[0:20] Hello, everyone. I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And this is Haunt Weekly, a weekly podcast for the haunted attraction and entertainment community. Whether you're an actor, owner, or just plain aficionado, we aim to be a podcast for you. And this week, we come to you with a question. Now, before we get into it, I do not want to create panic with this week's title. No. So we'll start off by saying we don't know what we're going to do yet. The whole point of this episode is to go over the decision. We will not have the answer at the end of this episode any more than we do at the beginning. But we want to take you on the ride as we ask ourselves, will this be our final year of haunting? And sort of understand where our brains are at at this particular moment in our lives. Yeah, because we always see about these haunts closing and we report on them on the news. You know, it's been 15, 20, 30 years, all this stuff. And we never know what's going on in the minds of the people doing it as they're coming up to making that decision. So we're going to do that. Yeah. This is a conversation we've had many times before. Yes. We have not decided to quit yet. No.

[1:30] But yeah, there are reasons this year is a little different. But don't panic is what I'm saying. Now is not the time for panic. We have a lot of time to make this decision.

[1:39] But if you don't want to hear two older people worry and hand ring about the possibility of opening up in 2026 please check out our other episodes you can find us at hauntweekly.com hauntweekly on facebook youtube.com slash hauntweekly is the youtube channel and find us wherever you get your podcasts from um let's see work we did for the haunt this week bet you did work i uh you did down a panel you took down one well one of the more annoying panels yes you did it and we also went to joanne's yes and that's like well that's not a haunt thing ah but it ended up being one yes fairly significantly actually because it's so weird like joanne's is a store i've spent more time than i'd like to admit and they're one of those stores that's addicted to coupon pricing yeah and so like like you look at like when it comes to halloween their skeletons would be like a hundred and twenty dollars it was insane they were the most expensive skeletons like most expensive skeletons by a factor of two at least and then oh but all of our halloween stuff is 50 off today yeah okay great that makes it barely higher than normal you know but still higher but still higher and so they would do this and so now that they're actually closing and going through the process of liquidating.

[3:02] They're holding these massive sales and the prices still kind of suck a lot of times. But one area of the prices didn't suck was spray paint.

[3:14] We went there, they were 60% off, and we actually, at first, we kind of had a giggle about, oh, yeah, we can still get them cheaper at Home Depot. And we actually pulled up the Home Depot app and did some comparisons and found out, actually, the spray paint there is a few bucks cheaper.

[3:29] Yes, with the sale, it worked out to be $2 to $3 a can cheaper, which adds up over a lot of cans. Especially when you add, like, 20 cans or whatever we bought. Yeah, so we bought neons and metallics. Metallics are always the most expensive to buy. And always the hardest to find, too. Because, like, Home Depot will have this big, huge section of spray paint, like one or two metallics tops. Yeah. So, yeah, we stocked up on a lot of spray paint and spent a lot of money at Joanne's clothes out to do so. So we should be good for spray paint for most of our colors. There were a couple of the pumpkin colors we couldn't buy. They didn't have them. Yeah, they were sold out of it. Because, I mean, they also have it right now where you can just go into the cabinet because it's not locked. Yeah, and that's the other thing that's really wonderful is, like, usually it's in that glass cabinet that you have to, can you come unlock it? I promise not to use this for huffing or to steal it. Yeah, I know you're, like, one of two people working this entire store. Yeah. No, it's no wonder they didn't sell any fucking spray paint. No. So, yeah, we did stock up on that, and we got most of our pumpkin colors and some different colors for the haunt. And already playing around with some design ideas for those rooms. So, got some cool stuff coming there. But, yeah, other than that, we didn't do much this particular week.

[4:51] But, yes, moving on? Moving on. All right. So, every week we attempt to ask a question of the week. And last week we asked, other than the houses that October built, which is the one, like, everyone thinks of first, it seems, what horror films were shot at haunted attractions? And I learned some stuff here. Yeah. Part of Zombieland was filmed inside Netherworld. That's from Isaac. Yeah. Several people, a couple people mentioned Zombieland. I did not know that. No. I had no idea. And we've seen it. I've seen it. I've definitely seen Zombieland. I had no idea. Granted, we saw it before we went to Netherworld. That is true. Maybe we need to watch it again. So maybe we need to re-watch it. Yeah. Reversing order. Okay. Ryan Greger said Hell House LLC.

[5:34] Shannon Robles said Hubie Halloween. And there were a couple others who mentioned Hubie Halloween, too. I did not know that was filmed in Haunt. We actually saw that when it came out. Yeah. That was the Netflix one. Um, JAPES actually, JAPES Palace actually said two things. The video for War's 8th Lock was filmed at a house of shock. That is not a shock at all. No. And also noted that a haunt called Scaravania posted seeking extras for a horror movie shoot last weekend. Yes. So that was pretty cool. Yeah. Haunt Season was filmed at Realm of Terror, and that's from Sarah Moon. Yeah. Yeah, and Tim Fowler, Hellfest was filmed at Six Flags Magic Mountain, something else I did not know. Like I said, this was educational. Yeah, and Jared Heckerty said, Hell House series, Terrifier 2. I have not seen Terrifier 2 yet. I know that is criminal. Yeah. I know that is criminal because everyone loves Terrifier right now. I thought the first film was fine. I didn't hate it. I actually rather enjoyed it, but I just didn't glom onto it, you know. I didn't join the cult, I guess. And finally, right now, Fright Stuff at Hell's Gate Haunted House and Haunt Season at Realm of Terror Haunted House. So, yeah, it's good to see the haunt industry getting some side gigs in horror films. Yeah.

[6:57] Oh, and also, we should add, the local zombie saints commercial was filmed at Chamber of Horrors. They still pull that out every once in a while at Halloween. Yeah. Yeah, but it is interesting that there are so many. And we've always said that that's a good side business for us. Oh, yeah. But I don't know why a lot of... it's probably because it's hard to find out who to get in touch with who can make the decision to say yes you can bring your film crew on as long as you have these insurances and permissions and all that stuff and and yeah and there are obligations the location has to do above and beyond just being a haunt yeah and like you said there had they and there are considerations that the movie needs to make um especially like once again this is a great reason not to have copyrighted elements in your hod. Right. Because then you can't be in a movie. It's one I don't think we've actually talked about at any point. No. Maybe one day we'll get our friend who makes movies on to talk about the process for finding locations. Yeah. And they do a lot of that type of work.

[8:11] Actually worked as something of a location scout for a lot of people who were doing their senior film theses things recently because they just they're getting their masters in film doctorate i thought i thought it was masters i don't know they're getting a postgraduate degree in film yes, regardless that is cool uh so yeah this week's question of the week is how many of you are thinking of retiring and i'll add if you're not what keeps you from thinking about retiring from haunting especially if you're of an older generation if you're a little bit on in here let us know hauntweekly.com hauntweekly on facebook and youtube.com slash hauntweekly.

[8:54] Okay, so this week's topic is going to be a little bit rough. I don't think it's going to be as rough as it sounds. No, so basically that was the first thing that popped into my head because I don't want to talk about it, but it's the only thing on my mind. So for me, it is rough, but we've talked about it since the notes were written. Yeah. um and and this is a bit of a different place yeah this is a bit of a rare scenario for us where we actually you actually wrote the notes i think two weeks ago yeah or a week and a half ago week and a half yeah and the result of it was writing the notes and me reading the notes and adding some things to them, was kind of therapy for both of us. Exactly.

[9:50] And we're in a different headspace than when we wrote this, but I think the question is still very valid. I do too, and I think that capturing the moment and the entire process of making decisions is why we're doing this, and we'll probably revisit it again over the next few years. Yeah. And we may revisit it again later this year, even as we get closer into season. Exactly. So this may be a topic that comes back up in a few months, in a year, whatever. We don't know. A lot of this is talking about how we don't know what the future holds. Shit can change tomorrow, regardless of our best laid plans. Yeah. So the topic at hand is, do we make this our last year? Mm-hmm.

[10:43] And there's... Basically, what we're going to do is we're going to talk about the reasons we're considering it. The reasons we're considering staying open. We're going to talk a little bit about Haunt Weekly, too. Yeah. And then... I think we're going to like come back around and discuss these issues more broadly and talk about kind of where we are in our headspace right now today. Yeah. So why would we consider closing? Well, first thing we should mention is that this will be our 20th year with Bernie Baxter. Yeah, not in this location. So we do have another 20-year celebration coming up in a couple of years. That's true. So that is something to consider. But this is our official 20-year anniversary of the haunted house.

[11:36] We've been doing it since 2005. We first did it at our home in a very tiny front yard haunt in Eldridge Point. We did it the year of Hurricane Katrina. Right. We were back in the city. We were not one of the ones impacted by the flooding. There were lots of kids in the neighborhood, much to my surprise. Yeah, there were. And since there was not school or anything, they were all, you know, riding their bikes and hanging out. Yeah. They were doing what you would expect kids to do. Well, yeah, we saw them more than usual. It still technically was summer at that point, too, I think. Technically, I think school might have supposedly, supposed to have just started. Yeah. But, yeah, we saw them riding around, and we were kind of, you know, whoa, there's a lot of kids here. and we quickly realized that there was nothing in the area to do for Halloween. Right. And Halloween has always been a very central holiday to us, but we had never actually considered building a haunted house. Well, not after your parents shot us down for trying to turn their house into one. Yeah, it sucked. I forgot about that.

[12:46] Probably was best. Some memories are best sent down the pie hole. But, yeah. They really didn't have a space for it. Not really.

[12:56] We had a neat idea though anyway that's neither here nor there regardless so we decided hey we're going to put something together and we used whatever construction supplies we get our hands on, which was not two by fours of plywood no because the city was actively rebuilding so the only things around were like one by twos maybe a few one by fours i think we had two by two for a lot of it in tarp yeah it was mostly two by twos in tarp at the end of the day and yeah it was it was not built to construction standards and i am very glad we only did one night that season because we never that thing never was going to last no another night no i mean but in a way that was me uh for me at least that was going back to the way i would build things at my parents house when i started home hunting there because we would encase the porch in plastic and we just sort of took that idea and embiggened it a little bit. Yeah. But regardless, that was 2005 and we've been doing it ever since. We missed 2019 through 2022, 2019 due to road construction, 2020 and 2021 rather. We missed those three years together. We didn't miss 2022, but we missed those years due to road construction and COVID and.

[14:19] And now we're approaching our 20th year in 2025. And that's really what sparks the topic because we're doing the story of Bernie Baxter. And narratively, if we wanted to stop, this would be a good year. But there are other reasons for thinking about it. And we'll get into those now. And the biggest is just that getting older sucks. Yeah, it really does. Because we're not as young and we're not able to do as much physically as we were able to when we started. Yeah, this is a hobby we started in our mid-20s. Yeah. I have a back and knees that do not enjoy these things. I've had GI issues the past few years. I am ridiculously out of shape thanks to not being able to run or really do much exercise. Um and i now get heat damage so quickly it is mind-boggling these were not issues 20 years ago no and i have you know health issues that i've talked about on here before um.

[15:33] And i don't see them even though that we are trying to get healthier now yeah um i don't know that how successful it's gonna be well i'm very pessimistic but i'm still putting in the work well i mean like my back i actually hurt my back in 2006 yeah but and it was bad for a few years but i worked on it strengthened it lost weight did things i had to do and got it feeling pretty good and then i threw it out in a major way in 2019 Yeah. And ever since then, it has been a constant problem.

[16:11] Um, so yeah, basically we have, we're, we're, we're tacking on new medical conditions and new issues every year. It feels like, and some of them are getting better.

[16:25] Some of them are getting worse, but it all does make working on the, not so much opening and being in the haunt and acting, but working on building and doing all of that stuff makes it so much harder um i also don't function nearly as well on little sleep as i used to, no it used to be like we would go out there work until 2 a.m 3 a.m get up at 7 30 or 8 o'clock, and do a full day and then go back and work until whatever ungodly hour again and that's how we finish the haunt every year yeah and i've i've found that i just i can't do that these past couple of years um so i'm trying to do more throughout the year some to different different levels of success with that well and we'll get into some of the pros and why that may not be at the hugest of deals yeah but yeah that is one of the core reasons as we we look at our aches we look at our pains and realize that even if we don't quit now the time is definitely limited yeah the time in which we have to do this part of it is limited we may be able to act in haunts and that's one of the things i should say is i don't think us stopping haunting here would be the end of us haunting full stop yeah and that's that's in the discussion at the end yeah but still um yeah.

[17:54] Basically all the aches and pains getting older sucks uh next item is that several of our haunt crew members have let us know that they're not going to be in new orleans in a few years Maybe not even this season, which is rough. It's, you know. I genuinely think they're going to be here this year. I think so. But they're still making plans to possibly not. Yeah. We'll see what happens. They'll see what happens. Yeah, they're some of our longest-term members, and it's hard. And they've been somewhat consistent in helping with the build and the growth of the haunt. And so, yeah, that's a big blow to us. And even if it's not this year, their life situation is changing. Like we were just talking about, they're in the middle or at the end of getting their degree. And their partner, the wife is also, but the partner, because it's another triad, is.

[19:08] Getting a different position in their job, and they don't know if they're going to like it or not. So, like, everybody's situation over there is changing. And similarly, you know, our situation's fairly stapled still. Yeah. I don't think we're in that much flux, but, yeah, there's a lot of flux in the world right now, too. Exactly. So who the hell knows? I say that because I think by saying we're more stapled, that's basically a separation of degrees, not a binary thing. Yeah, and we have been trying to get new members to come back every year, and we just haven't found the right mix to grow. It's really tough being a home haunt that can't pay. Yeah.

[20:04] We cover expenses. No one loses money. No. That's our rule. No one spends money to act with us, but we can't pay. And that, yeah, I mean, people have jobs and people have more important things than to dedicate three nights for what much of the city is a busy season. Mm-hmm. I understand that, and that's tough. So we've struggled to find new members. We've built the haunt more efficiently so we needed fewer actors we're starting recruitment earlier this time around we've already been doing some work on it actually but yeah we're facing.

[20:44] Both the loss of potentially like the other half of the core team and the continuing struggles of finding new core members so it's kind of a double-edged sword there that cuts us both ways Right. And then comes some of the financial realities. Right. Homeowner's insurance is changing. I don't know how familiar...

[21:07] Everyone is with what's been going on in New Orleans specifically. It's been a Gulf Coast thing. Florida's been in the headlines a lot with this problem. Yeah, California's getting fired too. Yeah, with the fires, yeah. Basically, any area where natural disasters are even potentially common, homeowners insurance has been incredibly difficult. We have spent the past few years on the state-run port of last resort plan. Now, we did just get off of it, or rather, we will be off of it come June, I think it is. Right, and that's only if we get approved to be on this new insurance. So we're hoping that they will take us, but we don't know what their limitations are or what their requirements are. We've already had to provide some additional information, so we don't know. You know and we also don't know how much that's gonna cost like it's gonna.

[22:09] It shouldn't save us money it should but i've heard people online saying that they were told it was gonna save them money and that it didn't and then i don't know yeah so it's just it's an up in the air worry right now until we get a new contract yeah that's where i'm at with that which It's kind of bizarre for us because technically our homeowners renews now, functionally now. It's in April, May. It renews. Yeah. But because this new plan kicks in in June, I think that is the fiscal year for them. Yeah. Or when they picked us up, actually. Well, no, it was because we had an insurance and they were put into bankruptcy, like forced into bankruptcy. Yeah. Because they weren't doing the things they were supposed to do. They didn't have enough liquidity to cover losses, basically. Yep. And so then we got on the state plan, and that was in June. Yeah. But our policy still renewed in March, but we recovered through June.

[23:11] So that's how that all lines up and why it's June now. And it's confusing as fuck. Yes. But yeah, homeowner's insurance is changing. We don't know if we'll be able to continue doing this on the new plan. We have never made a claim against homeowner's insurance. No. We've been in this house nearly 20 years. I think we've been in here 18 years, 19 years. Since 2007. Yeah. So 18 years now. 18 years almost to today. Mm-hmm.

[23:41] Tell it to you straight, yeah, this is a worry because homeowners insurance, the market is fucked in any place. And it's wild because like you talked about the wildfires in California, that was the first disaster to hit that neighborhood ever. And now one disaster and they can't get homeowners insurance to save their life. Yeah. Not that other parts of California haven't seen fires like this, but that particular neighborhood, this was the first time that they had been hit like this. Yeah, and we're having similar issues with flood insurance, even though that doesn't impact the Haunt thing. Right. So yeah, there's a lot going on with insurance. We are incredibly safe. We have never had an injury, knock on wood, of course, but yeah.

[24:29] It's still a worry. And then there's the economics in general. Yeah. I don't know if you've turned on the news at any point or been able to avoid it. If you have, can you tell me how to do that? Yeah, what's your secret? Because I'd really like to. What's your secret? What rock are you under? Because I'd like to join you. Yeah.

[24:50] We'll hang out with Patrick Starfish. We'll go into a Fallout shelter somewhere. Yeah. But basically, between whatever the fuck is going on with the tariffs now and just the general economy, prices are likely to go up on things. And we actually saw this with lumber during COVID. We actually talked a great deal about how lumber went straight to the moon. Right. And not in a good way. Nope. and as a result we postponed some plans we had ideas we just said well that's too expensive and just wrote them right off we're not going to do those um so yeah right now lumber is more reasonable and we're actually going to stock up and buy some while that's the case uh probably sometime soon oh but yeah but the main thing is like everything we buy for the haunt since we're a free haunt comes out of our pocket with no real hope or recovery right and to not get too deep into politics the other economic thing is that my job may be directly impacted it doesn't look like it yet, but it may be directly impacted by some of the executive orders that are coming out.

[26:16] Nothing's... There's only been stupid changes so far. Gulf of America. Yes.

[26:23] Yes, there's only been things like that so far. I have to laugh or I will cry. I know.

[26:32] But I just, I don't know how. They are very reassuring that everything is fine and we will be fine. They are also more optimistic than I am. You know, we are not known for our glowing optimism. Yeah, I think I'm the most optimistic out of the three of us in this house. That's likely very true. Yeah. I've been told that. Yeah, and you're the household optimist, but you're also the company pessimist. Yeah. Because those are all relative terms. Oh, yeah. It's not that I'm an optimist in the real world, just in this house. You know, I actually won a speech contest for the Optimist Club, I'll have you know. I'm not actually kidding. I did. This was in third grade. Oh, third grade. That's before you were a bitter old man, huh? No, they just had us optimist kids write speeches to give. And yeah, it was dumb.

[27:38] But it is where I discovered that I do have a knack of public speaking. So that is true. But regardless, yeah. So between those things, the economic uncertainties are gnawing. And then there's the final factor that we've always said we wanted to end and leave on our own terms yeah i always had a rule that if we were ever going to have it last season we would announce it before we opened and the reason for that was i don't want anybody to unknowingly go to their last bernie baxter yeah no i i want people to know also i want them to know they have the chance one more time and i know that'll probably make it absolutely batshit insane if we do it but i want people to know i want people to have the chance especially because we've been over 20 years and we've had this conversation before about how people come and bring their kid they they're like you were our first haunted house and now i got little jimmy here and jimmy wanted to come for his first haunted house and we're like jesus i feel old now my back hurts again but we're also very warmed and and like oh that's so sweet excuse me while i crumble in the dust yes exactly we've had one do that with their grandkid uh.

[28:57] They took him, and then the kid was, like, really little, just went to the yard display, so to be clear. But, yeah, there is enough time there that theoretically you could get a third generation. Mm-hmm. But, yeah, I've always wanted to announce it in advance, and that makes sense this year in a lot of ways. Yeah. Now, the pros for staying open, though. Let's flip the script. Let's get Huff beat again. Okay. All right, economics.

[29:23] Weren't we just talking about how bad they were? Yeah, I know. You wrote the notes. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Okay, so this is not from the perspective of how economics will affect us. We started the haunt because there was nothing for the kids at Halloween. Yeah. And with belts being tightened all around the country right now, we're kind of in that same place where we can give something to the community that others may not be able to. Yeah. And we are fortunate to be able to provide that. That's a privilege. Yeah, exactly. We're very privileged to be in that position. And there's another element of the economics we didn't discuss in the other half, which is, yes, a lot of the prices will be going up, but we are set up in such a way now that we don't necessarily need to buy a lot. Yeah, other than, like, candy. I think candy is going to be our biggest expense. Biggest single expense, yes. Yeah, because it's all imported, too. Oh, Jesus, Mark, I didn't think about that. Yeah. Yeah. But we, I mean, yeah, we'll go buy some two by fours and some lumber this year, but, and two by fours and plywood and a few other things. But realistically, we have probably the best layout we've ever had. Yeah. Yeah. We changed it last year, which means we can stick with it for a few years and it's working really well. Yeah. I'm really, really happy with this layout. Yeah.

[30:50] So it's going great on that front. We don't need to build a lot into panels. We've got to replace the last few pieces of OSB. We've got a few more tiny. So other than building things like beds and tables and furniture and items that go in rooms, we don't really have any major construction projects. No. And we can, because we built this so well, or overbuilt this so well maybe, we can ride this probably for five or ten more years using the same materials we've already purchased yeah and as anyone who has redesigned a room without moving walls knows it's easy to make something look and feel completely different just with a couple of changes we did a whole bunch of episodes about lighting lighting and how lighting is and what to do if you've got a if you you're tempted to do a black wall do something else instead you know lighting is to me the most amazing things you completely changed the character of a room with the literal push of a button on a remote yeah well we just went to um one of our restaurants we went for an evening dinner and instead of having their lights on and being in the daytime like they do when they were they're normally a brunch place yeah they had candles out and it changed the entire vibe yeah look totally different you wouldn't recognize it at first blush yeah yeah you're absolutely right because usually when it's brunch it's all the windows are up and everything's bright and sunny and super.

[32:16] Colorful and then they pulled the shades and it was already night anyways but they pulled the shades down lit some small candles, it was all ambiance and spooky-ish a little bit it was a little bit creepy in its own way.

[32:28] But yeah, it felt intimate and nice instead of bustling. But yeah, but that's the two-pronged thing of economics is, like you said, we provide a Halloween experience largely to disadvantaged, underserved communities in our area. And we have the privilege and the ability to do that. And like I said, the economics of having, we don't have to buy a lot of shit now. So we don't really have to worry about it getting crazy expensive. Yeah. Yeah, because we're not looking to buy any new tools or anything like that. We just upgraded some of those a few years ago. So we got the Q line built. Yeah. We want to redo the outside L. And I actually do want to do that. I do too. But other than that's probably the largest project we have. And that's not that big. And we can probably reuse most of the wood we have for it. Yeah. So, yeah. So basically, yeah, it's not as expensive.

[33:26] As our gut fears it can be right um the other big reason for staying open is just good old-fashioned escapism you know we comment on every year at halloween time how stressed we are yes we're stressed we're panicked we're oh my god we're never going to get open but you know what we're not doing we're not stressing and we're not panicking about everything else in the fucking universe exactly because you know and i really like taking on projects like this with you yeah because we can focus everything on it we can get any frustrations out in there and you know and like you said we're just not thinking about the bigger world at that point no at that during haunt season i would say from like early september through halloween our entire universe is contained in a 25 by 25 foot garage behind our house yeah and that's just how it is i mean like i and it was really nice it's really nice during like election years because you can like miss the last pretty much miss the last two months of it yeah you'll hear things like yeah whatever i gotta where you focus on the haunt your brain just goes no we're not letting that in.

[34:49] Well yeah because between the late hours working out there and keeping full-time day jobs there's no time to keep up with the world no we're basically our brain is just like nope no room yep banished you are banished from this brain um yeah and you know and it also gives the neighborhood but escapism, too. They don't have to think about how we're living in the dumbest timeline right now. Yeah. And the next up is, you know, while getting old does suck, we are trying to get healthier. We are. We are making genuine efforts. We, like, right before we started recording this podcast, we went on a lengthy walk. Yeah.

[35:33] We're trying to get healthier. I'm hoping to get back into running. Yeah. I'm thinking my GI issues might be under enough control. Knock on wood.

[35:41] A lot of knock on wood this episode. Yeah. Well, I mean, I wasn't like my doctor specifically told me that I could not exercise for two years because when I was anemic from getting older as a woman, they told me that, you know, you don't have enough blood to have enough oxygen getting to your brain without passing out. Yeah, we can't exercise without passing out. basically yeah like it was hard to get to my second floor office at work during that time because i had to take breaks and it's it's only two flights of steps and and it wasn't a big second floor no it wasn't really tall it's just yeah it was that was rough it was really rough yeah but because of those two years of no activity um and and having to eat iron rich foods which are you know awfully calorie dense calorie dense foods um yeah there's been some changes to my weight like i said i with the gi issues had to stop running yeah and that used to be like that's the thing i've learned about me in time is i don't control my eating nearly as well as i control my activity well like when we were doing mixed martial arts and all that yeah i stayed so thin and so rock hard, I was like kick-ass ready to go. And then that ended with Hurricane Katrina.

[37:09] And then I gained a crap ton of weight after my car accident and hurt my back.

[37:15] But lost it by doing a shit ton of cardio and doing some calorie watching, admittedly, but focusing very heavily on the cardio and then getting into running. And then I had to stop that and guess what happened? It's just, whoa, it's up, down, up, down. I'm just like you. Know that so yeah but we are working getting healthier and we have beaten this cycle before we can beat it again exactly so this is and this gives us a motivation to do that and.

[37:48] And finally, as you noted, we do technically have another 20-year anniversary we could lean on in 2007. Yeah, because that'll be 20 years at this location.

[38:01] So that is something that we could, you know, and we'll know a little bit better what the world's going to be like in a couple of years. Yeah. So that is another thing. The other honest truth is there's no necessarily any reason to go out on 20 instead of 21. No, there's not. It's just a nice round number. We all love round numbers, but you know what? 21, get the haunt until it's old enough to drink, and then... Yeah. See? 21's a round number in its own way. It is. And, you know, one thing that I forgot to put on here is that we actually have two more houses that do big Halloween displays now on our block. Yeah. And I don't think they'd be there without us. You know, it was very interesting when we first started doing it. We asked around and said, how's Halloween around here? Oh, there's no one here. No trick or tricks. This used to be the big Halloween neighborhood. It used to be a place where blah, blah, blah. And they used to do Halloween all the time. And it got really, really big. And then they fucked up by charging and the police shut them down. Yeah. That was our house, by the way. Yeah. We found out later. It was our house. And so apparently it's just a legal obligation. Whoever purchases this house has to open a haunted house on it. Yep. Which is another reason to not close because apparently we'll lose the house if we do.

[39:25] Yeah. That's the way the universe has it set up. This is a Halloween void. Yes.

[39:33] But, yeah, we brought Sexy back to the neighborhood. Yeah. And like I said, we've got two houses now. One that does an actual little walkthrough to get to your candy. And one that decorates their yard up. Nice. And we've also got a church event that happens, I think, the Saturday before Halloween. It's a trunk or treat. I have mixed feelings about those, especially in cities. But that's happening now. And we also have a couple of apartments nearby that have Halloween parties and then bring the kids by after. Yeah. so we it's basically it's crazy shit it is um so yeah.

[40:16] So, this brings us to another topic. We're also approaching another milestone. We are. The 500th episode of Haunt Weekly. And I'm going to admit, our enthusiasm has been waning a bit. And part of that is because work schedules have made things difficult. Right. Like, our life has just filled up a lot. And which we're trying to get a regular schedule down and it's not really working out because it does was the reason that sundays is no longer working is because we um we want our weekend and this is work i know we do it for free it's not work work but but it feels like work it feels like an obligation yeah it is and it does feel like an obligation and whenever we started it it didn't feel like an obligation it felt like fun but now it's getting harder to come up with topics and it's and one of the things we've been wanting to do is to do more interviews yeah um we've had several people we've been talking to and things have fallen through um but a lot of it is I think we kind of reached a peak of that in the pandemic. Yeah. Because we did a lot of Zoom episodes during the height of the pandemic.

[41:44] Yeah. And, you know, there's still a lot more that I want to do. Like, there are specific people I want to reach out to and have on the show.

[41:56] And I don't know. I think that we would have to make a schedule or something. And the other thing is you know i'm i personally am not sure how relevant we are still, because we are getting old like we're some of the old fuckers in the industry now yeah um there are a lot of young people who can get out there and when we started there was no and then bear in mind. I mean, this is almost, I think this is like eight years ago, eight, nine years ago now. Yeah. There were not a lot of podcasts to choose from. There were only a couple and they were not regular. Yeah. They weren't, yeah, they weren't consistently updated because I was looking for a podcast to listen to at work. And mind you, some of these are still going on and they are great podcasts. Yeah. But...

[42:50] We had the domain haunt weekly we talked about it we had it for other reasons exactly but we decided to convert it into a podcast and that's what we've been doing ever since yeah and so yeah but now there are several other podcasters out there who are younger um there are youtube channels dedicated to talking about the haunt industry and i just i just don't know yeah i i i think the need for us is less than it was that many years ago exactly and i think that's a good thing yeah oh it's a great thing i think that's ostensibly a great thing a great thing for the industry in particular um so yeah this is something for your thoughts on i guess i mean obviously we do enjoy this we've always said we would not do this if we didn't enjoy them that's true but we also understand that things have changed and that our schedule has become less predictable. Your job in particular has been required. One of the things that your current job has been doing is taking more time in the evenings when we would typically record. Right. Because you have production emergencies that you can't predict. Yes. And I also have, I need a nap during the day that I can't protect either. Yeah, that's the only part of getting older. Because I have the best job structure for me.

[44:15] But it's also, you know, I do have work that I need to do at the yarn store. And I'm trying to figure out where to fit that in on a weekly basis. Yeah, you're basically running 2.5 jobs. Yeah. And... So, I don't know. I don't know. But I had a few ideas about how we could get around this. One is that we could schedule guest episodes once a month. Like we used to do, basically. Yeah. Get back on that rhythm. Yeah. Get back on that rhythm. We could pick a topic and do like a one media review a month. So, we would review more video games and movies. And the horror movies that we just got recommended. Yeah, or even going to some of the local horror-themed, but not haunt-themed conferences type thing. Yeah. You know, I could see doing that.

[45:20] Oh, yeah. So, I do think Haunt Weekly is going to change come episode 500. Yeah. I don't think that's a bad thing. No. But I don't feel like we're going to stop it. Necessarily i mean i i it's going to change and it probably will change for the better but please this is where we want your input a what should we do for episode 500 yeah we have it's coming up fast and every time we come up to a milestone we ask what should we do and then we fucking forget about it until the day before yeah basically um so yeah but yeah please let us know your thoughts on all this yes um beyond that but yeah like i said our our interest our enthusiasm is weighing some not much admittedly no i mean most of the time we still have an easy relatively time finding the topic because we're talking about it anyway as we talked as we've discussed multiple times but there have been a few weeks where it's just like no we've already talked about that recently even yeah and things like that all right so honestly i just want to say um where do we go from here no right now for me.

[46:37] When we started this noise when we started this conversation i think we both were kind of leaning toward the, this will be our last year camp. Yeah. And I think in the process of doing these notes and really thinking about it and thinking about both sides of it, we both have leaned more the other direction. I agree. Yeah, we didn't even talk about the other new life change, and that's that we have a grandkid with a birthday in early October. Bastard. I know. Couldn't hold it in. But yeah. Hold it away. I do think that, That we're going to continue at this point. Yeah. And I think a lot of it is, I think a lot of the reason we can continue is because we built for longevity. We did. Yeah.

[47:28] If we had to build it from scratch every year, there's no fucking way. No. No. Or even if we took, like, major damage and had to rebuild from start now, I don't think we would continue it. It would depend on what exactly the type of damage yeah but we built smart we built strong we built with good materials and we've got a great layout that is very flexible and we can use for a very long time i honestly think we're doing pretty darn good um as far as the amount of work.

[48:04] And that's necessary because we can't no you know we we can't do what we used to do in our late 20s early 30s we're just like okay we're gonna knock the whole thing down and build it back up and yeah and we do that every fucking year no we we just don't have that kind of stamina anymore and the haunt got too big those were also not using the full of the garage it was not using the full of the garage and it was using much lighter building materials now we've you know upgraded everything so that the walls need two people to move them instead of one person slinging panels yeah um and yeah and there's a lot more of them there's a lot more of them and there's a lot more like cross pieces and braces and all sorts of stuff that has to move yeah and mind you doing that kind of construction is what makes it possible to reuse yeah absolutely like you definitely should be using this this type of construction because you won't have to rebuild every year like when we were using the masonite that was the worst no the plastic was the worst but after that i don't even count that okay but yeah the the masonite was was not because we didn't choose the plastic we had to use the plastic yeah no we chose the masonite because it was cheap.

[49:30] And I had used it for paintings in art school. You worked with it a lot.

[49:35] Yeah, but I also didn't realize...

[49:39] How destructive customers can be when they are scared. I remember that first season with the masonite walls. We had like four or five holes. Yeah. From people crashing into it. Like they would hit it with a shoulder and crunch it in. Or just like fall down and kick the shit out of it. Yeah. It's crazy shit. And every time it got hit in any way that was with weight and with any kind of like directionality.

[50:08] Small surface area it was it was damaged and we are hot like fucking swiss cheese, yeah so that was like okay well we got a switch and then we switched to osb which turned out to be a mistake too and then we moved from osb to plywood which is where we are now well and basically you can see how much money we had in the household because um masonite at that point was like $6 a sheet. Yeah. And then OSB was like $8. And then plywood is $12. Is $12, yeah. Well, the other thing, like Masonite used to be super cheap. Apparently Masonite's gone up in price. It has. It's now on the same level with plywood because people want the smoothness of it. Yeah, nobody is buying Masonite to go cheap anymore. No.

[50:59] No, but it used to be the cheapest thing and what, you know, my art professors told us to buy because it was cheap. Yeah, if you were going to do large paintings or you were going to cut them down. Yeah, they would have us cut them down. Well, okay, they would have other people cut them down. I knew you. Yeah. What's a salt? Paint. I just did four by eight paintings. It was great. Yeah, but that was the thing. It was like Masonite used to be the cheap alternative. And I know we started Masonite. Some of you out there went, why would you do that, Masonite? So it wasn't that way 20 years ago. No. Trust me. No, it was the cheapest thing out there. By a long shot. Yeah, and we did not have access to pallets before you jump on us. Not in the quantity we would have needed, especially. No. No.

[51:51] So, yeah. Honestly, I'm glad we did this episode because I do think it pushed us more towards staying open. Yeah. But it also let us talk about some of the things that have been worrying us and bugging us. Yeah. And, you know, eventually we will retire. We don't know what will happen after that. You know, maybe we'll consult with some haunts. We've got some friends who work at haunts nearby. I would love to continue acting somewhere, maybe even in the same character. Yeah. that would be fun um but who knows i i would like to continue that and have fun with it but yeah at some point it is going to catch up to us but until that day, um this has been episode 483 of haunt weekly is this our last season you can find more haunt weekly at hauntweekly.com haunt week on facebook and youtube.com slash haunt weekly is the youtube channel. Great place to get caught up on the episodes. All of them are there. But until next time, I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And we'll see you all next week.