A home yard haunt open Halloween night only.

How did this begin?

What makes a person delve into this madness?

People have been known to give me odd looks when they see the extent I go to on Halloween. The look only gets stranger when I start talking about plans, projects and prop building in February.

So why do I do this? You wouldn’t be the first to ask. You won’t be the last.

The short answer is, I love Halloween. It’s my favorite holiday.

The long answer… I blame my parents originally. I’m not sure they even realize that they started this. When I was a kid, my parents got creative one year and made a bunch of gravestones out of cardboard and even made a full-sized coffin out of the same. Every year we’d put them out and people would come by and read them as they walked through the yard and it wasn’t long before people started looking forward to it.

For years that was the extent of it. Then I got ambitious one year and decided it was time for something new. At first it was just stuffing some old clothes and sticking a mask on it to make a body. Then my brother and I started dressing up as the “dummy” and scared people. The next year people would come up the driveway openly wondering what would jump out at them this year. They remembered our house and were coming back for more!

Soon, I started dabbling with insulation foam in hopes of making some more realistic looking stones. Then came a fog machine, a black light, some strobes. My budget was limited, but I had a lot of fun and the TOTs and parents seemed to enjoy it.

Eventually I moved away and lived in an apartment where I had no place to put out my stuff and we barely got any kids anyway. During these years my Halloween fun got put on the back burner in favor of going to parties with friends and whatnot.


Resurrection

Eventually I met Kari, fell in love and things moved forward from there. <3 A few years later we bought our first home. One day during the summer after we moved in, while tinkering in my new workshop in the basement, something clicked. I don’t know what, but something made me realize that I HAVE A YARD NOW! From that moment it all came rushing back and plans upon plans started forming. They were coming faster than I could get them down.

Well, that was the beginning of the end. I soon discovered an old friend shared my love of Halloween and that he and a friend had started this website for this very thing. The Garage of Evil had been formed recently and I was brought into the fold. Now my ideas were being fueled by others. As if I needed any more ideas!

Kari, being the wonderful and supportive woman she is was willing to humor me and let me pursue this craziness and it soon developed into my full-blown hobby. Fall 2007 was a very hectic time for me. I suddenly had all these plans and idea and little more than a few weeks to make it happen. I went to my parents’ house and reclaimed all my old gear then set out in earnest to expand the collection even more.

I’m sure my neighbors thought I was insane. They probably still do. But I have had so much fun doing this and they seem to enjoy it. Our first season (2007) a couple of visitors actually thanked me for doing it! That sealed my fate and theirs.

Halloween 2008 saw a big expansion of the haunt, fueled in no small part by the acquisition of a large portion of a haunt in a neighboring town. I’d also done a lot of building and things went great.

As you can see, I’m a bit obsessed. I’m ok with it. It’s given me a creative outlet and it’s just great fun. I love Halloween, I love making things, and I love putting on a show for our friends and neighbors. My hope is that each year I’ll add a bit more, add something new. I hope everybody keeps having fun and enjoying it. I know I will!


Happy Haunting!