How Did you get started?

[Haunt enthusiast]

I'm just curious to see how you all got into haunted houses and haunting? For me it was probably about 5 years ago when I went to my first haunt.

[Funny Bones]

i got started way back in 1986, a friend took me to "volunteer" at a Jaycee haunt for credit for school, and i never left.

They put me in a closet dressed in black, told me to do something scary when people came through, the first poor person through was a large lady that lost bladder control...

The next day i went shopping for a clown costume and gave my work notice. Twenty years later i still get a charge everytime i hear someone say "i'm gonna pee"

[thehauntedhollows]

Jaycees with me too! First i went to the haunts, and i thought they were awesome, and it was even cooler when i volunteered for them. Now i own my own haunted house. I call the love for haunted houses "The Haunted House Curse" HA HA

Yup, it was those darn Jaycee's. I showed up to go through the haunt but the line was three hours long. I noticed they had some major parking problems so, I grabbed a mask that I had in the back of my car and started directing traffic for them. The guy who was running the haunt came over and introduced himself and thanked me. Then he asked me if I wanted to come back and work inside the house the next night. The rest is history.

Hey Funnybones, you look familiar. Do I know you from somewhere? LOL!

Howie "Slobber" Erlich
Deadly Intentions Haunted House
www.deadlyintentionshaunt.com

[Mr. Malice]

I had a friend that did the March of Dimes haunted house back in '93. He brought me out to meet some of the people and the next night I went out to meet a few more. The man in charge comes to shake my hand and says, "we open at 7pm tomorrow night so be here by 6pm." I had no idea what I had gotten myself into but after that night 'ooga booga' was in my blood and has never left.

[SpFXChic]

Yep, I started with the Jaycee's, too. Good times, good times.

[Xeverity]

As a wee whipper-snapper my parents would decorate our door area for the trick and treaters and I would don a creepy costume and man the candy station.

There were no professional haunts in my area but once I knew these existed and visited them I knew that I wanted to grow and grow my home haunt until I could turn pro.

I didn't turn pro fast enough - even as an amatuer I had people giving me things wine, cake, treats, money etc.

Also when you have 300 hundred people turning up at your house and are daisy chaining extension leads on a 240/400 volt system in order to operate all the lights and foggers lets just say its time to move it somewhere more safe and set it properly before you burn the house down.

[Zombie]

That is a definate.

We started as any normal house on halloween, but that wasnt good enough. We thought we could use more flare! Soon we began to buy more and more props, costumes, prosthetcs and special FX.

Eventually, i'm still not sure when, we became "That haunted house in Braman", now known as "The Haunted Hideout". Still free by the way except for the novelties we sell. Next year that will change but ill get into that later.

Zombie

[haunter112]

My church use to have a yearly Halloween party. My dad and I use to decorate one of the sunday school rooms into a SPOOK-HOUSE.

It wasn't much... just some black plastic, a strobe-light and Disney's Sounds Of The Haunted Mansion playing on the phonograph. It was always a big hit anyway.

We did it from 1975 to 1987.

I started helping out at the local Jaycees haunt after that.

[MindWerxKMG]

Jaycees for me too. Worked as an actor at the North Hill Jaycees Factory of Nightmares when I was in high school. Worked with the Jaycess in Millington TN for a couple of years and now I own my own haunt in Memphis.