Most-Haunted Houses?

It being October and all, everyone wants to get into the spirit of Halloween. Even real estate website Zillow.com has published an article on the country's Top 10 Haunted Houses.

The first house they cite is the Winchester House, located in San Jose, CA, which they claim has been "certified" by the U.S. Commerce Department as being haunted. It is one of two houses in California with that distinction, the other being the 10th house on the list, the Whaley House in San Diego.

This intrigued me that the government was going around labeling houses as haunted, but I could find nothing on the Commerce Department's website. Seems the earliest mention of it (that I could find anyway) was an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer from 1996, which was actually an Associated Press story. Wikipedia even cites this article as the source for the claim. They say in the 1960's Commerce designated it as haunted and their registry includes 29 other places.

As I suspected, it turns out this is not true. According to a blog post on Haunted Jaunts, there is no such listing. They point to another article that appeared in the Tuscon Citizen which debunks the certification story. Interestingly, the Whaley House itself has a link to the PI article on its "In the News" page, which initially made me think it might have been true. If they're including it, then it must be, right? No doubt they're not about to kill a source of possible business for them.

Yet other sources I read cited the certification as being from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Now that I could believe. They're in the business of promoting business so if they came out with a list of "official" haunted houses, that would make sense. Alas, not even the Chamber site has any reference of haunted houses on it. This seems to be one of those stories that continues to grow in the telling.

The second house on the list is the Lizzie Borden House in Fall River, MA, and no real introduction is needed as to why it might be haunted. The other houses on the list include:

3. LaLaurie Mansion, New Orleans, LA
4. White House, Washington, DC (yes, that White House...good ol' Abe Lincoln is said to stalk the halls)
5. Franklin Castle, Cleveland, OH
6. Sprague Mansion, Cranston, RI
7. Chambers Mansion, San Francisco, CA
8. Myrtles Plantation, St. Francisville, LA
9. Stranahan House, Ft. Lauderdale, FL

The one house Zillow purposely didn't put on the list was the Amityville Horror house in Amityville, NY. As you'll recall from my previous post on the subject, I never did buy into it that the house was haunted. Now I read that the haunting was all just a fiction created by DeFeo's lawyer William Weber and the Lutz family.

The cool thing about the Zillow article is that it links to the listing for the haunted house. The Winchester House (from the descendants of the maker of Winchester rifles), is estimated to be worth some $2.2 million. The Franklin Castle, just $267,000. Wanna make a bid on a haunted house?

Speaking of haunted houses, look for my review (hopefully tomorrow) of the Headless Horseman Haunted Hayride & Haunted Houses attraction that I visited on Saturday in Ulster Park, NY.

Happy October!

It's heeeeere! October is upon us, and now begins the final stretch of creation and completion. For many haunters, it's also the time to start setting up our displays, though I know many wait until the final week or days even. I can't even imagine the sustained flurry of activity that requires.

And I gotta think about my costume. I waited till the last minute last year to decide what I wanted to be (Sam, from Trick 'r Treat) and it was a made scramble to pull it together. Of course, since the movie didn't have a splashy, movie theater debut, no one knew who the heck I was. Some will say I'm already late in deciding what it will be.

In like a lion
With the weather expected to be rainy for most of the month here in the northeast (according to the Farmers Almanac and the Old Farmers Almanac) you might want to delay for as long as possible setting out your paper mache props. The month is starting out with rain, so perhaps like March, it will go out like a lamb and the forces of Nature will smile upon us with a cool, crisp -- dry! -- Halloween.

Party time!

Don't forget to finalize the plans for your Halloween party too. I'll be having my 2d annual bash (you're all invited!) but this time it will be the week before Halloween, as last year I was drained and unenthused when the holiday finally dawned. Of course, it only took the first trick-or-treater coming to the door to get excited again, but I want to be rested and ready for the day.

Still there's a lot of work to do! We've got more mache to lather on forms, more Monster Mud to clean out from under our fingernails, and more hot glue to drip on our hands and legs (amazing how it manages to find all exposed parts of your body).

So set to! It's October, and it' truly the best time of the year!

Amityville in Teaneck

Suddenly the Amityville Horror house is in the news again. Even the venerable Wall Street Journal had an article about the new owners of the home where Ronald DeFeo Jr. shot and killed his parents and four siblings as they slept in their beds back in 1974.

While the new owners say they're not happy about the attention their purchase of the house has brought, you have to wonder why they're granting interviews to the media. And they were unaware of the home's history till after they signed the lease?

It's true the house doesn't look the same as it did back in the 1970's as the iconic quarter round window have been replaced with regular double hungs, but you'd think when you're moving into Amityville some bell would sound in your head and maybe ask, "Hey, this isn't the house from that horror movie is it?" Apparently not.

But I never bought into claims by DeFeo that the house was possessed and he heard voices telling him to kill his family. As much a I love Halloween and all the creepiness it entails, I don't actually believe in ghosts and spirits, supernatural beings, or paranormal normal activity. Hey, I love watching Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures just as much as the next guy, but I don't believe a word of it. In fact, and at the risk of offending those who may be religious, I'm also an atheist. So I think that when you die that's it. You go in the ground and rot. The possibility that your corpse might arise again -- however cool the concept is for my haunt -- is not something that can happen.

Having said that, about four year ago I bought the house I live in and had converted the third floor room into my office where I would sit and write all day. Built in 1921, I expected it would have its share of creaks and being very much a realist, I'm always able to find a rational explanation for "paranormal" activity that occurs, or at least to know that there is a rational explanation even if I can't find it at the moment.

Always, that is, except for two times. While sitting in my office one morning working assiduously on the day's output, I was suddenly brought upright (I sit hunched over) at the sound of a footstep on the stairs on the first floor. At the time I lived in the house alone and no one would just walk in unannounced. Having been the victim of a burglary one time before, I always have my doors locked, even when I'm at home.

I sat there listening for a moment when I very clearly heard someone ascending the stairs from the first floor up to the second. This wasn't just a creak or two, this was solid footfalls on the wooden treads. The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up as I imagined someone had broken in, so grabbing my trusty .38 cal. Smith & Wesson from the draw next to me, I quickly ran down the stairs to the second floor. It had happened so quickly -- from hearing the footsteps to grabbing the gun and going down the stairs -- that I should have actually run into the person coming up. Except there was no one there.

I went down and checked the doors and windows and they were all locked and secure. I wasn't able to find a rational explanation for that incident, and it happened one more time with no one being on the stairs. I still like to refer to it a my run-in with my ghost.

My ghostly friend visited me once again, just a month or so ago. I was sitting in my living room watching TV and home alone once again. My wife had gone out with her daughter and I was thoroughly enjoying my alone time. As I sat there, I felt like a puff of air on my left arm. It ran from about the middle of the forearm up to my shoulder.

Now it was summertime and the windows were open and I had a fan running in the dining room so I dismissed it as coming from one of those sources. About two minutes later, though, it happened again. I looked at the windows and the sheers my wife has hanging across the windows were completely still. The trees in my yard were also still. In fact, the air was completely dead.

Now I thought it possible it was the fan in the dining room, except that the dining room was off to my right so presumably any breeze from the fan would have been felt on the right side first, no? Also, it would have had to go across my body, but this breeze went from front to back. In essence, if it was the fan, it entered the room, completely avoided my right arm and chest (okay, stomach, I'm not petite), made a left turn and ran up my left arm.

So real was this breeze -- really, it was like a puff of air someone might blow out of their lips -- that I thought maybe my wife had snuck back into the house somehow and was hiding behind the couch and playing with me (she loves to hide around corners and jump out and scare me. I'm sure she's after my life insurance money). Except that would have required the air to run from back to front instead of front to back. I checked the doors again and they were still locked.

So those are my two run ins with activity that I can't give a rational explanation for. At least I didn't hear anyone telling me to "Get out!"

Terror in Pittsburgh

I've been a big fan of Steve Hickman's "Terror Syndicate" and his Dark Works haunt ever since I stumbled across them last year. For a home haunter, Steve's got a set up that could rival many pro haunts I've seen and visited.

Although I've said that for my own haunt I'd like it to have a theme, and for the props to be coordinated and not just a haphazard collection of props, what I like about Dark Works is that it is all coordinated but there's no set time period for it. As I've read Steve's description of it, the name implies what it is: a "dark" haunt with props that reflect that theme. You might have Monster Mud monks, but you'll also have granny having a problem with her toilet. The odd thing is, they easily and naturally coexist.

From what I understand Steve opens his walk through for three days leading up to Halloween. I had initially planned on visiting his haunt this year -- until I realized just how far Pittsburgh is from me. As cool as I'm sure the haunt is, a 7+ hour trip is probably not going to happen. Yet it is one of my new plans for the coming years, to take a few days off and visit my fellow haunters haunts and appreciate in person the work they're doing. There are a lot of talented people out there and I'd like to highlight them with reviews from personal visits.

Steve also has available a number of books and videos for sale detailing how he builds his props. At $30 a pop, they're not exactly cheap, but I figured for the knowledge they'd give I'd try them. I ordered the first two (of five) handbooks (as he calls them) and while I was expecting a slightly higher quality presentation -- I had in mind a book like "How to Haunt Your Yard" by Lynne and Shawn Mitchell -- they are filled with useful and helpful details and projects.

The books are spiral bound pages with clear plastic covers. While that initially turned me off, I have to say the benefit is that they lay flat on my work bench so I can easily follow the instructions as I build my props. Needless to say, I burned through the first two rather quickly and ordered the next two in the series. Last month I got the fifth and final handbook, but also ordered the first video in the series.

On the video Steve gives a presentation of how he builds certain props. What I liked was seeing how they actually came together -- and there were a few extras included that weren't in the handbooks (like a gargoyle prop). It was good to see how he actually constructs his body forms.

For each of the props made, a complete materials list is provided and Steve shows each of the tools needed to build them. Aside from a power miter saw (which is really optional anyway) these are tools that just about every homeowner has in their house.

What I was really impressed with was his discussion and use of Monster Mud. As most know, Monster Mud has been around for awhile, but it really took off in popularity and usage following Steve bestowing the name "Monster Mud" on it. I've built a few props using the medium, but it wasn't until I actually saw Steve using it himself that I really (and finally) felt I had a good feel for it.

The video is very good quality and the haunting sounds playing as background fit the mood of what's being built. The editing is also smart and looks professionally done (Steve's credited with doing the editing, so bravo, Steve!). Of course I'd prefer a cheaper price, and some of the photos were tough to make out, which probably results from photocopying rather than printing, but I think they're still a good value and recommend them.

As I said I'm a fan of Steve's haunt and hope that one day I'll actually make it out to western Pennsylvania and visit.

Review: Devil

When I first heard M. Night Shyamalan was coming out with a new movie, my first reaction was...yawn! I haven't liked a movie of his since The Sixth Sense, and even then I was underwhelmed. At the time I didn't realize what the problem was but having been punished enough by sitting through a few of his films, I've found he has good ideas for movies, he just doesn't have the talent to complete them.

I actually had no intention of seeing Devil, at least not paying full price for it (and FWIW, I didn't pay this time either; Optimum's Triple Play gives you free movie tickets on Tuesday nights). Yet I heard that Shyamalan really had nothing to do with this film other than the concept. Cool! That's just what I could go for: a decent concept with a director who could pull it together.

As you've probably seen from the trailers, five people are stranded in an elevator one of whom is apparently the devil. It's a pretty good movie, not great, as it kept me entertained trying to guess who was who and why they were in the elevator.

There was a 2007 movie called Blackout, which wasn't a horror movie (more of a thriller) about three people stuck in an elevator and it's ultimately revealed one of them is actually a murderer. Told mostly in flashback that movie was actually a better film than Devil, but I enjoyed Devil nonetheless for the most part.

Like Blackout, however, you start off wondering how they're going to sustain a film for an hour and a half with everyone just stuck in an elevator, but they created enough suspense to keep you watching. I'm always left wondering though why these supernatural beings go through the process of killing everyone one at a time when they could just as easily taken the whole bunch out. And why does a malevolent spirit need to be creative in the way s/he kills a person? Can't they do it the same way each time? Of course, you wouldn't have a movie if that was the case, but it always jars me out of my willing suspension of disbelief.

In Devil there were no real scares. Only when the Evil One was ultimately revealed did anyone in the theater scream, but I'm actually not sure why. The ending of the film veered very close to the edge of a Shymalan buzz kill but managed to keep itself from going over. If you can't get to the movies, don't sweat it, you won't be missing all that much and renting it for $1 at Redbox is better than paying full price for it. It's an okay movie, just not a great one.

Brevity is the Soul of Wit

Well, after looking at that last entry, a little self-editing is called for in the future! I'll try to keep future entries under 5,000 words when I'm writing about myself. Sheesh!

But yesterday was the NJ/PA Make & Take and I finally -- finally! -- got my flying crank ghost completed. Okay not completed, but up and running. I still need to drape it in whitened cheesecloth and tweak it for movement when I set it up, but it's otherwise ready to go. Also got another tombstone completed but still want to fill up the yard with more.

Of course, I saw some props yesterday from my fellow haunters and now I have more ideas on my list. This coffin mailbox from haunter Tinman quickly moved to the top of my list.

Anyway, I'm going to keep this post brief since I ran off at the mouth (fingertips?) last time, but now's the time when I put the details to props and try to squeeze in some last minute quickies.

The Pause That Refreshes

Well, I don't know how refreshing it was, but I had to take a day off yesterday from all things haunt related to get my little workshop space in order.

From the time I moved down into the basement (for some reason, my wife didn't appreciate sharing the dining room table with assorted zombies, groundbreakers, and other creepy things), I've had to share the space with a big, honkin' oil tank (oh, about 500 gallons or so). This cast iron (?) behemoth took up a good 20% of the space I worked in and while there was a shelf built over the top of it, it really crowded me out of a good work environment.

Fortunately, or something like that, two years ago my oil furnace broke and I decided to convert to gas heat...but I still had an oil tank in my workshop, and it had about 250 gallons worth of oil left in it. After tracking down someone willing to pump out the oil, high on my to-do list was to remove the tank from its place. Yesterday was that day.

It seemed like it would be such an easy task to accomplish. I convinced my cousin that "all" we had to do was cut it up into pieces, toss 'em in the back of my pickup, and cart 'em over to the scrap yard. Ah, innocence! If the oil smell was enough to knock you out running through six or so Sawz-all blades was infuriating. I finally made a trip to Home Depot and got a blade that was meant to cut through 1/2" think iron. It was like sawing through buttah when we got back.

So after three or hours of toil, sweat, cursing, and abrasions we finally got the tank cut into manageable pieces and did fill up the back of my truck. Amazing how much home heating oil actually stains your hands. I've been scraping and rubbing and washing my hands almost nonstop and it's almost off. And if anyone's interested, the old tank was worth $31.20 at the scrap yard.

One upside to all this was that I found this really amazing product at the Depot designed to absorb oil spills. I had bought two big 40 or 50 lb. bags of an absorbent product at Walmart ($3.88 each!) that resembles kitty litter and the it did a great job of soaking up the residue that was left behind. I got two smaller 5 lb. bags ($3.99 each) at Sears Hardware to get the remains of the stuff the Walmart product didn't get (and a box fan to help get rid of the odor)...and still had to go to Home Depot (for those blades) and found this other type of Absorb-all. It was like a fine, white powder and I wondered how it was going to do anything. Well I was surprised because it did better than all the others combined.

The bag says 3 lbs. is like 45 lbs. of the other stuff and I believe it! It dried out the inside of the tank before we cut it up and got rid of some of the small drops that were left behind. Oil can work its way into concrete and you'll have a heckuva time getting rid of the smell. I'm convinced this powered absorbent is the reason my basement has no smell now.

It also does a great job of removing oil stains from woodwork AND it helped remove Great Stuff from my hands. Anyone who's worked with Great Stuff knows you want to avoid at all costs getting that stuff on your skin. It will stick to you and just about short of using a belt sander is needed to remove it.

In repairing the wall where the fill pipes had been located, I squirted some Great Stuff into the cavity in preparation for patching it up later with cement, but ended up getting it on my hands. I went to the bag of absorbent power, plunged my hands in, and rubbed them together. The Great Stuff was gone!

Short story long, I now had plenty of space in my workshop to actually work there. I scored a set of old kitchen cabinets off a Yahoo Groups site called Freecycle and installed the base cabinets and a set of small upper cabinets today. I'll pick up some 3/4" plywood soon and I'll make a bench top for the work area.

To celebrate my day off yesterday, I worked for a little while today on a pair of skeleton hands I've been experimenting with. I made the individual finger bones out of paper clay, inserted wire into them, and bent them into shape. I made a palm out of rigid insulation and hot glued it together.

Now that I've got more room in my workshop, I look forward to filling it with zombies and ground breakers.