the original concrete slab of which the entire house's foundation is on,' the 31-year-old Atlanta-based content creator explained, showing the rickety-looking weatherboard house on stilts.

Rising sea levels and changing shoreline have resulted in the homes falling victim to the sea, and Mitch predicts that it's not the last that Harbor Island, an erosion threatened private gated community in Beaufort County, will see of this.

According to Realtor.com , the four-bedroom family home in his video, built in 1998, was last listed for $1.4 million in 2011.

Making his way into the home, giant parts of the walls are missing, exposing the wooden beams and frame of the house, with broken furniture littering the unstable-looking floor.

'This is honestly so crazy, it looks like people just got out of this house in a rush and ended up leaving a lot of furniture,' he marvels in the video as he shows the deteriorating interior.

Mitch, who works as a professional singer, described the mood as 'ominous' when he first entered the house, describing the off sounds and sights of the inhabitable structure.

'Dishes were left in the dishwasher and I suddenly heard something upstairs,' he recalled to the DailyMail.com. 'I went silent and started pacing to the door and heard another bang upstairs and ran down the stairs thinking someone was there.

'I soon re-entered knowing it was high tide hitting the structure and rattling the entirety of the home from bottom to top - making all kinds of noises that were ominous to me,' he shared.

Mitch frequently visited the island when his grandparents lived there until he was in his late teens, explaining there had been a few hurricanes in the area which had caused irreparable damage after the roof caved in.

'[The houses are] a very big problem in the area that has led to all kinds of inner community tensions, insurance, and state feuds,' he said.

He added that despite the home well on its way to being claimed by the ocean, houses are currently being built only '20 to 30 feet' from where the house in his video is.

'People are ambitious and like to weather the storms here,' he shared.

'I estimate five homes in this particular vicinity have been abandoned or are soon to be,' he continued.

'There is one nearby that is inhabited and the entire structure is elevated and has high tide underneath the whole house,' he explained.

Mitch, who regularly spent summers on Harbor Island from 1995 to 2013, recalled growing up and watching the mass efforts by large barges to move sand and prevent erosion.

'[On the] western side of the island, [there] were three or four homes before this that were completely swept away after or around the 2016 hurricane Matthew,' Mitch added.

According to the South Carolina Environmental Law Project , the deteriorating houses on the public beach are 'a threat to beachgoers and marine life alike.'

'Siding, pipes, wires, appliances and other structural components are or will be slowly making their way into the ocean, potentially causing harm to people recreating in and on the beach, as well as marine life that may ingest these components,' the website reads.

'Moreover, the long-term implications of houses deteriorating on the beach and obstructing public use are significant, particularly given the fact that nearly all of SC's beaches are eroding while sea levels are rising.'

Mitch described the island as a having a 'big sense of unsustainability' when driving around it, adding that 'everything just kind of looks like one really bad hurricane surge from being underwater.'

After the success and curiosity surrounding his TikTok, Mitch says he would like to keep making videos of abandoned homes within the region.