How to Haunt a Yard with help from Instructables (edited with new pictures)

 Each year we do a free haunted house for the neighborhood, it started out when my kids were 2 old to trick or treat but still wanted a halloween experience, as just a carport with some ghouls and a pumpkin patch, 13 yrs later we're upto 1600sq' of portable carport "tents" and large portions of the yard, it goes completely around the house and takes 3-4 weeks to setup and fills a 10x12' shed to overflowing the rest of the year. Instructables inspired a number of projects for this year and many that we just didn't have time to do but... there's always NEXT year !

 I hope you enjoy this tour of our extravaganza

Step 1 Getting started

 We started out but putting together or rearranging 4 portable carports, a 20'x20' in the front and 3 10'x20' in the back. The 1st pic also shows the recycled pvc tubing I got from craigs list a couple years ago that we use to make the "maze". In the 2nd pic you can see the 20'x40' tarp we used to help darken the 2 tents in the back yard as well as add about 200 more sq feet by attaching it to the fence. Most of that "stuff" cluttering everything up will eventually get used. We wrap the outside of the front tent with 5' wire mesh recycled from a construction dumpster, more pieces of pvc, metal fence, metal poles and wooden planks will support the walls. Lots and lots of black duct tape and zip ties will atttach the black plastic to the "walls

Comments

[lmarshall3]

Kudos to you for your spooky creation and your aggressive use of recyclables! I enjoyed your photos.

[l8nite]

Thank you for commenting, I hope this years endeavor will be just as entertaining as an "ible" I'm sure we're going to out do ourselves

[wirecutter]

Simply wonderful It took me almost 40 mins to go over this BRILLIANT Instructable
Over the years I have seen a few Halloween Haunts but this one has just about every thing !
Only addition that's possible is to have some Sub-sonic's but don't go over the top and reduce your house to dust !!

[l8nite]

Im glad you enjoyed the "ible", this year promises to be even bigger and better. This weekend we used about 30 sections of recycled privacy fence to build a twisting corridor in the area that was our graveyard (about 200 linear feet ! ) and most of the scares will be totally new this year.. watch for a new "ible" the beginning of Nov 2011

[eulaliaaaa!]

I like your idea of using live people for more effect! Great job!

[l8nite]

Thank you for your comments, the "morgue" is really more of a filler piece between the electric chair and the meat market both of which have live actors but one year we did have an actor inside one of the body bags. The whole Haunt thing started to give our kids and their teen friends something to do when they were to lof for trickortreat and it continues to grow. This "ible" was our 2009 Haunt, here is a link to the 2010 Haunt "ible" http://www.instructables.com/id/Our-2010-Haunted-House-with-ideas-from-Instructabl/ there are also a couple of mini "ibles" on Haunt related projects. There's not a lot of changes between the 2 years just enough to make it different. For this years Haunt we're doing a totally different layout and expanding to almost double the enclosed area and extending our "run" to 4 days

[eulaliaaaa!]

Sounds awesome!

[eulaliaaaa!]

One idea for the "morgue" would be to have a surgeon working on them. A real scare!

[indomitable]

lol this is fabulous, i loved it! gives me aspirations of a creepy mini haunted house of my own some year! yay fer halloween!

[l8nite]

Thank you for the comment. The only way to get started is to start. We started out 15yrs or so ago with a couple of pumpkins and stuffed masks like most people do to their yards but my "kids" all inherited a creativness from me so "normal" just wasnt going to work and it grew from there. Yesterday while trying to figure out how to make the exit door work and flow from this years Haunt to the graveyard they decided to add another 100-150sq' of enclosed space and they're talking about almost DOUBLING the enclosed space next yr ! !

[jptrsn]

Amazing! Years of work and a lot of thought and love have obviously gone into this! I hope that I'll be able to do something nearing this level when my kids are a bit older, and willing to help out. Cheers!

[l8nite]

Im sorry I missed your comment when you made it. "Amazing! Years of work and a lot of thought and love have obviously gone into this! I hope that I'll be able to do something nearing this level when my kids are a bit older, and willing to help out. Cheers!"

It truely is a labor of love. My "kids" are now 24-32 with little ones of their own or on the way but get yours started early with yard decorations, then a porch haunt but be careful its ADDICTING!

[Xamith]

 Good job! You obviously put a lot of work into this!

[l8nite]

Sorry I missed your comment earlier, it does take a lot of time but its not really work when you enjoy it. Thank you for commenting

[Xamith]

 I guess you're right about that

[depotdevoid]

Wow, I can't believe this didn't get more attention!  This is a totally awesome build.  Hopefully you get more hits come halloween next year, because this instructable really deserves more views.  No one in my area puts on a big haunted house like this (at least not that I know of).  I know I'd love it and my daughter would too!

[l8nite]

yea 645 views and only 2 comments but like you said, maybe next year, of course by then I'll be working on a new one = )    Thank you for commenting