Home Haunting 

My name is Rick Haven and I love to scare the Hell out of people. This will be my 13th year having a home haunt.  If you’re into scaring people and have just a little bit of creativity then this article is just for you. I was asked by my friends and colleagues of Feature Creatures to write some thing up about home haunting and things to do for the beginner home haunter. Over the years I’ve collected quite a bit of Halloween stuff. I’d have to say that I have more Halloween stuff then regular stuff. If you’re just starting off then go small. The first year I just decorated my front and side yard. Even though it was small I scared nearly every body that came in for a look, in which brought even more people the next year.  

First I started out by digging a grave by the side of my house. This is a lot of work but with the right lighting you don’t actually have to go down 6 feet. If you don’t own your house you defiantly want to get permission from your landlord before attempting to do this. Make sure to take the grass out in 2 x 2 sections and keep it off to the side along with the top soil. When you’re done you can put right back the way you got it. The rest of the dirt can be piled up right behind the hole.  That particular year I made a leaf dummy and sat him right on top of the dirt pile with a shovel. I built a home made fence in front of the hole so that no one could get too close and fall in.  

At the time I had a bunch of 4 ft by 4 ft card board sheets that I cut into 5 inch strips. I then used marker to put wood grain and knots on them. After that I taped them to the windows. People actually asked me later if they were real boards so I guess that It gave me the effect that I was looking for. 

To build crosses I took some 2x4’s and imagined a cross in my head I cut the bottom part of the cross first Keeping in mind that this part needed to be a little bit longer. It’s the part that is going to be planted in the ground. Then I cut another 2x4 for the cross section and then one for the top. If you make your cross to small you can just label it “Baby Joey lies here”. After all the pieces were cut, I connected them all together with Sheet rock screws.  I just screwed them in at an angle and did both front and back sides of the cross. If you decide to make your own crosses this way just make sure that no screws go all the way though. If they do then use a file or hack saw and file it off. We all want to have people running away screaming but not because they have been hurt. I used a dremel to engrave my crosses and spray painted them gray. After I took a small paint brush and filled in my engravings with black paint.  

I stuck some drop lights with red colored bulbs in the bushes where they could not be seen but could still shine out onto my crosses. You can use any colored light that you want just be careful if you blend too many colors in one scene you will not get any effect. Next I placed a strobe light off to the side of my grave and aimed it at my leaf dummy making sure that my strobe light didn’t shine all the way down into my grave  (I didn’t want people to know that my grave wasn’t 6 feet deep).  

This particular year I didn’t have a fog machine so what I did was go to an Ice company and get some dry ice.  Dry Ice and hot water gives an awesome fog that drops low to the ground. I just kept one pot on the stove and one outside so that when one cooled down I could just switch them out. If you use dry ice just be careful not to touch it with your bare hands….Wear Gloves. 

All that was left to do was wait for dark. When people came in for trick or treating they had to enter my cemetery. I had the theme music from Halloween on a boom box.  People would walk up to the fence and look around at every thing. Then I hit the strobe light which gave the scene a different effect and just a second after that my friend came running out of the bushes wearing a Hockey mask into the strobe light with a fake meat cleaver. I had so many peoples legs give out on them from trying to get away so quickly.  

Things have changed since then but that was my first haunt. It was small but very effective. Needless to say year after year it just gets bigger and bigger. I think that peoples number one question to me is, “what did you make that out of?” I usually say every thing but the kitchen sink.  One year I made a cave coming out of my basement wall out of 2x4s, Chicken wire and I covered it with news papers that were dipped in flour and water. Learn from me on this experience. Do not do this at home. First of all it started to stink. I had to put fans down stairs to air it out until the smell went away. After it dried and the smell went away I spray painted it and it looked awesome but it didn’t make it to the next year because mice moved in. They love that stuff.  If you want to make a cave make it out of 2x4’s chicken wire and Burlap dipped in Monster Mud (one 5 gallon bucket of joint compound mixed with 1 gallon of black latex paint. 

If you’re going to do a home haunt. The best thing to do is experiment. Research on the internet there are too many sites out there that have “how to build it yourself stuff”.  

Have everything set up at least the night before so that you can check your lighting.  Lighting is everything.  Casting shadows off of your graves looks awesome but you my have an area that you are going to have an actor hiding. You don’t want to give him away by putting too much light on him. It’s easy to drop a lot of money into Halloween. Just start small. The people that come though your yard or house will defiantly talk. The next year you’ll be a little bigger and your group will be bigger too. Good luck and most of all have fun 

Happy Haunting

Rick Haven