Transcript

Introduction and Exhaustion in the Haunt Community

[0:23] Hello everyone, I'm Jonathan. I'm crystal and this is haunt weekly a weekly podcast behind attraction entertainment community Whether you're an actor owner or just plain aficionado. We aim to be a podcast for you, And we come to you this week Damn near peak exhaustion Yeah, that's usual for this time of year. Yeah, I think we are, run down worn down And we still have a fair amount to do. We'll discuss in more detail in a minute, but But yeah, it's been a very, very busy, very hectic season for us, and we're looking forward to finally being able to open and enjoy it.

[1:01] Yeah, and then get a day of rest before Halloween. A couple days of rest, yeah, we had Sunday and Monday, theoretically, hopefully.
But on that note, definitely do take a minute and check out other places we exist.
We're at hauntweekly.com, hauntweekly on Twitter, facebook.com slash hauntweekly, youtube.com We're on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts from.
Please check us out and pay special attention to that Facebook page as hopefully after season, we'll be making announcements of some live recordings we've been planning and wanted to do for a while but have not had the bandwidth for.
So hopefully there's some things coming along for there.
Well I say this week we just skip straight to the question of the week.
Sounds good. Alright, because we've got a lot of news to get through.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I forgot. Except it's 412, divisible by 4, means it's time to do the news.
There's so much news, though, we can't even do that gimmick properly. No.
So, anyways, every week we do ask a question of the week, and last week's question of the week was, how was your season going so far?
A question I realized I may have been self-fulfilling, because...
No one's gonna come on on weekly and talk about how shit their seasons been. Yeah, but anyways, Chris Gay said he had the busiest opening night ever Friday the 13th But then had to rain outs with possibility of another luckily their rain insurance has been kicking in just fine.

Opening Weekend and Rain Woes

[2:23] Stage fright said opening weekend was okay always hoping for bigger numbers But second night was bigger though slower. They're usually slower Yeah, yeah, seventh gate Hohenhaus said much bigger than anticipated which does not help because I have no idea what you anticipated No, but anyways, I'm glad to hear it was beating your expectations, Like I said realizing this was a self-fulfilling question pretty much everyone said it was going well, The only issue I saw a lot of was people talking about rain like Chris Gay Apparently there's been a lot of wet weather in other parts of the country. Not the fuck here. No.

[2:57] Here we've got fires on two sides of us now. Yeah, and oh, it's too Not just in Lafitte now.
Yeah, yeah, now it's in New Orleans East. Yeah, we are under a red flag, burn ban, super we really mean it this time guys, burn ban. Yeah, whenever the wind shifts, we get all that smoke.
Yeah, we actually had to shut down haunt work for a bit on Sunday because you couldn't breathe, you couldn't open your eyes. I mean, it smells and feels like a tire fire.
Like, and that's because it's rubbery plants burning. It's a very similar material and it gets in your eyes, it stings like a bitch.
Yeah. And to drop off one of our new actors, he only lives, you know, three, four minutes away tops.
But between driving there and driving back, my eyes were red and I could barely see out of them because even though I was in the fucking car with the recycle on, I got so much of that smoke I was hurting. So yeah, that really, really sucked.
Um, but yeah.
So can any of y'all that are complaining about rain send some our way maybe not until after Halloween, but like soon, Yeah, or just before before like friday. Yeah, if we could get here before friday amazon prime some rain to us. That'd be great, Yeah Yeah, especially if it's enough to put out the fires.

[4:16] Well, anyways this week's question of the week is quite a simple one What do you feel has been most different about this year this haunt season? Um, I don't know Oh, because we haven't been open yet.
What I've been hearing is that there's been a lot of problems with rude customers.
Yeah, that's what I've been seeing too.
Yeah, like a lot of problems, including locally. Now we're kind of insulated from that typically.
Being a free home haunt, we typically don't really have to deal with it that much, but I'm still a little worried about that, especially as someone who works front of house, and especially as someone who works front of house that'll be in a new mask and slightly new setup this time around. Well, and we won't have our adult present. Yeah, not for two nights.
Right. So yeah, I'm really hoping we don't have problems like that. We historically have not. The crowd has been very good, fun-loving. Everyone's there for a good time. I'm not saying we haven't had any problem customers. We've had a few, but not like a problem with problem customers, if that makes sense. Yeah. There's, It's always been a couple of jackasses a season at most.
That's what I'm hoping.

[5:26] Well, on that note, it is also an even number episode. Even number episodes, we do comps, reminders.
So what the fuck are these people going to do when season's over?
Crystal, why don't you let them know what they can do? Well, November 10th through the 11th, they can do the Legendary Haunt Tour in Salem, Massachusetts.
Bah! Yeah. They'll be visiting Haunted Overload, Fright Kingdom, Barrett's Haunted Mansion, Legendary Haunt Tour with 2Ts.com.
Alright, well Creep It Real Festive, if you're wanting to make that transition into the holiday season.
Why you want to do that, I don't know. But that is November 17th and the 18th in Santa Ana, California at the Heritage Museum of OC.
You can learn more at CreepItRealOC.com.
Halloween and Party Expo will be happening January 23rd through the 25th in Las Vegas, Nevada at The Mirage. The Mirage!
Hundreds of vendors, must be qualified business to attend, not open to the public.
Halloweenpartyexpo.com for more info.
Alright, and finally, February 9th through the 11th, it's HauntCon 2024 in Daytona Beach, Florida.

[6:36] An interesting choice of locale. That'll be at the Hilton Daytona Beach Oceanfront.
There'll be a costume ball dinner and a show.
My favorite kind of dinner, technically. And plus a $3,000 Haunt Cash giveaway.
HauntCon.com for more details.
Alright, so...
We have a fuck ton of news. Yeah, we have news coming out of places. We shouldn't have places, Yeah We actually cut a lot of stories and we have some like stuffed at the end where if we were like way short on time Or something I don't see how the fuck that's gonna happen. No, but if it does happen we can delve into some of those, But yeah, but we do want to really quickly touch on a couple of things.

[7:17] First is we did make visits to some area haunts decomposed run by our friend John Farrell Mm-hmm visited there and we visited haunting on the bayou both of these haunts having their second year Yeah, this year the second year of pro-haunt on in the bayou Well, they both have been homeowners for some time before right, but the first their second years pro-haunters, Definitely have a lot to talk about there. We're hoping to catch rise Unfortunately, it looks like rise is going to wait till after season. We may make it that Sunday. Yeah.

[7:46] The between the when we're They're open. I think they're open. But if they're not, We'll be going to flashlight nights and I hate going on flashlight nights, But this season's been brutal. I'm just not gonna even try to couch that No, also do want to say that reckless bin we talked about him a couple of podcasts ago, Doing his expose on the camey manor Brilliant fashion I might add has released his much-anticipated new video. It came out earlier this week week. We're not going to talk about it here. We don't really have time. I know, I feel pretty confident we'll be talking about it soon. Yeah. If not, next episode, the one, after. Because I don't know when we're going to talk about our season. Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know. I don't know the order of the next few episodes because it's kind of confusing because we have an episode literally in the middle of our season. Because that Monday before Halloween, Monday the 30th, is technically our next episode. So that's going to be interesting.
So we'll see what we feel like then, but definitely we'll talk about it some as an hour-long masterpiece.
I've got the link in the show notes. And speaking of which, just a heads up, this episode is being recorded like about 15 minutes before it goes public. Yeah.
Literally. I did the unusual step of pre-preparing all the show notes and everything for it so that when we're done talking, quickly edit it, upload it, and get back out and do some work.

[9:12] Exactly. we have a laundry list of small things that have to be done. Yeah, we're at the point of the year where we have plenty of time. Time isn't really the issue.
It's just it's overwhelming because we have all these small things that need to be done, none of which are particularly dangerous or bad for us.
All right. Well, anyways, as we said before it's episode 412, but it's time to do the news and.

[9:40] We're starting off as we usually do with some heavier stories Now I promised to end it with something fun and light if you like let me get there, But we do have a handful of serious a lot of serious stories. I'm just gonna go. Yeah, there's a lot, So anyways the first one scare usa owner charged with sex sexual assault of a child, This is an article on Yahoo News. It's from the Manitowoc Herald Times by Alice M. Schaefer.
But basically, the police arrested John S. Schwartz, Jr., the owner of Scare USA, in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, for alleged repeated sexual assault of a minor.
The victim is the one who filed the complaint.
Said that they were sexually assaulted repeatedly since they started volunteering the haunt in 2016.
Includes multiple allegations of sexual assault, many of which took place at the haunt itself and others took place at these really, really creepy sounding sleepovers.
Yeah, definitely I guess trigger slash content warning on the article because it goes into more detail than we're going into here.
But basically he's being held on a $50,000 bond. If convicted, he faces up to 40 years in prison and $100,000 in fines. Scare USA has been closed following the arrest citing in quote-unquote unforeseen circumstances.

[11:02] Yeah. If this story sounds familiar, you're probably remembering the Bloodshed Brothers saga from not that long ago. Yeah.
And apparently the ongoing Bloodshed Brothers saga. Well, and there's...

[11:18] Unfortunately there's a few of these stories every, you know, year now. Yeah, well.
What's been frustrating... What's frustrating with this one, and also the Bloodshed Brothers, is that this wasn't some random actor.
This wasn't a customer that showed up and did things they shouldn't have done.
This wasn't some random actor that wasn't vetted properly or wasn't being monitored correctly.
This was the owner misusing their authority and their position to gain that access, to gain that trust.
And you know, there's nothing that, like we can say all the smart people things of, hey, background check all your volunteers slash employees, at the very least check the sex offender registry.
That's free. You know, you can do that in just a few seconds of your time.

Scare USA Haunters Blindsided by Disturbing Revelations

[12:09] Um do all those things but yeah it doesn't help when it's the owner no no it doesn't a sad story and in addition to my heart going out to the victim my heart also goes out to the other haunters at scare usa who by most accounts it seems it sounds like from this article there wasn't a lot of indications of what was going on yeah it doesn't sound like there was much So they probably were as blindsided as anyone, And now they have to wrangle With all the fallout from that both internally and externally, Yeah, that's it's it's rough. Yeah, this is just a bad situation all around, So, I don't know it sucks, but as we'll see in a second It's not the only someone only story that's similar to this No, Nice segway that I just ruined. Um, yeah, I'm sorry the next no no the next story No, I don't think you can ruin that segway that segway was shit because of the topic. I'm sorry.

[13:19] Anyway, the next story comes from WBBJ and is written by Garrett Evans, Haunted house raised concerns after an arrest was made on the property, Philip Punk was arrested for violating the terms of the sex offender registry, for being at Hillside Haunted House. Yeah, Hillside Haunted Attraction. No, he's the partial owner of the property. So the thing is is that his son Runs the haunted house.

[13:55] He a hillside terror, sorry, it was a little side terror. Thank you, Yeah, his son runs the haunted house This is the dad who was arrested and the sister also owned the property. So it's family-owned property, He the dad's truck who is the the offender broke down somewhere nearby and he went to the haunt.

Dad's Truck Breakdown Leads to Haunted House Visit

[14:24] But did not see his son. No. Because Clint, the son, said he didn't actually know he was there.
Right. Had no idea he was even there. Yeah.
So it's an odd story and, but yeah, this was, so the court date for that is set for October 24th.
It doesn't sound like anyone knew was victimized in this.
Right. It doesn't sound like anything actually happened, but yeah, as someone on the sex offender registry, he was not supposed to be at a haunted attraction, which attracts a lot of kids. Yes.
And he was there when he was not supposed to be, and he was there unbeknownst to his son and the others who operate that haunt, apparently.

[15:10] So, yeah, god damn, you know. Yeah, I'm sure if there are updates we will report on them in the future.
Yeah, this one's confusing. Like I said, we've read multiple articles on this one.
Yeah. And it's kind of confusing because...
Other than like his truck broke down and he was on the property when the haunt was open, doesn't really sound like anything happened. Yeah. I mean, yeah, he still shouldn't have done that.
Right. And it said that he knew that he shouldn't be there. Yeah. You know. Anyway, it's a weird story, but it definitely deserves it and needs a mention.

[15:46] Well, in other sad news, we turn our attention back to Wisconsin. This is an, an article by WBAY, another one by them I believe, no, okay, but this one is, a man known for iconic holiday displays dies falling off a ladder while decorating a home.
Jeff Oman of Beaverdam, Wisconsin, died after falling off a ladder while decorating his home.
He became very well known for his huge holiday displays. He apparently did both Halloween and Christmas in a big, big way, was well loved by his neighborhood by everyone around him but was killed in a tragic accident. That's really all there is to this story. Yeah. But definitely just I guess you know take this as a reminder that there are real risks in this and to be safe. Yeah. I'm, not saying he did anything unsafe or whatever but just you know realize that people do get hurt seriously doing this and so please be cognizant of that. Yeah.
You only got one body and one life and you've got a lot of loved ones. So yeah, take care of them both. Mm-hmm.
No Continuing with the sad news from ABC 7 in Chicago.

Serial Arsonist Strikes: Halloween Decorations go up in Flames

[17:08] Halloween decorations are being set on fire by what is suspected as a serial arsonist, The latest one was in Lincoln Square. It was caught on a ring doorbell.

Mysterious Vandalism Strikes Halloween Decorations

[17:23] And it was one of eight that's been set in the area. Yeah this is kind of weird. I actually watched the video for this one and it seems like whoever this is is not hitting like every house and every display. Right. Like there was they interviewed one guy who actually had a fairly big a very small yard before this the yard he had a very big bright display and he'd been untouched but other houses with smaller decorations had been hit.
Um, this is just fucked up. Yeah.
This goes, and the thing is, this goes well beyond just simple vandalism.
Because when you're burning decorations, you're risking burning people's houses down.
Right, and injuring someone.
Luckily, no one's been injured yet. And the man has reportedly been captured on video, but nobody's been able to find out who it was from the videos that they have.
No.

[18:22] And you know, it's one that we think that, oh yeah, we've got all this ring doorbell footage. We've got all the security camera footage.
Yeah, the main thing, and this is something I actually learned from talking with the police when we would go to the police meetings, is the police actually do really appreciate those cameras.
But the main thing they tell the police is not who did it, but when something happened, and what specifically happened.
Right. Because even with very, very good cameras, you can not always tell who did it, especially They're covered in their head and their face and whatnot.

[18:54] But you do know they pulled up at 3.30 a.m. and they did X, Y, and Z.
And that does help the police in the investigation.
But yeah, it's rare for the police to go, oh yeah, that's Jim Bob on the video or whatever and be able to make an arrest.
So definitely have the security camera footage, especially in your haunt, if you have a haunted house.
Because A, you need to know what happened and even if it's not a criminal issue, it It could just be a safety issue, it could be a this room isn't working issue.
Having the security camera footage is invaluable in addressing those.
So please remember to have your security camera footage, but also don't expect it to be a magic bullet if something does happen, if something is stolen or something is broken.
You know what I mean? It's not a magic bullet for that. It helps.
It is a layer to security, but it is not everything. And honestly, I just, like I said, this one really upsets me more than anything else.
Because I sit here, and this one, not more than anything else in this episode, that's a gross exaggeration, but more than like most vandalisms is what I meant to say, because.

[19:58] Like I said, this isn't just burning someone's decorations. These are decorations.
This neighborhood, these are up against people's houses.
Yeah. These are tiny front yards like we had when we started.
And like one of the houses that had their decorations in the fire, their front door got burned up or damaged to the point they had to board up their front door.
Yeah.
To give you an example of what we're talking about here, that could have taken down the whole house. That could have taken down possibly multiple houses because these houses are also very, close together in this neighborhood.

[20:28] I mean you're really putting people's lives at risk and burning and risking burning far more than just a couple of

Priest Slammed for Destroying Child's Pumpkin Decorations

[20:35] Halloween decorations, It's it's absolutely batshit insane, and I hope they catch the guy. I hope he faces adequate justice, speaking of Vandals at least this one didn't set fire to shit I mean, I know I'll take my wins as I can get them But this is an article by the in the New York Post in conjunction with the news.com.au, The headline reads policed policed priest slammed for destroying child's quote-unquote satanic, pumpkin decorations Yeah This took place in a village in the Czech Republic, Whose name I cannot pronounce and did not even put in the notes because I did not want to attempt, but basically the priest smashed a collection of jack-o-lanterns meant to celebrate Halloween and then the family went out and, Recarved all the pumpkins Only to find them smashed again the next night.

[21:34] The the priest was now I'm going to attempt this and I'm going to fucking fail, father Jeremy R. O. Schmeichel Schmeichel Schmeichel, That's close. I'm gonna get but he calls Halloween a quote-unquote satanic feast though. He apologized on Facebook saying he wouldn't have destroyed them if he known they were carved by children.

[21:58] Yeah. Fuck you. Yeah. Fuck you. Fuck the horse you fucking rodent on. Fuck everything.
You wouldn't have smashed them if you had known they were done by children.
Well, even if they weren't carved by children, there were four children.
Yeah. I mean... These were... I mean, definitely take a moment and check out the link in the show notes.
All the links are in the show notes, by the way. Yeah. We do our best to attribute all of our sources. But...

[22:25] Yeah. we saw at first, but you can just Google, you know, pre-smashing pumpkins, and you'll not get Billy Corrigan. No, you won't. But no, it's like, these are the most cutesy-wootsy innocent jack-o'-lantern pumpkin carvings I can fathom. They are literally a zero on the scare scale. Yeah, they're not scary, they're just silly little jack-o'-lanterns.
They're more funny than anything. They don't have horns, they're not painted demonically or anything like that. This guy is just stupid. Yeah and and once again I would like to remind everyone that the version we linked to the most places where we saw it originally New York Post not reading the comments is self-care y'all. Yep. Do not read the comments. I made the mistake of scrolling a little bit too far as I was writing this up and I still regret that shit. I did that a couple days ago now. Yeah. So yeah just uh be careful with that but Jesus man fuck this guy.
I wouldn't have done it if I'd known they were by kids. You know there had to be at least a good chance they were.
Yeah.
Because that's who does it. It's like saying, Oh, I wouldn't have smashed those Easter eggs if I had known they'd been painted by kids.
Well, it looks like it was a whole village of kids that carved them together.

[23:39] You know, it wasn't... How are you in a small village and a part of it and not know that this happened, you know?
You know, maybe this village just doesn't have anything to do with this asshole because, Because maybe this is not his first act of pure assholery.

[23:56] Because in small villages that can happen when they go. Yeah, we don't we don't talk with him because he's a fucking asshole Maybe.
And they'll like gently exclu ostracize him from everything We're not so gently in some cases. Yeah, we don't know moving on, Right so shadows edge in Omaha, Nebraska, and this article is by, McKenzie Parsons at KETV was hit by a car in a shopping center that's the scene of burnouts and drag races. And they have video of the car losing control, smashing into the side of Shadow's Edge. The haunt closed for hours for the night.
It wasn't open. No, this was like super late at night. When I say late at night, I'm not talking like haunt hours late at night. I'm talking like 2 to 3 a.m. at night here. Yeah, I mean, Haunters are still like, Recovering from where we may be but we're not actively running the haunt at that right open, Yeah, so the haunt closed for a few extra hours because of the damage that was done to the facade and the front of the building This is also shadows edge It was last season.

[25:13] But they did do a quick rebuild and were able to open the next Friday Go ahead. Sorry Yeah, Is this one also frustrates me a lot? Yeah, because Apparently the the haunt is like in this like shopping center with a part big central parking lot, And like you said they do drag races and burnouts and I know you know what I'm not into that shit personally, But also as long as you're not interrupting like doing damage or interrupting people's sleep or harming others in some way, I don't really give a shit either, Um, but yeah, the guy lost control of his car while doing some kind of stunt and it looked like he fucking Accelerated into it. I maybe hit the brake and gas instead of the brake or something Yeah, and went right into the facade and then just drove off. Yeah.

Shadows Edge rebuilds after hit-and-run incident

[26:01] No hit totally hit and run to this place and They were able to rebuild it was a very nice facade. They had a nice like, it looked like a Cajun Codger swamp cottage facade with a little porch Yeah it looked like a dilapidated building that wasn't actually until the car hit it. Yeah that's the funny thing is because the car pierced the facade it looked more modern after the accident than before which you know that's how that's how you damage a haunt I guess. But yeah they were able to really bust ass and get open again and basically they didn't miss any open time because this happened after they closed for the weekend. Yeah. And they so they had basically the whole week to do the rebuild and there was some I know it was lot of fucking work. Yeah. But I'm glad they were able to pull it off and get out there and I really do hope they catch that driver because people who hit and run even on just property damage shit really pisses me off. We have a problem with that in New Orleans right now because we have so many uninsured drivers that if you get into a car accident there's zero guarantee the other person's actually sticking around for it. Yeah. If they can drive off it's a it's a real problem we have in It just angers me because that's a complete irresponsibility.
Anyways, good luck Shadow's Edge for the rest of your season.
Hope that is the absolute worst thing that happens. Yes, and that you get to go out with the bang that you want instead of the one you got.
Not the bang through the front door.

[27:28] All right. Okay, this asshole. And then there's this asshole. I'm pulling the full pendulet here.
All right. The article headline reads, West Bottom's Paranormal Attraction Shut Down by Kansas City Fire Department. This is an article by Jackson Kurtz at KMBC in Kansas City, Missouri, which I still find fucking confusing, um, Blossom Haunted House, um, Haunted Hotel, Blossom, no, Blossom House Haunted Hotel, mother fuck that rolls off the tongue like a bunch of sockets, has been ordered to close immediately due to the local fire marshal apparently having a coronary upon examining the building. Yeah, but wait a minute, it's named Haunted House, But you said it was a paranormal attraction I we read multiple articles trying to figure out what the fuck this wasn't, you know As well as I do we are no close to that answer because basically the dude said in one of the interviews We don't have actors here. Most people are like, what do you mean? And I'm like, well we have real ghosts.

[28:33] Yeah, and that's Paul who I not making this the fuck up his actual description of what he does in the article. Click It Yourself is who helps run the business. Yes. Theoretically that time I brought glasses back to the bar, at J&K last weekend, I think that means I help run J&K now by the same metric.
Yeah, well and you know they also don't give Paul's last name. No, they don't give any information about this guy, but basically they had what looked to be a five-story building that is in serious dilapidation.
Yeah.
And they apparently are actually working on it, trying to fix it up, but they were opening it as some kind of bizarre haunted attraction.
And when the fire inspector came out to check it out, just threw his toys all completely out of the pram, and basically wanted nothing to do with this, but basically issued a emergency order to vacate Yeah. And a stop work order at the same time. And Paul was very indignant about this.
Yeah. Saying this is a bunch of bullshit. And that we have, we put signs up to tell people where they can and cannot stand. Yeah, exactly. So you're in a dilapidated building in an active construction zone and you have customers going through.
Yeah. In a dark place. Yeah, that doesn't sound safe at all.

[30:01] Never rely on customers reading your signs for their safety. No.
No, you have to make stuff safe. You can't rely on customers.
Even if we know that in our little home haunt, then I think that should be something a, you know, supposedly five-story paranormal experience should have figured out.
Yeah, you would think so.
Yeah, this is just... I just... oh my god.
As such a huge advocate for haunt safety, this story just drives me right up the wall.

Area 13 haunted attraction forced to close down

[30:35] All right, but moving on. All right. Local Area 13 haunted attraction was shut down for its season. This is from.

[30:45] Miamistudent.net and Stella Powers. In Oxford, Ohio, the Haunt Area 13 has been forced to close down.
The head of the building and zoning department, David Frayer, said that the haunt was in an, agricultural district that didn't allow commercial businesses.
The hall opened anyway despite receiving warnings, not warning, warnings.
Yeah, multiple, plural. Yes, they had not had a fire inspection or a building inspection and were eventually hit with an injunction.
Guys, don't do this shit. That's just dumb. A, it is completely dumb.
Because while I understand the sadness of not being able to open, I do get that, A, doing this type of shit just means that city is never going to work with them.
Yeah, and it may not work with any future haunts.

[31:44] Yeah, yeah, and that's just it. And you're not just burning the bridge for yourself.
You may be burning the bridge for every other haunter ever who might want to open up legitimately in that area Yeah, and that's just that like said this this shit, Really pisses me off because it's you're burning a bridge for the entire and we're such a small industry Basically that you're burning a bridge for the entire industry Yeah, if Next person who comes along and wants to open up a haunted house in Oxford, Ohio Ohio is going to have to get rid of the stink of Area 13 before they can even begin to move forward with it. Right.
And that's just, that's damn near impossible to do in a lot of cases.
So yeah, I mean, if I were the owner of Area 13, I would just, I'd say, look, you know, you're never going to be able to reopen in Oxford.
They're going to do everything, because if they had to go all the way to getting an injunction shut you down. And it's worth noting that they did not have either a fire inspection nor a building inspection. Right. So you know all those inspections and certifications you need to open a professional home? Yeah they didn't. No. They just they just fucking didn't.

[32:58] They had no inspections done, no certifications, opened anyways, got shut down, and I'm pretty sure if the owners of that wanted to open up again and want to quote unquote do it right in in the future, they're gonna find pushback at every single level.
In a town like this, that is legitimately a death sentence.
Because like some bigger towns, you might be able to lobby or push your way through, or just be in the system that's big enough that you can get through.
But here, where every business gets the full attention of all members of the city council, the planning and zoning committee and all that, or they're small enough they can do that, yeah, you're gonna get told to fuck off at every interval because you need the good favor of the town you're in to open because no matter how legit you think you do things.

[33:52] There's always something.
If they don't want you there, they're gonna find a reason for you not to be there, basically is what I'm getting at. And a good example is Ellie.
They obviously want Ellie's yarn store there because she finally got her fire inspection.
It took forever, been trying to get it, But she was allowed to open without it, but...

[34:09] And even though there were a few minor issues that we are rectifying, nothing to worry about, it's like fire extinguishers out of date and stuff like that. Yeah, I think they had just expired. They had like literally just expired. They were not, they were still good when she had opened. It's been almost a year. Yeah. So minor stuff like that. We are rectifying them, but they gave her the certificate anyway and said, Godspeed, we'll just trust you to get it, because they want her there and they're willing to help her out. Yeah, well and I know one of the reasons. Which is? One of the fire chief's wives is a customer. I did not know that.
Yeah, and he doesn't want to go. I'm gonna have to explain why they shut down the yarn store.
Yeah. So yeah, that's the difference. When your neighbors and your city government want you there, they will do anything they can to make it happen. If they don't want you there, they will stop at nothing to prevent it from happening. Exactly.

[35:01] Moving on. I'm next, aren't I? Edge of Insanity in Kokomo, Indiana, which is really fucking with me right now. Yeah, I know. Because Kokomo doesn't exist, you assholes. It's just that's supposed to be the whole point of it.
Anyways, I don't think this is what the Beach Boys were singing about Indiana.
I'm just gonna take a guess. They're nowhere near Aruba or Jamaica. But But anyways, the long-standing haunt at House Edginton will close after its 16th season.
This is a haunt that, by the description of this article, this is an incredibly long article.
We cannot do this article justice.
So please definitely check out this article by James Bennett III at the Kokomo Tribune.

From Home Haunt to Charity Haunt

[35:44] But yeah, basically it's from the sound of it, they started out as a home haunt and then sort of expanded into being a charity haunt.
And over the past 16 years, they've raised more than $100,000 for various charities.
But they have announced they're closing after 16 seasons for a reason I'm pretty sure everyone listening to this podcast, relatively close to its release date, will understand.
And that is they're just tired. They're exhausted.
The Haunt tells the story of a mental hospital where patients rebelled against cruel doctors.
Then after the hospital closed it was a place for quote-unquote hillbilly squatters, Yeah, their terminology not mine for the record there, That said I did love the rules they had for the actors as we talked about how the actors can't say get out, Yeah See that and it's like man. I bet Jase is sitting there doing a little happy dance in his chair.

The decision to end the haunt after 16 seasons

[36:42] But yeah, they say that the years and years and years of work are catching up to them They do plan to continue the annual Christmas party and try to keep some connection with the haunt family going, But yeah, they are ending the haunt after 16 seasons, And I gotta tell you we're 18 seasons in 18 years.

[37:01] I understand. Yeah, it's a discussion every year. It's been a discussion this year.
We've all... It's been a discussion this year for next year. Yeah, it's rough and it does take its toll on you. I know I'm feeling worse for the wear than usual, but I'm just glad we're in a reasonably decent place. Yeah, me too. So, yeah. Now, can I take this one yeah because I know I was out of order but I'll let you have you took the odds and left me the I didn't mean I well I shuffled it around at the last second and forgot who was it but I want to take this one I'll give crystal the last one which is the happy one oh yeah so crystal will get the happy one everybody say yay but I wanted to take this one because I like to picture all of you our dear listeners out there maybe you're alone but maybe you're in a room with perhaps other horn maybe listen to it while you're working on or building or doing something with your Haunt. If so, and you have other Haunters running, gather them around. I want to play a game. We're gonna play a game. Because I'm gonna read you the headline to this article, and I'll go and tell you it's by Jamie Ostroff at WCMH, just to get that out of the way. I'm gonna read the headline, and I want you all in unison to, say the name of the company it's about. Because I'm gonna wager most of you can do it pretty easily. Are we ready, kids? All right. Pause if you need to. Here we go.

[38:28] Customers describe scary experiences ordering from this Columbus Haunt business.

[38:35] I'll give you a second to answer. Oh, what, you already did?
Yes, they're talking about Scare Factory. Oh, man, this is wild to see this story get local media coverage, fairly significant local media coverage.
Yeah, because the haunt industry's been talking about them for a while.
You know, I remember True story when we were at trans world and I wouldn't explore the floor by myself and in there.

Customer Complaints and Late Deliveries at Scare Factory Booth

[39:03] Once on my own I was actually at the scare factory booth And I was looking up and I was generally admiring one of the props when the flying props they had had some huge shit there.

[39:13] And I remember someone came up beside me and said man that looks good, but I'm never ordering anything these fuckers They didn't say it like to me, but he said it loud enough that I'm pretty sure everyone around them heard it.
I don't know. Yeah. You know, basically.
So, yeah. But they're reporting that multiple customers have had complaints about how they did not receive props they ordered or they received them significantly late.
It's just story after story in this article about the...
Yeah. And they went to the attorney, local attorney general to complain.
Yeah. And there's... And they said there's been five separate complaints with the attorney general.
Just the ones that got escalated that far. But yeah, there's plenty of stories of missed deadlines and undelivered goods and low quality deliveries and everything else you can think of. But then came the part I didn't know. This is the tea part. And I can't spill the tea because it's already on a public website. So we're not spilling tea here, but redistributing the tea. Because basically, it's owned by David Falkman. In 2022, he was delinquent of more than $65,000 in local taxes and $13,000 in state taxes. And then in 2021, he pleaded guilty for failing to pay $540,000 in federal taxes.

[40:35] Jumping Jesus!

Special Permission for Trans World Conference

[40:40] I don't have anything to follow that. Well, I mean, he was sentenced to 16 months of home confinement.
But here comes the real kicker.
He received special permission to go to Trans World in 2022. Yeah.
So not last year, not the previous Trans World, the one before.
He was only there on special permission from the court to go to the conference.
And this further proves what I've been saying all along. goes to jail for tax evasion because the IRS wants your fucking money, not your ass in prison.

[41:13] They have priorities. And so yeah, of course they let him go to Transworld because that's where he makes most of his sales and may be able to pay some of those taxes he owes.
Yeah, but I don't I don't get it. No, I I don't understand because this is such an egregious thing And there are so many complaints before they allowed him to go Yeah, like it doesn't make sense for anybody for that to be the way that played out it was worth noting that the, The publish the publication here did reach out to scare factory for comment. They did not hear back from them So that much is predictable. I'm afraid but yeah I mean, I'm like you the reputate like I was I was still blown away by the props, I'm not gonna pretend like I wasn't impressed by the setup. They had a transfer. Well, you saw it, too Yeah, it was a really good set those props look really good. But everybody who knows anything, about buying haunt props knows the problems with.

[42:14] Scare factory scare factory. Yeah, and yeah, and in fact there was one of the stories they told was of someone who went to trans world saw a prop they like spent literally their entire savings on it yeah and then didn't get the fucker, yeah until after they went and visited scare factory physically yeah which I don't think me paying if I pay $6,000 or $10,000 away for a prop I'm not budgeting a trip to Canoe, Ohio to threaten these guys in person um you You know, we don't know if the person was local though.
That's true.
But still, I'm not doing that. No.

Scare Factory: From Haunt Community to Mainstream Media

[42:55] But still, it's just a crazy story. I never thought Scare Factory...
I would see Scare Factory mentioned in a main... It's been known in the haunt community for years.
I never thought I'd see them in a mainstream media site. No, I didn't think we'd get a chance to report on it.
Not on a news episode. No, because one of the whole points of this is mainstream news. Yeah.
If you can't find it with a quick Google... Yeah. You're probably not getting on.
Yeah. All right, and finally. All right, this is a double hitter, because I found these stories back to back.
They were published the same day.
Yeah, we're linking to just one. Yeah, so the one that we're linking to is the KSTU kptv.com article.
Yeah, I don't know how that works either, but it is what it is.
It's like the last one.

[43:46] The city has ordered, and this is Grantsville, Utah. The city ordered a Halloween display to be taken down because it was too risque for the neighborhood.
Which was at least what the headline and people behind the display claimed.
Right, and Christopher Fugitian, I'm hoping that's close. Fugitian, I guess, a Fugitian, I don't know.
Anyways, moving on, Christopher Rosari.
Yes, he put up a pole dancing skeleton on a city street sign, but was ordered to take it down.
City says it didn't care about the content, but it was about the use of the city property, and they had been getting, you know, some complaints about it from the neighbors.
But, and so he moved them off of the city property and into his front yard.
He's made the display bigger and added more lights and more skeletons, and the neighbors have rallied around him and dropped off their decorations because they wanted him to continue making it more alive.
And the quickest description is that it's a pole dancing skeleton with a bunch of skeletons sitting around with dollar bills. Yep.

[45:02] That's really about all it is. And the thing about it is they said, oh, it had nothing to do with the fact that it was quote unquote risque.
It was the fact it was attached to city property. That may have been the law.
Yeah. But laws like that get enforced very selectively. Mm-hmm.
And I I suspect the reason it got enforced here was because of the complaints because of the riskiness um, I'm, pretty sure of that. So anyways, uh, yeah, it ended up being quite a happy story, Moved it made it bigger and i've got to say looking at the video looking at the photos Yeah, i'm impressed with the skeleton work in this, I want to know how the fuck they got the skeleton on the pole in that position, And with that wig staying on. Yeah, the wig staying on is... The skeleton's basically upside down. Yeah.

[45:49] I don't know how they did that they must have used a lot of glue. I am fucking impressed with it. I genuinely admire the, The craftsmanship of this display, you know, you can argue whether it's in good taste or bad taste I mean the whole thing in the hunters hangout right now about that then we'll probably jump in on a later week, But yeah Basically got kicked off the city property put in his front yard made it bigger made it better and all the neighbors started contributing new New decorations. I love it. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I just love it. It's a great story. It's a happy ending, Something for us to celebrate, Look, I just say that.

Wrapping up the news and looking at charity events

[46:36] Jesus fucking Christ, it's been a long season. Yes Anyway, That's all the news we had we have a couple of minutes, but I don't think we have enough to go through any other, No, there's a lot of haunts doing things for charities that are really good.
There's a couple of mentions of some of our friends that were in articles and things.
There was a really great Good Morning America bit about haunted house actors explaining how they scare you. Look that up. Check it out. I don't have much to add to it.
Yeah. There was also a Dallas Observer article interviewing Alan Hopps.

[47:12] So that one definitely worth checking out. In fact, that's all I've got to add to it. Hi Alan. There's your interview. That's more. That's wonderful Yeah, so yeah, definitely a lot of there's been a lot of great articles about it. But the problem is like, We kind of have to skip those because this haunts turning 20 this haunts raising money for such-and-such charity. Yes, I'm still in it and That's just it we do so much and I know these news episodes especially in season can feel so negative because the news that stands out from that background noise of haunts doing awesome shit Is all the negative stuff. Yeah But yeah, which we do have to cover. Yeah, Um, but that means that some of this wonderful happy stuff has to take back seat. Yeah, and you know what? Um, If it's slow next week, maybe we'll come back and pick a few of these up and because oftentimes november is a slow time for hot News, yeah, so if it is we'll come back and pick some of these up We got them in our show notes. So we know where they are and what's up, But yeah, there there is a lot of good news. I swear. Yeah on it. It's just that.

[48:20] What stands out Mike frankly gets the most attention when you search for haunted attraction news and haunted house news Yeah, it's gonna be the bad stuff. That's just unfortunate. That's the nature of news in general. There's nothing to do with us. No, So just keep that in mind haunts are still doing great things. Y'all are still doing amazing stuff stuff. The shitheads are what make, you know, the old adage, if it bleeds, it leads. It's still true, unfortunately. Well, on that note, everyone, thank you very much for joining us for the past hour. I have no idea what our next episode is going to be. What's up?

Closing thoughts and a preview of the next episode

[48:52] I forgot about that story. What? The New York house that had the amazingly realistic fire that got the fire department called. Yeah. But anyway... There's actually two stories about that. One involving an apartment that had like a yule log thing in it, and another which was the actual Halloween decoration. So there's two kind of adjacent stories there about that.
So yeah, maybe be mindful of using fire as a decorative element. Just saying. You might want to be careful about that one. Your neighbors might think it's real.

[49:23] So yeah, be careful with that one. Okay, but on that note, everyone, thank you very much for joining us the past hour and slogging through a rough week, a rough month of Haunted Attraction News. Y'all are doing great stuff. Trust me, most of the news is good. It's just what peaks, above the background noise, unfortunately, is the negative stuff, typically. But if you want, to check out more positive stuff, go on the places we are. HauntedWiki.com, Haunted Week on Twitter, Haunted Week on Facebook, YouTube.com slash Haunted Weekly. We're on all the major podcasts, distribution platforms, feel free to check us out. But until next time, I'm Jonathan, I'm Crystal, and we'll see you all next week with a god knows what. It's gonna be the fucking Monday before Halloween. I have no idea what we're gonna talk about or do with it. We have made zero plans. Just expect a train wreck. Set your expectations at train wreck height now, and we'll see you then.