[0:22] Hello everyone, I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And this is Haunt Weekly, a weekly podcast for the under-attraction entertainment community. Whether you're an actor, owner, or just plain efficient, or we aim to be a podcast for you. And we return to you this week with an episode divisible by four. Therefore, ipso facto, it is time to do the news. And yes, indeed, we actually have a fair amount of news coming your way. It's been surprisingly active this go around this past month has seen a lot of different things happening but if you're not interested in a news episode i understand check out all the places we exist we're at hauntweekly.com haunt weekly on facebook youtube.com slash haunt weekly is the youtube channel plus wherever you get your podcasts from you will find us there um let's see we're doing our top of the episode stuff yeah uh work we did for the haunt we actually didn't do any work for the haunt because technically I'm still taking some recovery time from an injury, but we did build a goddamn hutch, which ended up, for reasons unclear, being far more physically demanding than it had any need to be. Yeah, basically, they put the directions together backwards.

[1:37] Okay, because, look, this needs a minute, because the hutch is two parts. You have the base of it, which has got the underneath counters, and you've got the part that goes onto the counter, right? Right. And what they had us do was they had us build the entirety of the top, including attach the heavy-ass countertop to it, and then build the bottom separately, and then pick up and turn the top upside down and slot it onto the top. I mean, the bottom, right? Onto the bottom. Yeah, it was a clusterfuck. It was not pretty. You know i am doing much better the bruising on my arm is gone uh my shoulder seems to be doing somewhat better still some aches in it but that was just stupid it was i i can't even fathom the reason i know they're gonna say something like oh it would have made sure all of the screws were hidden but they still gave us a bunch of stickers to cover the screws they didn't hide right what would have been like five more stickers.

[2:47] Well, so my problem is, is that it would have been easier to build it from the bottom up, getting the counter top onto the bottom. You could have used gravity. Because that was the heaviest piece. Yeah. And then just do the top little sections. Yeah. That would have worked. And in the entire way, gravity could have been working with you. Yeah. Because, like, when we were doing the bottom half, gravity was great. We didn't have much issue getting things to fit together on the bottom half. No. A, by this point, we were a little familiar with the instructions. But most importantly, everything was going in with gravity. Everything was being held by gravity. We didn't have to have someone holding it like an idiot while the person tried to turn the screws or whatever. Yeah. It was... I don't know, man. I mean, it's a good hutch. It is. It's fulfilling the purpose we wanted it to. It's opened up our kitchen a lot. It's made life a lot easier. It looks so much better. It does look so much better. It looks like... It looks planned. It looks like, yeah, we planned it rather than just cobbling together a bunch of random bullshit we found lying around. Yeah.

[3:49] Because it is planned, and it's not random bullshit we found lying around. Yes, and when we say it's planned, it took me over a month to finally decide which one that I was getting. Yeah. I get hung up on shit like that. Yeah, I've learned over the years that there is like a price range where you really obsess over every detail. Yeah. Like anything under $50, usually just whatever. Yeah. Just get it. Don't care. Don't care. Whatever. No big deal. Just do it. But this is like the $100 to $500 range for some reason we obsess over. And I do it too, to be honest with you. Well, and... The other thing is, is that I'm hoping that this lasts a long time and we're not going to have to do this again anytime soon. Yeah. And, you know, this is something we're going to have to look at every day of our lives until we get rid of it. Yeah.

[4:48] So I get those things. But it's always interesting how, like, those purchases we really, really try to hone in on for some reason. And I can't pinpoint exactly why, but yeah. But yeah, I would cut that down to the one to the 300. Because if it's over $300, then it's probably a big major purchase that we're going to have multiple discussions, and I'm not the only one getting hung up on it. Yeah, that's true, too. And actually, I think the other thing with over $300 is it's easier to do research on those things. There are fewer options, usually. Fewer options and better information. Yeah. Here, you were swamped with options. and i mean like you look at the hutch we got you can literally go on to um like amazon or any other site and find a thousand hutches that look almost exactly the same but with varying dimensions that are very subtly different in ways that could have serious impacts yes and some of them do you know their measurements better than others so there was a spreadsheet there was a spreadsheet of options, and the one that I finally wound up on was not on that spreadsheet. Well, one of the issues that we had was we needed to hold sodas. Yeah. And so we knew we needed the inside compartments to be a certain size. Now, a lot of these hutches would provide you the external dimensions, but not the internal ones. Right.

[6:18] Which was really frustrating because you're like, okay, do we subtract an inch, half an inch, two inches? What do we subtract? Yeah. Well, and we also had two separate things that we were trying to combine into one, which added another dimension of complexity. But this is not Hutch Weekly. Oh, it should be. This is Haunt Weekly. It should be. We can do this. Hutch Weekly this week on Hutch Weekly. No. We're just going to have a house full of Hutch's that we assemble and then rate. Jesus Christ, if we had to do this every fucking week. I i don't know how long i know i wouldn't make it through the month.

[6:53] Anyways on that note we'll move forward um every week we ask a question a week last week's question a week was is there a big event in your town that disrupts things y'all had some thoughts yeah cole auger said we had something last summer called camporee uh less that brought a huge, influx of Jehovah's Witnesses to the Gillette, Wyoming. Everyone was worried about the flood of people into such small town, but it was good for small businesses and they were super respectful visitors. You know, and I think that's kind of in some ways the best type of event to disrupt your town. Because by the mere nature of it being called Campery, which is, hey, come on, campery anyways by the fact that is that um you know they're camping so most of the time they will be away they will be in town to buy snacks and do things you know that they have to to go away again so that's kind of the best way to get something to disrupt your town uh jason rosso said we have a dairy day parade and festival in june that's about it you know i'm from the home of the okra strut so i can't say shit yeah literally the big parade was called the okra strut moving on that was in south carolina that's not here and tiny town in louisiana that i was near had the pecan festival yeah that was uh calfax for calfax louisiana urmo south carolina.

[8:21] So yeah we understand this we understand those types of all right things uh chris gaze just said It's summer. Shore Resort area life is very different from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Most island traffic lights are yellow flashing this time of year because the population drops about 90% in the winter. You know, it's absolutely hilarious. My parents retired not that long ago. And my entire fucking life, I've heard over and over and over again, they want to retire to the beach. They want to live somewhere where they can be on the beach in 20 minutes they love Myrtle Beach, South Carolina just so very much and then all they do is bitch about it during the summer I'm not even kidding, so feel ya but I have sympathy for you, not for my parents yeah, they got what they wanted they knew exactly what the fuck they were doing and they did it anyway.

[9:24] Moving on um kevin hopkins says our country fair draws over 250 000 people and it's 11 day run jesus the downtown area around it gets pretty congested and local businesses take a slump and that's the interesting thing there is that yeah hurts local business right that's what we saw with the superdome super bowl yeah yeah a lot of local business if you were not on bourbon street or specifically targeted by the NFL, which NFL and targeting right now is probably not a combination of words I'd be bringing together. Probably not. But... Regardless, yeah, you were screwed, basically. Yeah. And finally, for this week, Sam Farrell said, living in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, pretty much all of fall is disruptive to locals due to the leaflookers. And as one of those former leaflookers, many, many autumns, autumn weekends spent in Chimney Rock, North Carolina, with my family. Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, I went with you once or twice. I think you went just once, but... Yeah. Yeah. The leaves had started to change colors. We went early, though. We actually did not go peak leaf season, kind of deliberately.

[10:45] Well, I didn't know because I've never lived someplace with seasons. Well, okay, specifically relief-changing season. Yeah.

[10:55] You're right. I didn't think of that, but I knew it wasn't quite peak season yet, and then I didn't care because that's not why I wanted to go. No, they had pictures of, you know, the different seasons. That was fine. Yeah, it's very pretty. You can look it up on the Internet. It's great. I just wanted to see the view from Chimney Rock one more time before we moved out of the area. Yeah, and then we were going to try to see the waterfall, but I did not get to do that. No. um yeah that if you've never been around chimney rock park which by the way uh we don't know what shape it's in right now i don't know and that's where i was going to go and then by the by uh of course heartfelt sympathies go to those who live in and around chimney rock and the impacts they had in the flooding hurricane helene um i know chimney rock did the town did not make it out well yeah and in fact my parents informed me that a lot of the places I knew and grew up spending a lot of time and aren't there no more.

[11:57] So, but yeah, it's, so I don't know what condition the park is in, but yeah, it was a treacherous-er trek to the waterfall than you were willing to take, we'll say. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah, the steps to it basically triggered my height issues. Well, you don't have, like, direct height fear of heights. It's weird. It's just certain types of steps freak me out. Yeah. Namely ones you can see through. Yeah, and we're also thinking about, you know, all of our friends, we're still thinking about all of our friends in California and looking for any kind of relief that haunts are doing, either providing for the people affected by the fires out there or who are, you know, were affected themselves. Yeah, and then you've got the flooding in Georgia that also happened recently. And the fires in the Carolinas going on right now. So it's hard to keep track of the natural disasters right now, unfortunately. Yeah. But thoughts out to everyone. And it does lean into our question of the week for this week in a odd way, which is, does your haunt donate or participate in a charity? Which ones? Let us know. Hauntweekly.com, Hauntweekly on Facebook, and YouTube.com slash Hauntweekly. Leave a comment. Send an email. Let us know.

[13:18] All right. Well, since it is a news week, that means it's also time to do conference reminders. And luckily, it's a pretty easy one to do. Yeah. So starting off this week, February 27th through March 2nd in St. Louis, Missouri, at the America Center's Transworld Halloween and Attractions show. It's the big dance, folks. As we like to say, it is co-hosted with a Christmas show. Includes a party at City Museum. Ha show. H-A-A-S-H-O-W dot com. For more info now, I know I don't have to tell everyone else, but yeah, you probably, if you're going, you're probably already very excited. Yes. The other breaking news there is that we are not going to Transworld, but we will be in the area during the time that it's there. We will be in St. Louis. So if you want to grab a drink or something, we'll be visiting family. So our time will be limited, but we may be able to get together to have a drink or a dinner with somebody. The intent of this trip to be 100% clear and transparent is we are trying to see our grandkitty for the second time. Yeah. And spend time with, you know, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, and all them peoples. Yeah. So that is our focus. That is what we will be doing with the lion's share of our time. Please understand that.

[14:42] And the reason it timed out is this is Mardi Gras weekend. Yeah. Yeah, it's going to be Mardi Gras weekend. I always take that off from work. Just as tradition, because you can't get around the city anyway. Yeah. So we haven't, like, locked in the exact timetable yet. Yeah. But we will be up that weekend and probably that Monday and Tuesday afterward. Yeah, and it may actually be better to suggest, like, coffee before you head over to the show. Yeah.

[15:16] Well, we've got options, and we will figure out something, I'm sure. But, yes, we will actually be in the area. Let us know, HauntWeekle.com, HauntWeekle on Facebook, et cetera, if you want to meet up and if there's something we can work out. This literally just all came together in the past week or so. Yeah. And so, yeah, but we will not, like I said, the goal is family, grandbaby, and that stuff. It just happens to be the same city at the same time. Right. And we have a lot of friends that go to it. So, anyway, on to the next conference reminder. Yes. April 4th through the 6th, it is April Ghouls, and it is in Athens, Georgia at Southern Brewing. They will be touring the Haunted Trail. There will be vans, vendors, and more, and HauntFest.net for more info. All right, and it's the East Coast Haunters Convention, April 24th through the 27th, in Oaks, Pennsylvania, at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center. Info's still pending, but it's paired with the East Coast Christmas Show. Learn the details at EastCoastHauntersConvention.com And finally for this week, April 25th through the 27th, it's the Spooky Swap Meet in Los Angeles, California at the Heritage Square Museum. It's a great place to purchase gently loved items, including costumes and decor. Created by the co-founders of Midsummer Scream.

[16:41] SpookySwapMeet.com for more info. Sounds like a good time to me.

[16:47] Well, so, yes, to repeat, we will be in St. Louis doing family stuff during Halloween. I mean, during Haunt... Oh!

[16:57] Wow! Two car crashes. Nice! Yes. During Trans World Weekend. So, yeah, definitely, there's something interesting. We are not going to be attending, like, the after parties or anything so wild. Yeah, because we basically have to be presentable to hang out with the kids. And to deal with extended family and other things, too. It was a lot of fun the year we were able to go. Yeah. But like I said, this one came together super last minute, and it's owed to the fact that Transworld and Mardi Gras are overlapping perfectly, which they don't usually do. No. The year we went, it was in January, which was an outlier year. I thought it was early February, but it was way early. Yeah. It was an outlier year. Yeah, it was an outlier. Because they were getting ready to do some kind of construction. A renovation, and they moved Transworld up. Anyway. All right, on that note, though, it is an episode of Visible by 4. That means it is time to do the news. And we're opening things off with a not-so-fun one. State Attorney General has opened an investigation into Fearfest haunted house. Now, to be 100% clear so Brett Hayes doesn't sue me, it's not Fearfair. It's Fearfest. Yes. I know we've talked about Fear Fair a lot on this podcast, but no, different haunt entirely. Yes, this one is in Missouri. Yes, and this article is by KOMU8.

[18:22] Jocelyn Pisha is the reporter on this one.

[18:28] Basically, the Missouri Attorney General is investigating Fear Fair because refunds have not been issued after the haunt failed to open last year. Yeah, now we had covered that in... Mid-October, maybe? Yeah. Late September, mid-October. It was somewhere into season, though. Yeah. People had started talking about online how they had bought tickets, but the Haunt wasn't open yet. And they were wondering if the Haunt would open at all. Well, they didn't. Well, Chris and Audrey Peterson spent $250 for five tickets, Jesus Christ, and have not been reimbursed after 100 plus days. The Haunt kept pushing back its opening date in September made an official announcement on October 31st that it wasn't going to be able to open in 2024. No shit! Yeah, no kidding. Now, we do have some more information about why they weren't able to open, which we didn't have previously. Basically, they waited until September to request their inspection from the fire department. They normally would request this in July so that they could address issues. Well, the inspection found multiple violations, including dangerous freight extension cords, exit sign issues, trip hazards.

[19:53] Metal paneling that had cords attached to it to provide you with a nice buzz. Well, and you know, none of this is good, obviously, but none of it also is, like, unrecoverable from, theoretically, right? Like, if you had found about it, I don't know, in july yeah there's plenty of time there to rectify these issues like extension cords can be replaced these are all things that yeah they're not good you definitely should be dinged for them on a fire and safety inspection but not it's not none of this is the end of the world right, at least it shouldn't have been right and so yeah basically the website put out a statement that refunds would take four days that turned out not to be true either and it hasn't happened for everyone. The closure notice wasn't emailed to ticket buyers either. No. So they found out from the news, I'm guessing. Yeah. If they found out at all.

[20:49] Uh basically you know so it it was just crazy and you know the assistant fire chief basically, pulled the plug on it um that was gail blumenkamp sorry if i am butchering that name, said nobody wanted to be involved nobody involved including the owner the property owner the fire district wanted to be the one standing here on a saturday morning going why did you let this happen and why did these kids die in a haunted house that's why they closed it because they didn't want to have to put out that messaging if something went wrong well and we talked about with the six flags fire why that's a thought that um right that uh fire marshals and fire departments are going to have exactly and you know the other thing about this is that the owner in the article talked about how they hadn't changed anything from last year and the fire department's like yeah you haven't changed anything in a long time and that's the problem so it really speaks to the issue of maintaining your upkeep of your haunted house if you're working with the fire department to make sure you can open and yeah they haven't changed anything like a layout perspective i'm assuming and that's not a positive sign either no that's worth saying But, yeah, you have to still maintain.

[22:15] I mean, extension cords where? Things, you know, happen. And God knows actors damage things. Yeah, and why there would be trip hazards is, like, that seems like you would have fixed that, you know? The bottom line to me is, for most of this, is that they have requested the inspection too late. Yeah.

[22:42] Yeah, because they were supposed to open in September. They didn't even ask until September. And that's just it. If you hadn't changed anything, you hadn't done any major new construction. Like, I can understand, oh, construction overran. We went too long on that side. Okay, that's unfortunate, but that's not necessarily a head scratcher. What's a head scratcher is they said they didn't change anything, and they didn't ask until September.

[23:07] Why would you wait and just assume it's going to be great? Go ahead and get it done in July if you're not actually working on anything, because that's just it. You should be asking for those inspections the minute you're done with the major construction, the minute it's ready for that walkthrough. Well, and everyone that I've talked to, you have to go through a process. And there are multiple inspections along the way, especially if you're doing a new rebuild. Anything new. Yeah, that's true. I mean, but, yeah, why not get it done early? Why not get it out of the way? And off of your plate. Yeah, it just, I do not understand because September and October is busy the fuck enough for us without throwing this onto the fire. Exactly. So I don't understand that. No. But here's the other angle of this I wanted to talk about because we've, on this show, have talked a lot about how the current way Haunts handle online ticketing is very anti-consumer. Yeah. And it is.

[24:05] Because right now at many haunts online tickets are either the same price or more expensive than at the door now the problem is when i buy an online ticket i'm taking a gamble and a lot of that gambles on me all right i could blow a tire i could get sick i could have car issues i could have a car accident i could just not feel like going yeah things can happen things can change and there's a myriad of reasons that are no fault of the haunt that I, as the customer, might not go to the haunt for the ticket that I purchased. There's a myriad of reasons. Add to the risk now that the haunt may just take your money and naff off. Yeah. Which appears to be what happened here, at least for some of the people. That is incredibly frustrating.

[24:56] But yeah this is why those online tickets if i get to the haunt and find that the tickets in person are cheaper i'm gonna feel like a sucker because i took a risk on myself and on the haunt and received nothing in return if anything was penalized for it and i get it online transactions come with higher fees and all the times they're card not present transactions i get this i know how this works. My business solely works on those types of transactions. Believe me, I am acutely aware of how much comes out in credit card fees. Very much acutely aware of this. But from the consumer standpoint, this is bullshit. Yeah. So, yeah, just something to think about when setting up your online ticketing prices. And remember that by buying online, they're also saving you money by not having you have a human being take the ticket you need fewer people at your ticket window so be thinking about these things and be thinking about stories like this one because i guarantee you your customers will be.

[26:07] All right. Moving on. Hudson Haunted House of Hudson, Ohio, released on their Facebook page that they will not be hosting their St. Patrick's Revenge this year. They took damage in January due to a deep freeze and are working to repair it, but not able to make it for this one. But they're hoping to be back for halfway to Halloween. They are asking for donations if anyone would like to help at HudsonHauntedHouse.org. They are a J.C.'s haunt that started in 1970. Yeah, so they're entering 55 years, by what that means. Oh, wow, that's wild. Yeah. Hoping for the best of them. I've always been a little dicey about St. Patrick's Day haunts. Yeah, well, yeah. Just yeah. Well, St. Patrick's Day is very complicated in the way that it's celebrated in the U.S. Yeah. In particular, yes. And then tying it to a haunt raises another layer of complexity.

[27:05] And one thing we did not talk about or put into the news at all was the eight bajillion news stories of haunts opening for Valentine's Day. Yeah, now there are a few that we are going to talk about, but that's because they had something else that was newsworthy, not just, hey, we're open for it. Yeah, there are a couple we have on this list that did open for Valentine's Day, but it wasn't the reason the news was published about them. But, yeah, hoping that they're able to get it fixed. I just figured everything in Ohio was, like, super hard and against a deep freeze. I figured we were the ones down here that were fucked, right? Yeah, I was surprised, too, because I'm like, oh, they must have gotten hit by that freeze that came through here. And looked at where they were, and I'm like, oh, you're up there. Yeah, I mean, we got nine inches of snow this year. Yeah. New Orleans was not ready for that. I was not ready for that. I was. Oh, Jesus Christ. Anyway, moving on. Good luck to you guys. Hoping you're able to get it back up in time for halfway to Halloween. That does sound like a lot of fun. Yes. Booze and Bites. Haunted House helps fill food bank. This is one of the reasons why we threw out the question of the week this week. This is an article on MSN.com by Zariah Cole from Henderson, Kentucky.

[28:24] Valentine's Day Haunt. A Twisted Love Story. Less hearts and flowers. More broken bowels, and vengeful spirits. Basically, they will be collecting non-perishable items and donating their proceeds to the Tri-State area.

[28:39] Well, the Tri-State food bank, but yes, I couldn't... That's way less evil! I know. No, I couldn't read it without doing that either in my head. A platypus? Perry the platypus, no, I'm... But, yes, and I honestly, this is a great story. Basically, they are working with the local food bank. And I'm sure that we will be, you know, reporting on how much they raised once those numbers are out there. There is a video on this one, so if you want to see what the honk looks like, they did a walkthrough with the news crew.

[29:19] And they used actually little light-up roses for their little flashlight night, which I thought was pretty cool. That was on theme, on, you know, made sense. Yeah, I guess that's one of the things, is if you're going to do one of these theme nights, you've got to lean way in on it. You've got to go all the way, and they definitely seem to. Yeah.

[29:40] All right, moving on up. So Hidden Screams Haunted Attraction in Lewiston, Pennsylvania also had a Facebook post about how they held a unique Valentine's experience. They did a murder mystery haunted house with a raffle to win baskets of goodies from local businesses, and they partnered also with a food drive. If you brought a can good, your admission was $8 instead of the regular ticket price. So that was pretty cool of them to do. And it sounds like an interesting event overall. Like, I'm really curious about the murder mystery type things. Yeah, we've never actually been to one. We have friends who have acted or still do act, I'm not sure which, in one of the groups that do these. So, yeah, I don't know much about it. I've been wanting to do one. And maybe that's one thing we should value, put some effort into over the next few months, is finding a New Orleans murder mystery event that we can go to one Saturday. Oh, I was thinking maybe we could go to one with the kids. Oh, that'd be fun, too. While we're up there.

[30:52] But anyway, the point being, this is a neat idea. We talked previously about how I expect to see haunts doing more niche experiences other than just come go through the haunted house type things. This is a good example of a way to expand that, I think. This is an interesting idea that really kind of fits that, hey, we're more than just a walk-through haunted house vibe. Exactly. And they have a lot of off-season events coming up. So there will be more chances to participate in the food drive and other things, probably. You know, just check out their Facebook page for that. Yep. All right. Well, this one is an interesting one. This is an article from News Channel 5 in Nashville by Forrest Sanders. The headline simply reads, Meet the couple behind a haunted house tattoo studio retro movie theater. Yes. So while we're playing magnet poetry here, no, but basically this is about the Slaughterhouse, which is located in Nashville, Tennessee, and involves Ben, who is a horror movie director, and Stacy, a special effects makeup artist, both of whom who love scary movies and have been together 20 years. They purchased the Slaughterhouse in 2014, and they converted it to an eight-screen movie theater. So this makes me think immediately of the broad, not the broad, what's the theater we went to? at one time the new repo.

[32:21] I don't know, and you've put me on the spot, so that... I'm sorry. I'm sorry for actually trying to talk to my colleague on a podcast. No, you asked me to recall information on a podcast. Oh, okay. Talking's easy. But they've added a haunted house tattoo studio where you can see the attraction and escape their worries, as they say. Ben was diagnosed with ocular melanoma and has received treatment. But basically, you know, they had some sweet Valentine's sentiments to one another. This was just a neat little feature piece about a very unusual business, we'll say. Because I do think the idea of pairing a haunted house with things is a good idea. Yeah, long line, get a tattoo.

[33:08] I didn't think those things went together, but why not? But, like, if I were going to get a tattoo, I would go to the one in the French Quarter near a Frenchman that's, you know, spookily decorated. And, like, the shop looks really nice. Yeah, I mean, I found it interesting. Like, I'm curious because I didn't get, like, a sense of scale from this. No. But to be an eight-screen theater and. Yeah, well, and it was also written very oddly. Yeah. So I'm not sure if it was originally eight screens and they took it down or what the issue is there. Yeah, I don't understand, but I do love combining haunted attractions with other types of attractions. Yeah. And this is kind of the, in many ways, this has been the white whale of the haunted attraction industry, which has always been to try to find ways to get year-round income. Well, this could be one of the solutions. Don't start with a haunted house. Start with something that does year-round income and then bolt the haunted house onto that. Yeah. Just a thought. Yeah.

[34:22] Okay. Next up from 14 News in Evansville, Indiana. This article is by Jordan Yanni. And we had reported originally on radon being found in the old courthouse.

[34:39] And this was the haunted house, the old courthouse catacombs, which was in the basement of the old courthouse. Of Vandiver County. Yes, exactly. We got you on that. They had to move their event out of the basement because they found high levels of radon, which are, you know, dangerous to people's health. Over time. So they.

[35:05] Have released a statement that their efforts to mitigate the situation are working. They reduced it significantly. They hired Ryan Goldshauer of Popham Construction to fix it, and he explained how putting a vapor barrier in and putting in an extra exhaust that feeds the radon up the side of the building has really helped. But this does not help the haunted house get back into the basement because they have decided the county commissioners.

[35:46] Are not looking at holding future events down there and basically just looking at it for maintenance and renovation type. Yeah. Unfortunately, that may be best. Yeah. Because radon is not particularly dangerous if you have like a passing exposure to it, so if you just go through the haunt you're fine the danger is more to the people who work and spend hours and days there yeah it's something that accumulates over time at least that's my understanding i'm not an expert on it but that's what we found out when the story first came up right especially year after year the same yeah exactly so it's a definite threat to the people who are building acting spending lots of time in that space regularly um and we want haunting to be safe and it sucks but i also think it's best that everyone be happy and healthy and i am completely sure that they can find another spooky place in vandenberg county to haud i i somehow have no doubt if you have your if your town has a spooky basement in a courthouse I guarantee you there's other spooky shit floating around. I can almost guarantee that.

[37:04] All right, shifting gears a little bit to apparently new ghost-faced masks are coming out. Yeah. Now, this one was a weird one. Now, we know a lot of haunts like to use ghost-faced and similar masks in there. And we've obviously complained about the use of copyrighted and trademark characters and haunts for a myriad of valid reasons. But we also know that it hasn't stopped anyone from doing it. Well, not only that, but this also means that you might see these in your trick-or-treat line if you do trick-or-treating. Yeah, but there will be new masks this year, including an Easter Bunny one and a Jason Voorhees-style hockey mask one. This is an article by John Squires at Bloody Disgusting. Fun World, the makers of the original mask, are making new versions that are not featured in any of the Scream movies, which is the other interesting thing usually the masks have appeared in the movies in some capacity yeah um that is not happening in recent years they've done a santa ghost face they're now adding easter bunnies saint patrick's day leprechaun the jason mashup we mentioned and apparently the others coming for the 2025 season um see all the masks on the mad about horror youtube channel or just wait until your local spirit opens up you can probably see them all there in person. Yeah. Yeah, the disco ball one is a thing.

[38:32] They called it shiny in the article, but yeah, it looks like a disco ball.

[38:41] I hope you can hear my face on this podcast. I just hope that even though this is not a video podcast, my face is projecting loudly enough to be heard in a microphone. Like a ghost face?

[39:00] You did it! You set that up. Anyway, on to our last story for this week. So we are probably going to be a little bit short. So you found this article and found it fascinating. And it was on familyhandyman.com. The women don't find you handy. Exactly. How much weight can a garage truss hold? Yeah, this was interesting. This was actually, I can't remember who recommended this at me. But, yeah, Article 1 Family Handman looks at how much a garage truss holds. Now, as haunters, especially home haunters here, you're probably doing some, we'll say, out-of-spec shit with your garage truss. So I completely get why people sent me, someone sent me this, because they're absolutely right. But it's an old article, new to us. But it said an unfinished ceiling can hold five pounds per square foot, basically. Yeah, because if it were to be finished, it would be holding five pounds of drywall and the other stuff to make drywall affixed to it. Yeah. So that's where that number comes from.

[40:12] Yeah, and that seemed awfully light to me. But then they noted that, like, approximately 40 pounds of stuff can be placed on a 2x4 piece of plywood. Yeah. And if you put that over, you know, multiples, that's what you get. So, yeah.

[40:26] Basically, the whole point of this is that you're really not supposed to be using your garage trusses unless they are attic trusses, which are meant to take away, which is a whole separate thing, apparently. Yeah. And most of the framing, to be clear, the framing they showed in this article, and I would definitely check out the link if this is interesting to you. But the issue is the trussing they showed is not the trussing we have right because the trussing they have looked like mostly two by four where we have very very thick beams right that are like four by eight i think it is yeah it looks that's the only part of the house that looks overbuilt yeah i'd agree with that like seriously we haven't added it that's the only thing that looks overbuilt um so yeah but in the end the funny thing and to pile on to this our house for example uh two weeks during the cold snap yeah that happened we had the circuit breaker go out in mine and crystal's office and it probably should have gone out there was too much going on she had a heater on in there and i had my electronics on but this is where you learn the most random shit is connected to the same circuit. Yeah. Because your office, my office, the downstairs floor lamp or the head...

[41:48] The ceiling fan. The ceiling fan downstairs was on the same circuit, but not any of the wall outlets. No. And it's just.

[41:57] Our house's construction, and they noted this on inspection. I cannot say I was not warned. It's not necessarily bad. It just doesn't make any fucking sense. It's all safe. Well, it turns out minus one thing.

[42:11] It's all up spec, minus one thing. But it's like, wow. They were not thinking when they ran that circuit. No. They were not thinking when they placed those light switches. Yeah. They were not thinking when they wired this son of a bitch. No or plumbed it right and we'll we'll eventually have to get an electrician out here to fix some things for us um and that'll be a a sooner rather than later project on some of this but yeah the garage our garage is definitely well overbuilt um and like i said i think next time we have a hurricane we should just go into the garage i think we're safer there, okay no i'm not i'm kidding we shouldn't really do that that doesn't make any sense but yeah The roof on the garage, well, I don't know, both roofs are well overbuilt. That is true. We have a double roof over the house, and we know what the garage roof looks like. Yeah. So, yeah. Well, anyways, on that note, everyone, thank you very much for joining us for the past 45 minutes or so. I hope this was entertaining and maybe even a little bit educational. Please check out more Haunt Weekly. We're at HauntWeekly.com, HauntWeekly on Facebook, YouTube.com, slash Haunt Weekly. and any place you get your podcasts from. Until next time, I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And we will see you all next week, provided the ceiling doesn't collapse on us because we're overestimating the strength of our garage trusses. Have a good one.