Thread: How did you get started with your Haunts?

Tweet

As a kid (43 now) I always remembered my parents doing haunts under the carport of our house. We had lines doing down the street for people to get into the walk thru. To me it was never scary even when I was little I think cause I saw and helped on getting it ready with my brothers and parents. Anyways they stopped doing it as they got older and everyone left the house. I ended up living in the house I grew up in so one day sometime back I decided to start doing a haunt just a small scene under the carport at first then as years went by I added more and more to it. My dad loved that I picked up what he use to do he thinks its kinda funny because I am the youngest and the only girl in the family and he would of thought if anything one of the boys would of started doing it. So not only did I pick it up but I am doing it at the same house he use to do it at. I actually had a few adults tell me wow I remember this house from years back when it use to have a walk thru. So it makes me happy people do remember my dads haunts and love that I took over. Now my mom & dad (72 now) come over every year to help pass out candy to the ToT's and my dad still loves to scare them when he can.

Grew up having Halloween birthday parties. I would have friends over and we would carve pumpkins, watch scary movies, etc. When I was a teenager, I enjoyed horror movies and Fangoria. that got me interested in makeup and doing more to decorate my folk's house for Halloween.

In high school, my friends and I would start a couple of weeks before Halloween planning out ghosts on ropes and monsters under the stairs, etc.

College was just costume parties, but no real decorating.

Finally, got married and bought our first home. Been doing the yard haunt ever since!

I have loved Halloween ever since I was a little kid, and when we went TOT'ing, I always appreciated the people that made the effort to decorate thier yard, and scare the kids. I had kind of forgotten about that until we went to a Halloween party years ago, and they had set up a full cemetery in the yard, and transformed the whole house into a haunted house, with coffins, and skeletons, and cobwebs everywhere. That really brought me back to my childhood, and the rest, as they say, is history. This will be my eleventh year doing a home haunt, and we hope to open a commercial attraction some day. Haunting is just in my blood!

I never really did anything myself until I was 23 or 24 in California. My friend convinced me to help him do a set up at my moms house. It went great. Then I moved to Washington and didn't have a chance to do anything for another 8 years. Then I got a house. Now my haunt gets bigger every year.

I had never been to a Halloween party until I moved to the Twin Cities.
It was there that I attended my first one, along with a small haunted maze. Over the years the party & maze grew every year. Then I moved back home & ended up having a Halloween party of my own. The founders of the cities party grew too busy, & it got to be a family tradition that we took on. Since then it's been in my backyard but, was too bright from city lights. Eventually it moved to my extended families grain farm out in the country. The maze got it's own Quanza shed for two months of the year & has grown to over 3,000 sq. ft!

What got me started as a kid was the amazing dark rides of Coney Island. That was back when they were all there in full glory. I just couldn't get enough. We used to play 'haunted house ride' outside. Then as I got older I would make a spook house in my basement, to which no one but me and some friends and neighbors got to see- and it was pretty lame at that! This was coupled with lots of window decorations too.

When my wife and I bought our first house I decorated it inside and out to the max. I've been divorced for many years now, but in between I didn't do a thing. Four years ago I put out one lame thing by my front door of my current house. Ever since then my front yard display has ballooned into quite a spectical, and the TOT's have grown in numbers. I got progressively more hooked once again.

As much as I'd love to make a full walk through in my back yard, which is PERFECT for it, I haven't done it. The weather here is a trader and I don't have the heart or patience to risk such a thing. So, my front yard display keeps growing and this year will be quite big, with plenty of room to grow in years to follow. I actually like the yard display thing a lot. It's manageable and that keeps it lots of fun. I doubt I'll ever do a real haunt until such time as I can do one inside somehow- like a garage.

Dan

a perfect storm of events got me into the hobby. living in 'erie, pa' we had a a radio station that would broadcast '(e)erie legends' on halloween night. It was stories about local urban legends. That combined with the stories i was told of 2 'haunted' houses near my grandmothers house and 1 creepy house i had to walk past everyday to get to shool had piqued my interest in the paranormal. Growing up in they hey-day of slasher films also contributed to my addiction. I do remember TOTing to the 'regular houses' and then the ones that had more than just a light on. To this day I can point out all of those houses that put on a great display. My very first 'haunt', I was 13 and hung a dummy i mde to look like jason from a huge tree in the front yard. All of my neighbors commented on it. It was all down hill from there, constantly picking up momentum.

My start was similar to yours snigglez. It was all my mom's fault I have this strange obsession. The earliest memory I have of Halloween my mom made a guillotine out of plywood and a beautician head she had. I think I was 4 or 5 at the time (32 now). She always made Halloween fun and special. It was a BIG deal for us. We always had Halloween parties and our annual trip to the pumpkin farm. I got out of it while I was in college, but after I had my daughter... it was on again!!!! Now my house is the spot for Halloween.

I hope that my kids enjoy the holiday and the spirit as much as I do.

I had always wished my parents would have done more decorating when I was a kid...so when I had kids, I made sure that they had a house to be proud of....the same goes with Christmas.

You know my parents never really decorate for Halloween, except for the leaf-filled scarecrows and the big orange garbage pumpkins. In fact I only remember a couple of times when were bought costumes. We always had to make ours, and they always had to fit over our snowsuit. I was a bum many halloweens. I've only been doing it for three years. I love Horror movies and I love the ability to be able to scare someone, it's not an easy thing to do, for the most part. Three years ago, two days before Halloween I decided to decorate my parents house, and it's gotten bigger nad bigger every year. My parents love it, my dad loves building the props with me, and my mom buys the candy and does any sewing, then they sit back and watch me go to work on Halloween night. My dad got a kick out of the second year doing it, he went to the store Halloween night, and they were talking about his house.