2005
In 2005 we took the haunt to a whole new level. It was a family event. My parents flew down from Vermont and my little sister Theresa and her boyfriend Johnny drove down from Virginia. I had discovered the most excellent resource for the home haunter - the Halloween monster list. It's a list of all sorts of halloween projects. I was amazed by how simple and effective many of the props were. I made a flying crank ghost, pvc framed static props, corpse hands, added a strobe and another black light... Kellie got me a chauvet fog machine for Christmas after the 04 haunt... I had gotten a bunch of free fiberboard planks from work and made them into cross-type tombstones (15 in all) I made a smoking cauldron using an ultrasonic humidifyier... added some more jug-o-lanterns, we carved a bunch of pumpkins, set up a cemetary fance made from strips of aluminum. Johnny and I spent the better part of a day making the new spider web. I had found some more green kite string and we made a web that spanned a tree and the corner of our porch, which was 21' across.

We put together a "entrance" of sorts using some plywood and a swingset wrapped in black plastic. Within the triangle space the swingset made someone would hide and scare the folks who walked through... there was also a fog machine and black-light in there. It didn't really fit in to the whole haunt theme but it was very good at scaring both kids and adults. My mom and sister were witches... my mom was the scary witch, she handed out candy to the brave kids who made it to the front porch. My little sister was the good witch, who handed out candy to the little ones at the end of the driveway who didn't dare get any closer. My dad was a goblin of sorts, dressed in a simple cloak made by wrapping a wool blanket around himself. Most often folks thought he was a static prop and he'd move a bit and they would be startled. I was the undertaker... I had cover-alls on and a red headlamp. armed with a flat-bladed shovel, I would stalk up and down the street and driveway. I would drag the shovel along a stride, "Scrrraaaaaape" and plant it for one step like a walking stick: "kerchink!" it was very loud and folks reported you could hear it from other areas of the subdivision. We also had several friends kids in the haunt as actors too.

The haunt was a huge success, we got around 150 tots. Kellie (the wife) reported that it was unlike anything the town had seen before... (she grew up here in a house a mile down the road) We had folks hanging out in the driveway to check it out, and others were calling their friends on cell-phones telling them to "come check out this really cool house" Sadly, the FCG only lasted about an hour on the used rotissary motor, but she was still impressive just hanging there. IIRC that was the only issue we had.