Episode 89-Halloween 24 Recap

Music. I'm Keone Hutton. And I'm Leslie Reid. Welcome, everyone, to the Haunting You Podcast. Happy December. Wait, not December.

Happy November. Happy Turkey Day. Happy something. Whatever. All of the days. Happy end of haunt season. How about that one? I don't know about the rest of the year. I did not do much for the haunt season this year, relative to what we normally would. I'm still exhausted. So all of you who were putting on haunts and just giving it your all, good on you. I am so proud of each and every one of you. I hope your seasons went well and

I hope your cleanup is going about as smoothly as it can. My yard at least looks good. My garage is a good show as I work to get everything packed up properly. But progress, right? Like the neighbors can't complain anymore at least. That's something. Take that. Have they ever complained? Wait a second. Were they complaining?

Not here. They have never complained here except for the one where we blocked where our guests quote-unquote blocked their driveway but you know minor complaints minor complaints and and to be fair very legitimate but it has been a while since we have been back with you just just talking i hope everyone enjoyed our campfire stories that came out on halloween if you haven't listened to it yet please go listen to it it's so much fun we had what the another dramatic reading

of a batman as john so enjoys we had it's my brand it is totally your brand the out we had some hp lovecraft we had some grim's fairy tales it was it's it's a lot of fun i still don't get the mouse thing don't don't overthink the mouse i'm sorry it's i i did want to ask less have you read any of the other other fairy tales from that ginsbury tales through some of the endings on some of them i'm i'm super curious if and that's

the thing i was super curious if like every story ended like that none of the ones that i've told so far like i'm gonna keep going because this makes no sense i also want to find a couple more translations and publications yeah yeah to see what the hell yeah exactly what is going on i have to imagine maybe it was like.

Euphemism is not the word i want what's the word i want a you know a phrase in a metaphor not not a metaphor no idiom linguistics idiom yeah idiomatic i wonder if it's if it's something idiomatic that just did not translate well but it's it's still got me scratching my head it's also you know again this was a much older translation yeah like but it makes the thing is it made perfect sense up until that point. Up until that point. Everything was fine.

And the way it's stuck in there, it kind of reminds me of the end of the ABC song. Now I know my ABCs, next time won't you sing with me. But at least in context, that makes sense. That's contextual. There's no game mice in the rest of that story. It's like if you ended the ABCs and then just move off on a story about a mongoose. It makes no sense. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So clearly it has flummoxed the three of us and we're still talking about it. You know, that's actually a good later.

Good thought. Go to our, go listen to that. Go listen to our Camp Fires episode and see if you can figure out what the hell is going on. And if you can figure out what the hell is going on, please let us know because two weeks later we're still talking about it and we're no closer to resolving this either. So if anyone can provide any assistance there, we would appreciate it.

But we did not give any kind of updates on the chaos during that episode. So everyone is over a month behind on where we are. And I have good news to report. We got all of our permits. It only took the better part of... Three months to get the permits cleared uh speaking of campfire stories once this is done have you ever thought about charting this whole thing it's like a an epic poem.

Cody's quest for permits no i'm already like i've already started drafting a letter to various government agencies to express my displeasure and let them know all the ways i think that they could improve their processes i know they're going to be ignored but it will at least let me feel better i just want to rant really is what it comes down to so let me let me kind of give in give some some of the backstory on how it

all happened so where we left off before we were we were waiting on the permits right and the contractor had recently let his license lapse and I had assumed the GC role because the county allows me to do that. So we finally get all of that settled and it took another week before the environmental office cleared the septic plan, which was very frustrating.

They told us it would take 10 business days and they took every single day that they possibly could, despite the fact that I was in there every other day trying to move things along. So we finally got that authorized and very same day. In fact, it was a Friday that we had been given. Oh, it was the Friday before Columbus Day weekend is exactly what it was because

we'd been given four hours off work. So I would left early and I was on my way down to the permit office to go bang on doors again to say, where are my permits? As I'm driving down, ping, my phone rings and there's the email popping up with the environmental has cleared my permit. Holy crap. Great. Now I can just shift my destination slightly. It's actually the same building. I just go upstairs instead of downstairs.

And I'm off to the building permit office. So I get to the building permit office and have a conversation with them. They tell me, okay, we got it. We can issue your building permit. We need you to pay the permit fee. Great. Here's my credit card. I'm sorry. We don't take credit cards. Check cash or check only. Because that's convenient. I'm a millennial. I don't know about the rest of my millennial brethren. I don't maintain a checkbook anymore. Does anyone?

Like, legitimately. I have checks. Therefore, when, oh shit, I have to pay something by check. Like this. And it doesn't live with me. It lives in a drawer. And usually 90% of the time, Alan and I have to run around searching for one of our three checkbooks. But like. Whichever one we find first is the one that gets used. Yeah. I move every two years. and you know what becomes absolutely useless after you change your address?

Checks because they have the f***ing address on it Not necessarily but a lot of people get very, I'm going to say sketchy about taking out of state checks because it has an address from another state Even though my bank account hasn't changed See mine don't matter because mine are all same state.

Mine are still addressed from the house I lived in when I was in undergrad. That's hilarious. But at least it's the same state. Since the last time that I had a checkbook, I had a checkbook in 2010 when I got my first apartment and needed a check to do like the security deposit and a couple of other things. That is the last time that I had a checkbook because every time I moved after that, it was not worth buying more freaking checks.

And anytime I have needed a check i would go get a cashier's check from you know walmart or not a cashier's check but a money order or you know something some other way of getting a check because, my bank active duty i use usaa usaa does not have branches except for their primary branch in texas everything is online you cannot get a cashier's check online so anyway all of that was just, That's all the background to cash or check, please.

Okay, where's the nearest ATM? They give me directions to the nearest ATM. I go walk over to the ATM, pull out the money that I need, walk back, hand them the cash. They count it out very meticulously, as they do, give me my change. They had to go searching for change, which I found kind of amusing. I'm not going to ask where they got it from. I got my change. That's all that matters. But they give me the permit right there that day, Friday of a long weekend.

I call up the contractor immediately Get, And I ask the government right there Can I put in the electrical And plumbing permits now Because you could not do those Without the building permit And they tell me no you cannot do that The tradesman has to do it Fine I called the I was going to say GC but I'm now the GC I'm the GC now, But The man formerly known as the GC i call him up and say hey have your trades people the electrician and the plumber

put in their permits now everything should be good to go so they get their permits in but it's too late because i was there at three o'clock they closed at four there was no way to get it before the.

The county closed well before the county closed for the long weekend so we were stuck until tuesday they started processing our permits on tuesday plumbing permit took a day one day to turn around the electrical permit they have one person who is reviewing all of the permits for the entire county residential and commercial one person it took two and a half weeks to get the electrical permit issued issued not even the inspection issued in that time we had the plumbing permit issued we had

the inspection he came out slam slap a sticker on my window plumbing passed great we got the insulation inspection done we got the building inspector out to check all the studs and things but he could not sign off on it because there was no electrical yet you gotta be fucking kidding me why did you even come then so we found a workaround and i want to recommend this to anyone who is going through renovations who are having the same problems we did. We were able to move forward on our.

Keep making progress by very deliberately choosing how we were making progress. Because electrical was the only thing that we were left waiting on, we had to keep certain walls open because they had to see where the wires are running to make sure it was all done within code, right? But you don't need walls open on two sides to look at wires. So we were able to sheetrock half of the wall, leaving the other side open.

And by doing that in i'm going to say very strategic locations we were able to maintain all of the walls open that the electrician and the electrical inspector needed to see, while closing up enough that we could do paint we could put down flooring we could do.

All of the of cosmetic i'm not exactly cosmetic but like railings and banisters and they were able to do most of the painting yes we have to do some touch-up paint but the majority of the painting done and that allowed us to maintain schedule while waiting two and a half weeks for this one person doing all of the freaking electrical that's unreasonable government of calvert county i'm just one of many things i'm going to complain

to you about having only one person and doing all of your freaking electrical submissions anyway we finally got the electrical guy out who signed off and over the last two weeks so electrical finally came out on, one to the 28th no not the 20th 25th he came out on the 25th of october so over the last two weeks we have been able to move forward completely unimpeded and holy have they accomplished a lot,

to both of the bedrooms are done the master closet is basically done so we're down to master bath. The guest bath and some stuff in the kitchen so all the cabinets are in the kitchen we have we're waiting on countertop still the countertop guy came out to get the final measurements on friday and if we are able to get all the countertops this week then we are on schedule to have everything wrapped up November 22nd. I am potentially two weeks away from this project, from this nightmare being over.

So, you okay? Do I sound okay? No. Not even remotely. We're not even honest here. But wait, wait, wait. So, that's just the main house, right?

Remember the other half of all of this that caused many of our delays? The septic system. So, we signed a contract with an installer to do this. and we were able to successfully apply for a grant through the state of Maryland to help pay for that. So I think we talked about earlier, 30 grand to do this whole septic install and the grant ended up paying 18 of it. Nice. Which is a huge freaking win. That got approved and we were able to get scheduled for the septic install.

It was supposed to start Veterans Day, November 11th, tomorrow from the day that we are recording. Today's the 10th but the unfortunately our new tank did not arrive in time and so that has been pushed a week it will now be starting on the 18th so septic is going to be installed on the 18th 1819 should take only two days our the rest of the project theoretically might possibly be wrapped up on the 22nd and we have our household goods delivery scheduled for the 25th of november Sure.

It's going right up to the fucking wire so you're saying it could possibly actually work out it could possibly actually work out we're still working on the assumption that it is not going to be done and we have identified all the locations that we are going to put stuff.

But so we have a plan either one way or like there's no pushing the delivery date at this point we're out of storage we do not have we don't have a way to to keep that out anymore it's coming on the 25th whether we're ready or not so everyone keep your fingers crossed that over the next two weeks keoni and his family do not like pull their hair out from going insane over all of this that is happening we're so close we are so close i have to tell an adjacent story real quick as well what were

you gonna say something john before i do no yeah you're good okay ashley's cousin reached out this is an older cousin a contemporary of her mom so like that generation but still cousin right and he said something along the lines of hey heard about all your renovating problems please let us know if there's anything that we could do right because, he had found our podcast listened to it and got the whole update on what was going on.

So bill if you happen to listen to this one as well just want to say hi thanks for reaching out and we really appreciate it but oh my gosh i was cracking up when ashley sent me that text i'm like how did he even find it i promise this podcast is not an ongoing crime for help, i was gonna say that's the comments that we're gonna be getting just like a little bit worried i i'm the outlier i'm not okay we're no it's all yes i'm not okay but we're almost there my concern is as

someone you know worked in the service industry with the county there you're dangerously close to becoming that guy i am dangerously yes in my defense i was that guy because they made me that guy you're being nice about it so i was i was at least not irate i was well there were some tears there was definitely some getting on my knees and begging and i am i am not too much like i am man enough to know i cannot win against the calvert county government like i recognize

that and i am willing to pull on every heartstring that i can to i was, it will work so much better than yelling tears will work so much better 100%, yep. Sorry I just since we're on a video call I know no one can see this but we're talking about if you're okay and you look like you just took a giant drag, I couldn't see the bottle well if only they could see for what it's worth it's a diet coke I'm not drinking tonight I may yet but I'm not right now.

Some of our best shows have definitely been when one or more of us were inebriated to some level everybody's a little bit tipsy, so that's what's happening in my life we are so close I'm, I'm optimistic I'm not optimistic that's a dirty little I am hopeful I am hopeful we're nearing the end, oh my gosh but at least like the crazy drama has for the most part ended and with septic being installed and everything else like if everything is able

to be wrapped up on the 22nd we can apply for our final inspection and then realistically have this completely done by december but by the first week of december so yes i can finally start looking ahead beyond what this is what this has been less john how have you guys been sleepy well leslie's eyes twitching. I'm keeping the scissors put away smart smart scissors, No, Alan, we got to have words. We need to talk to you. Oh, those are like, those are pointy. Damn it, Alan. Come on, man.

We've talked about this. Not really. These are the pointy ones. Oh, my. Those two sets. Oh, those are terrifying. They moly. Those are sharp. Yeah. Are you flipping us off? I was going to say, are you?

These are my sharp ones my other ones, leslie please do not go looking for all the scissors we don't have time for them we don't have time for you to find all the sharp objects in your house, we're not even in my house we're just talking my desk here's what you need to do go get the scissors, please collapse fortunately you guys are almost snowed in so at least you can't like get out and wreak havoc with those not yet where did you pull those out of holy.

Less it totally looked like you just like reached into a pocket of your jacket it did. Is Leslie just carrying scissors around I mean I can kind of see it oh my god I miss you guys that's not scissors nope it's better than scissors although it's kind of dull. Yeah, mine too. I need my toolbox. I might have my toolbox like next week, Friday. Oh, two weeks from now. I think for the most part, that's all the sharp pony objects on my desk that aren't knitting needles.

I don't know. Maybe it's like, you know, like the winter storm watch. I thought we could do the Leslie Sharp thing where we could expire, but that's her Halloween. Maybe we should extend that and just, again, make sure Leslie is not behind you. Glass pens are sharp. Did you say gas pen? glass pen it is in fact a glass pen, That's actually really pretty nice. Just make sure, just take a quick peek behind you.

Just in case. Watch out. Watch out for Leslie's. It's so worth the three seconds it takes. 100% worth it. Totally worth it. Yep. All right. Save your life. So what are we here to talk about today? Not Sharp Pointy Objects? Not Sharp Pointy Objects. Surprisingly, we're not here. You know, we could probably do a whole episode on Sharp Pointy Objects. We could do that. I don't know if people would want to listen to that, though. Because my dagger's around here somewhere, too.

Alan is not doing his job we gotta have a serious talk with your husband.

There was an agreement there was an agreement when he asked you to marry you that we made with him he is not living up to his end of the bargain, I'm not saying it's not reasonable to not let you have sharp things at all times but we need to at least put a limit limits, just limit the damage This is nowhere near that Come on guys, this is just by desk I know, that's my concern, The nice thing with Kay is Given the video, I can see if Leslie's behind you

So that I appreciate you looking out for me, You know, I'm in a mostly empty room There's really no place for her to hide, You checked I did check Are you challenging my skills at hiding? You may live to regret that That's the point Of course, there's no place for her to hide. She's on the other tile. She knows when you are sleeping. Oh, wait. Sorry. Next month. I'm a little early. Maybe we could create an entire show to having a Thanksgiving.

We could create a whole Thanksgiving monster like Krampus. I, on that note, I would totally unrelated, not totally unrelated. This is actually completely related. I was at there's this antique store in our town that i just absolutely adore they have some of the absolute wildest stuff inside but i stopped in yesterday picking up a christmas present and you know just looked around to see what new things they may have and this is what i found, It is a full-sized stuffed turkey.

And I don't mean like stuffed animal. I mean like taxidermy. They have a full-sized taxidermy turkey for sale in my favorite antique shop in Chesapeake Beach for only $125, by the way. That's not bad.

If they had a deer, I might have bought it for the haunt. See, the problem is I immediately wanted to make fun of you and call you an 87-year-old but i love antiquing i totally i prefer thrifting over antiquing but i always have to stop it at the store because they just get some of the wildest stuff it's teaching is so much fun i know how lame that sounds i get it you know what hunters hunters like looking for old unusual things like say it's kind of par for the course here it's 100 part for

the course but yeah the turkey seemed very apropos given you know it's november now i think with that sentence it's not like i did before but i couldn't get into any nightclub ever just from that sentence of saying i love antiquity i mean have you ever been into a nightclub i'll have one time yes same i have one time when thus how old are you college college yeah same thing i only went in college once i I had and it was super 21 and it was even at 21.

I was like, this was, this is loud. It's like $12 for one beer. I can't hear anything. I think I'm good. Yeah. The place where I got drugged to was in Providence. Yeah. Providence, Providence, Rhode Island and went with, you know, a bunch of friends from, from college. It was four clubs in one building.

Each club had was like a different style of music so it was like there was a country one there was a hip-hop one there was a electro electronic dance one i forget what the other probably a rock one but went with my ex-girlfriend was in the midst of all of this and it made it really awkward cheer oh so she was the ex at that time at that time she was next yeah, then this was this was crazy amanda oh less you remember her yep yeah was was

crackers was involved yes i'm pretty sure she was there as well those are the best stories.

Crackers says hi by the way i told her i mentioned you guys she's the best she is the best i need to give her her tools back because i need to make room in my garage because i have my shit coming now you stole that girl i borrowed borrowed she very how long did you borrow them august, this year yes of this year oh okay yes this year she found out what i was going through and very kindly lent me tools that i could you know build by haunt that we're actually going to talk about today

what we've accomplished in sanguine creek estates and yeah like that that's actually what we intended to talk about today we're we're going to talk about do our recap of halloween 2024.

Before i'm hearing a lot of a lot of rumors from the industry that this was a down year for most of the industry there were and that that's not uncommon for anyone who may have missed it it was an election year and anytime we have an election year come up attendance at haunts tends to be down because people get very focused on election type things right elections are scary enough we don't.

We're already having existential crises and we don't need you know people jumping out at us already exactly exactly so throughout the industry it sounds like it was kind of a down year for for everyone but that gives me great hope that things will pick up next year because really you got nowhere to go but up right escape well it's on a friday next year i believe, is on a Friday next year. Hold that thought. It's so much easier. Hold that thought because I want to talk about future later.

Let's talk about what happened this year and then we'll talk about next year afterwards. But hang on to that thought, John, because you're headed right where I want to go. He wants me to remember something. We'll give it a track. We did not accomplish near what we hoped we would accomplish this year. we wanted to haunt the holy hell out of Sandgood Creek Estates and did not get anywhere near that. I was able to get this crypt set up, incorporated a bunch of new ghosts in the crypt.

We did not create our own new ghosts, but HaloFX put out some new ones that I absolutely adored. I want to talk about them real quick, since I did. They had two new ghosts that I bought and incorporated into our crypt. One was called, I'm going to pull it up real quick so that I can talk about it. The way you had phrased that, I thought she had let you some tools after graduation. Legit. No, I think you stole those at this point. So, HelloFX had two new ones that I wanted to incorporate.

The first was called, they called the Caretaker, who was basically the Hatbox Ghost from Disney's Haunted Mansion. He's not actually, but he's basically the hatbox ghost. He has, he carries a lantern instead of a hatbox and his head jumps into the lantern. He's wonderful. I loved him. The other one was called the signalman. And if you picture like a 1800s train signalman, you know, carrying the lantern and everything you're, you're thinking along the right lines.

And both of these were super fun, super cool characters.

But i freaking loved the signalman because he was very similar to a character that we had in sanguine creek estates that my wife played and the way this character came about was my wife's my wife's a lawyer i have mentioned that before and so her top concern with any of my haunts is of course liability and people getting injured and so her way of mitigating that yes she is Her way of mitigating that was placing herself with a lantern in the graveyard,

the place where people are going to be walking through grass instead of walking on pavement to make sure that nobody trips or she's there to help them immediately if they do. Right. That's how she dealt with it. But she ended up being a signalman type character. She was dressed all in white, white wig, and was kind of an ethereal spirit guiding people through the graveyard toward the escape. and then the window came out of nowhere and threw the crap out of everyone. It was wonderful.

I think it worked beautifully but we had a signalman type character and so to have a signalman appear in the crypt that goes so beautifully with our own. Signalman type character I freaking loved it and if anyone from HelloFX is listening if you're willing to do a female version of the signalman I will buy it and some others will as well I'm sure. I'm going to reach out to them as well to talk about this for this reason because I bet they would be willing. But I loved both of those characters.

Highly recommend Halo FX all the time. We talk about them all the time. Some other new ones they had, they had a bunch of pirate ones, you know, pirate on the wheel, a pirate like trying to get new recruits. They had their own version of Jump the Shark where a shark crashes into a window. They have the caretaker playing an organ as well as the caretaker holding the lantern. And then... I talk about all the time how they have creepy stuff and they have hysterical fun stuff.

They have a skeleton playing a guitar to Highway to Hell, as well as Frankenstein's monster singing Highway to Hell. Nice. They're amazing. Come on, boy. They're amazing. So all kinds of new stuff from HaloFX. Go check them out, HaloFX.com if you want to. I adore them. So incorporated some of their new ghosts into our crypt. And I was able to set up the graveyard around the crypt and really tell the backstory of the haunt. I was super excited.

I incorporated some new elements that I had not before. I was able to get a bunch of corpse skeletons from another hunter here who was liquidating some stuff. So I got some corpse skeletons that were all over the graveyard. And then I mentioned on a previous episode that I bought a casket when I was up at the Southeastern Pennsylvania Halloween Flea Market. Surprising no one. Surprising no one. So I put the casket out in front and that was the collection bin for our food donations.

That's appropriate. I thought it was freaking perfect. And I'm going to do that from now on. That is going to be the collection bin from now on. I love that.

Guess how much food we brought in. for a couple hundred pounds so for perspective when we ran sanguine in 2021 the last time we did like the full walkthrough haunt we brought in 700 pounds that year okay 75, we'll stick with four do you mean 750 or do you mean 75 75 75 pounds yeah fair 10 yeah we brought and zero not a single donation i was close.

And pointing but it is disappointing back very little advertising time that's it and you're you are nailing it on the head the only advertising i did you know we put some pictures up on facebook on the same creek page we had a few people interact with them asking questions about what we would be doing. And so that made me think that, okay, a few people may come by and see it.

And so the week before Halloween was the only time that I was really advertising, hey, we have stories, come out, see the ghost stories, leave some food for the Southern Maryland food bank. And...

Do do some good for the community but i was only advertising for the seven day the like, halloween was what thursday this year so from the previous friday until halloween that was the only time that stuff was running and we were advertising for we didn't have the signs out the way that i have in the past because all those signs with my household goods and so there was very little directing people to where we are and we are in you know end of a very long cul-de-sac the cul-de-sac,

is three or it's about a third of a mile long like it's a very long cul-de-sac and we're not near our main road if there's not something directing people down to us they're not going to come that's why high school they didn't come what was that less it's like trying to find our high school yeah yeah it's absolutely it's like trying to find our high school it was buried deep in a residential neighborhood with nothing around it.

And a whole bunch of back streets and weird twisty things to try and get anywhere. Exactly. Not to mention all the speed bumps. Yeah. On the twisty zones. So it was disappointing but not surprising. And I definitely did not put the effort in that I would have normally.

Partly because we didn't have all of our stuff we didn't have a house the i was putting you know a ton of effort into getting the house back on track and so i didn't have a whole lot of time and energy to spare for my haunting efforts and as disappointing as that is to me personally and i like to think that it's at least a little disappointing to all of you but honestly you probably don't care about my life that much so i get it don't don't feel i do thank you john i'm glad you do.

So yeah it was a it was a bit of a disappointing year but yeah, There's no but. It was a bit of a disappointing year. There are a lot of reasons for it. You know all the reasons for it. And all that we can do now is move forward and make next year better. There wasn't a lot you could do. There was not a lot that we could do. Let's be real. And that's exactly what it comes down to. I don't feel... Life has to take priority. Life took a priority this year. It did. It did. Sometimes that happens.

And I'm optimistic that next year we'll be able to do much more.

So because we didn't do a whole lot this year that gave me a little bit of freedom to go do other stuff and so i got to like take my kids trick-or-treating which i always appreciate doing nice but i got to visit a home haunt in an elsewhere in maryland so prince frederick which is the closest city south of us has a huge neighborhood where my brother lives and the houses there are super tightly packed together you know it's one of those subdivisions and so the kind that i don't want to live in

but is absolutely ideal for trick-or-treating because the houses are super closely packed together they have a ton of kids and the whole freaking neighborhood gets into it like it's insane so we went over to his neighborhood for trick-or-treating after hitting all the houses on our cul-de-sac and one family set up a a home haunt and i stood in line for 45 minutes with my oldest to go through it and i have to talk about it real quick because they did some things that

i absolutely loved they also did some things that i did not love and i was taking notes as i was standing there in the queue. Because that's what I am. Of course you are. So the way this haunt was set up, it was at the end of a cul-de-sac and they had a big, long driveway that they used for the queue line. And then the entrance to the haunt was at the end of the driveway. Right. And they need to work on their line management because, oh my God.

God so one of the big problems that that they had they had the line going in and the line coming out all going on the same driveway and there was nothing to distinguish between the two and so people were just filling in all available space on the driveway sure leaving no space for people to get out and they kept having to bring people they kept having to have someone running the haunts come out and scoot everybody in the line waiting to get in over to one side so

that there was a path for people to get out so having the line right next to the entrance can work but you have to be able to clearly delineate what those paths of travel are and so like i think they could have solved it pretty easily just by you know stringing a rope down the middle of the driveway and a couple of signs enter that way exit that way stay out of the exit stay in the enter like i i think they could mitigate that very easily but also

have like they could have had a harley just going back and forth with the hammer and they could have had a harley going back and forth and occasionally whacking people like that an enforcer that's a viable option and actually that's what's not that making that is definitely one of the things i was thinking about like they. Had a massive queue for a home haunt literally I was standing in it for 45 minutes.

And with that kind of a queue I feel like you need some level of entertainment to keep your.

Not necessarily engaged but entertained while they're waiting so you don't want people to leave you don't want people to leave you want people to come in and and and go through it but you also want them to not be playing with your props and bumping into things and will you play with props maybe but like if they have something to pay attention to while all that is going on then they are less inclined to fiddle with things.

So having an actor, you know, you're a Q line actor out there interacting with people, startling people, messing with people is, is a good way doing something like I use by singing pumpkins in the Q line to give kids and even adults something to watch while they're standing in line. It's, it's entertaining, right?

Or you know spectral illusions has such a freaking great haunt rules video where a character like like picture the crypt keeper pops up yells at people telling telling them the rules and then disappears for a bit of the rules just pop up on the screen like sure something to watch really well it's really ai but something to watch while standing there waiting in the queue line, how okay so 45 minute queue line how long was the heart itself like how long did it take to get through

it was maybe five to seven minutes walking through okay and that might be a little bit long maybe it's close i think it was closer to five okay but like for a home haunt it was it was pretty solid i would say it was maybe half the size of sanguine's walkthrough the last one that we didn't but you know that one was what 1900 square feet 2200 square feet something like that.

But it was it was a reasonable size the other the other thing if you had to take a wild guess on what their final scare is what would you suspect they might use was there a overall theme or just general scarier there was not and i'll talk about that but no there was not an overall theme it was it was a little bit disapprovingly it was a little bit haphazard honestly all right but what do you zombie jump scare nope nope and i mean no it was not,

less any guesses most popular final scare i mean i have really across the board don't want to say it i mean my first thought would be zombie but john most popular i i don't want to i see it all the time oh never mind, I'll text it. But... Oh, chainsaw. Chainsaw. It was chainsaw. And having a guy with a chainsaw chasing people out when your exit is right next to your entrance kind of ruins the effect. You know it's coming.

Like, it ruined the effect a little bit. That's not to say my son did not let go of my hands, go taking off running the moment that he saw freedom and then the chainsaw guy come up right behind him and chase him all the way out. It still happened. It's just It still happened, but I'm just saying if you're like, that was going to be my first, everybody knew it was coming because it was right there. I mean, less that I would run. That would be it. That's my point.

Yeah. So their, their line management definitely needs some work. And really they had, they, they had some rules posted. They had no way of enforcing it.

And that showed up in a couple of places. the other thing their construction techniques need a little bit of help because it was it was flimsy and the number of people they had coming in or walking through and kind of messing with stuff was there was a lot of it and it made the flimsiness notable there were no problems with stuff getting knocked over or anything that I saw.

But there were like they had pillars right there at the entrance that were definitely falling apart by the time we got to it. So that's my immediate feedback. On the negative side. What about the... You mentioned the theme when I talked about it. Yeah. There was no theme. I was going to say. I wish the audience, I wish you could see his face. It was a little bit disappointing in that way. Here's the picture I was looking for. Halloween scary classic. It was classic Halloween scary.

It was not, I would say, there was no discernible story. I really enjoyed their branding though so the street that we were on was it's called kinsal k-i-n-s-a-l or kinsale k-i-n-s-a-i-l right kinsale court or kinsale place this is going. They made a sign like an arch over their doorway that said kinsale place in big black letters And then they took red spray paint and sprayed LL over the N and LL over IL. So it ended up saying kills all place.

And I love it. I love everything about that. It's perfect. It reminds me of Arkham when we had put up. Laughter was the best medicine. Yeah, with laughter was the best medicine. And then spray painted an S in front of it. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So the branding, no notes, perfect chef's kiss, impeccable. Absolutely love that. That was amazing. And right there at the entrance, they used a pop-up tent, very similar to the pop-up tents that I use.

But then it was open after that, which I did not expect. It started off making me think i was going inside but immediately transitioned into much more of a almost haunted forest walkthrough kind of thing and i enjoyed the juxtaposition i have to give shout out to the first actor not the one who was uh controlling the the line although he also deserves a shout out because absolutely nailed it he had us going in at the perfect pace so that I never ran into another group.

We did not have a group run into us. We got our own experience in the haunt, and I appreciated it. My son... What is a giant chicken? And he was clinging to my arm the entire time. There were times I had to like steer him around, but right at the very beginning, after leaving the enclosed tent part and we're out onto the trail, there was a dummy standing just off to one side as we're walking by.

And to make my son feel better, as we got up to the dummy, I like jumped at the dummy and growled at it.

Right. it wasn't a dummy but this actor absolutely fucking nailed it he took it without even a flinch perfectly still and as soon as we walked by came around behind us got up behind us and scared forward, absolutely nailed it sir how did you think that oh I saw him move so I knew it was coming my son did not and he flipped it was amazing oh my gosh i loved every moment of that that actor i had oh my gosh i want to give you so much props because you

just absolutely made my night absolutely loved it it's almost like they had a like having a food critic in your restaurant but you don't know it.

Though they have like a home haunting celebrity in their mix they had no idea they had no idea, so you know we went through a bunch of different scenes they had like a doll room set up they had probably five or six actors like it was fairly well staffed popping out of left and right but like i said there was not a consistent theme that i could find throughout just kind of spooky scenes, littered littered throughout this this trail and,

My son wet himself. He didn't actually wet himself. He may as well have wet himself for, for all that he was like, he did not handle it well. And we get to the end of it and the end, you can see the, the exit corridor, right? So he lets go of my hand and just starts running. That was the wrong move because the chainsaw man pops out. And because he's already running, he just goes running after him. It was good that my wife and son were out there.

My wife and younger son who did not want to go in were out there because she intercepted him. Otherwise, God knows where he would have run to. Yeah. Oh, but something else I loved that they did or they did or their neighbor did. Not totally clear. Somebody set up one of those inflatable screens and they were playing Nightmare Before Christmas on this.

For people who did not want to go into the haunt my son was sitting got to sit there on the grass watching nightmare before christmas under the stars it was perfect yeah i i think that's a great idea and i'd love to bring something like that into into ours potentially as well.

So go ahead you are not taking it easy on your son there absolutely not absolutely he was talking a big game like going in he saw the sign for it he's like dad i want to go we should we should absolutely do that like absolutely we're gonna do that and then as we got closer and closer to the entrance he's like i don't want to do this anymore i don't want to i don't want to go anymore i don't want to go dad dad i don't want to go and i'm

like well it's too late now you're in line you can't can't get out of the line the only way out is is through the through the haunted house he's like i don't want to i don't want to, i do not feel bad no i can sense that, i can tell although he has not forgiven me yet to this point he has not yet forgiven me for dragging him through will he go through another haunted house ever again this this is just all good fodder for future therapy.

You know you're supposed to try not to mess them up i know you will but i think you're supposed to try you've put in some effort i am making him a stronger adult i think i have or i'm completely breaking him honestly i'm not sure which based on the number of head injuries my but then i think i have the opposite problem you do right but like this is parenting isn't it we we don't know how we're going to damage our children the best we can do is make them functional humans in

spite of it it's going to happen some way one way or another. Exactly. Speaking of which, I hear a lot of crashing and begging happening in their room, and I need to go yell at them for a moment. So let's take a quick break, hear from our sponsors, and then we can talk about where we want to go from here. Music.

Show would be well much more broke i was like not as well funded now that we're particularly well funded anyway but at least it's mostly paying for itself it's paying for itself and you know we get not paying for us luckily we're cheap but information on all of the new things that come up and all of the new products that they come out with which are truly amazing and delightful and perfect for everything that we do and if

any of you have word that you want to get out to a group of dedicated halloween enthusiasts please reach out to us because we would love to show you all the ways the hunting you podcast can get your message out to our listeners and we know we know people we do know people and help us keep the show going as well which is greatly appreciated, i didn't want to bring it up on i did have that issue where i haven't received a paycheck in like.

Ever ever ever have we been doing this for six years I think we haven't I don't know I made the number up but I think that's about right it may be seven I think it's closer to seven, it's even more egregious indeed well because we started it when you went to we started it, yeah in I think we started it in 17 so yeah I think it's been seven years summer of 17 yeah I can't be sure of that because we switched over from Stitcher to Podbean in the midst of that.

And so I don't know when we uploaded our initial episodes. But I think it was summer of 17. Yeah, it's been seven years. Can you guys believe we've been doing this for seven years? We had Leslie on as a guest at one point. Yeah. What a recurring guest you've been. Yeah. Maybe one day you'll actually get rid of us. Well, so much so that very nice woman who did our profile for that magazine, but I've only listened to the first three or four episodes where Leslie wasn't on.

I went back and listened to an episode right shortly after that and our discussion about how we got slighted was was wonderful it was a lot of fun it was a nice trip down memory lane it's a great article you may have didn't talk about leslie it was that small detail.

Exactly i get it if you show this into the first year or four i mean that that's accurate like at that point leslie was not a but she was and i'm forgetting her name at this point, but she was very nice and offered to rewrite or to do a... No, she did a rewrite, didn't she? She didn't do a rewrite. She gave us a full three-page spread. That's what it was, yes. We went from a one-page under-the-radar podcast to a full three-page featured podcast, which was kind of cool. That was fun.

Shaming works. Get the heck out of them. Go check it out. You'll see us several years ago. I was going to say it's three or four years ago. The first episode on iTunes shows as September. I'm sorry, July 1st, 2017. Okay. That, that actually is when I, I think we were starting. So yeah, seven, seven years, seven years. I'm pretty sure you're our HR, dude. That's our problem. Leslie's finance. I'm operations. That means you're HR. But anyway, back to the show.

Okay, why do you want to work for this company? Because I love Halloween and I love sharing that passion with... I have some questions for you. See what happens when we put John in charge of HR? Yeah, that was a mistake.

You want the truth i remember about 40 minutes ago you asked me to remember something but i have no idea what the hell it was well it was uh what day halloween is in 2025 because, halloween 25 is really what i want to talk about for the rest of the podcast i also remembered something the question what um so what grade would you give what yeah what grade would you have given the home our hunt the the one you went to the whole hunt that we went to yeah i would give it a solid b plus okay like

it was a it was a good experience the actors were had lots of flexibility in what they did they provided a a good scare and while the construction certainly could use some work the overall experience was a lot of fun and it was more fun than i've had in even some professional haunts. Okay. I was going to say, I feel like you rated professional haunts lower. I was going to say, it was a higher quality than any of the haunts that I went to at Universal.

That is both wonderful for them and an indictment on Universal. Yes, it was meant to be an indictment on Universal. Take notes, Universal.

That's right. So oh oh there's one other thing i wanted to talk about because you know haunt season is over and we are branching out me we being my family uh branching out and uh experiencing some things so there is a traveling show going around that came to our area relatively it was two hours away but worth it totally worth it called harry potter a forbidden forest experience it's it's in leesburg virginia right now and through like for a few weeks and i think

there's another one in austin texas there's one in montauban france and these things it travels around it's put on by warner brothers and you literally end up walking through a forest at least here we were walking through a forest and coming to all of these scenes from the books and movies where where the forbidden and forest. Acts as a location or acts as a character to the story that is happening. Right.

So like they had a number of different scenes set up, like from the first movie where Harry and Draco encounter Voldemort drinking unicorn blood in the forbidden forest during their detention. They had one with just Hagrid exploring the forest. We go into Aragog, the spider's den, and are surrounded by all of his children. And just all of these different scenes from the books and movies that take place in or around the Forbidden Forest. And the entire experience was so much freaking fun.

Now, one, I'm a giant potterhead. My children are giant potterheads. My wife is a giant potterhead. We love the Harry Potter franchise, the movies, the books.

And my children have gotten very into it over the this really since the summer when we listened to all the books as we were making our way across the country listen to the audiobooks right and so they were well primed and i think even for people who are not giant potter heads you would still enjoy this experience it cost about a hundred dollars for the four of us maybe a little bit more with parking but it was worth every freaking penny so after they scanned

our tickets we walk in into a courtyard where they have themed food offerings. They had, because it's getting into winter and kind of cold, they had all kinds of hot chocolates. Themed hot chocolates based on the four houses. The Slytherin one was like a mint. There was a caramel for Hufflepuff. There was a vanilla for Ravenclaw. I forget what the Gryffindor was. It'll be cinnamon. I think you're right. I think it was cinnamon. And then if they're racing this off of colors.

Then clearly Gryffindor has to be Mexican hot chocolate. Clearly, clearly. But they also had a mulled wine that actually tried and really enjoyed. And of course they had butterbeer. They only had cold butterbeer, which I was a little bit disappointed about because the hot butterbeer would have been perfect last night because it was chilly, but it was still great. And there in the courtyard, they had a roasting marshmallows station where we could pay.

They would give us three foot long sticks with three marshmallows on the end. And then they just had basically a fire pit set up with little propane burners to roast the marshmallows over.

It was freaking genius like my kids loved it they even gave us little containers of themed sprinkles based on houses so you could you know put colored sprinkles on your on your marshmallows and like it was so freaking entertaining they loved it and it was such a great idea i thought that was great so all kinds of food and drink offerings all themed But then you actually walk into the forest and it was beautifully lit.

Lots of floodlights shining up into trees and every single tree along this walkthrough was illuminated in different ways. They had moving headlights, they had color-changing lights, and all of it was synchronized to a soundtrack that was playing through the different areas to animate and illuminate the scene that they were setting. So, like, the first scene that we come to is... Harry and Draco and Fang in the Forbidden Forest when they come across Voldemort drinking the unicorn's blood, right?

I'd just like to point out. Go ahead. Little sidebar. Nobody's allowed in the forest. But if you get detention. You're going in the forest. Anywho, carry on. Yeah, I have always enjoyed that.

It's okay, Les. damn mouse exactly exactly but yeah so all the trees are illuminated and there is audio from the movies playing over the soundtrack as is animating the scenes some of the scenes had actual animatronics some of the scenes were just dummies static scenes but each one was very detailed very well done and drawing from all different parts of of the stories.

And they had like i cannot emphasize enough the level of care that they put into developing these scenes and the detail that they put into it and the fact that this is you know a mobile show that is being set up in a different location i was in awe of the level of care that went into it considering the fact that it was that it is a mobile show it was very impressive, they had a couple of spots that were very cool where it looks like they actually

set up screens so like we could actually see a glowing unicorn walking through the trees back and forth, and it was very cool sounds like it's very very thought out and well done it was incredibly thought out but what got me aside from you know so I'm just going to scroll through the scenes real quick you know we talked about the unicorn they had the the fort angela Angela, the flying car that ron and harry steal to get to the school that it becomes

wild and running through the forest they had lights set up so that it was like the headlights of the car racing or flying through the trees which is super cool and then an actual like static.

Version of the car that you could take pictures with they had i mentioned aragog's forest and the weight or aragog's burrow where all the spiders were and the way they set it up is they actually put a scaffolding in the middle of the forest and then put camo netting on the inside with spider webs to, to create a tunnel, a more enclosed space that you have to walk through and, and illuminated from the outside. So you're getting just weird shadows and, and colors. Yeah.

Shining through the minetting it was a very cool effect that i'm 100 doing here next year i thought it was cool as i'm walking through it i say to my son my chicken son we have to do this at our house this is so freaking cool and he agreed even he agreed but then like we walk through and get into the actual spider's den and dangling from all of the trees around us are spiders the size of my dog like enormous freaking spiders and then you come up to a like mound of sticks and things

and this was the first time that we saw an actual moving animatronic so everything had been static up to that point set an expectation that everything would be static until we get to the giant freaking spider which starts coming out and talking to us and it was freaking freaky awesome it was awesome it was really and this spider was not joking the size of my car like enormous freaking animatronic out there in the middle of the woods loved it absolutely loved it.

Then we visited hagrid's hut they had a bunch of the magical creatures from when hagrid was a teacher so we had blast-ended scroots we had hippogriffs we there was actually an animatronic hippogriff where you could go up and if you bow to it properly then it would bow back to you like it interactively like this this hippogriff was interactive and then they even brought in a bunch of creatures from that we don't see in the movies at all they get talked about in the books but

we don't really see in the movies until the fantastic beast saga so they had nifflers they had bow truckles they had an absolutely freaking beautiful snowy owl perched up on a on a branch beautifully illuminated she was fantastic that you could take pictures with pygmy puffs and freshly released cornish pixies in fact the cages from the movie were there all snapped open and the cornish pixies He's just going crazy out in the, in the middle of the woods.

But then we get to a sign that says guests should take particular care on the trail during full moon cycles. And we see off in the distance, a full moon coming out from behind the clouds and we hear, werewolves howling and the, oh my gosh, the way that they set this scene up was spectacular. Looking back through my pictures, I think they have a like, for lack of a better word, a cardboard cutout.

I'm sure it's probably plywood or something else, but it's basically a 2d cutout in the shape of the werewolf that lupin becomes and they illuminated it from behind giving you just the shadow of the werewolf that's awesome with all of the audio from that scene in the movie lupin did you take your medicine and and the howling and like it was spot on gave me chills watching it it was absolutely spectacular and the image of this monstrous

creature illuminated from behind just in a shadow was so freaking cool that leslie we have to do this with a windigo, it looks amazing and i don't know if they had a fog machine or if it was just a little bit foggy that night, but you had a bright light behind it with the fog and it along with the sound effects. We have the technology in my garage right now, or at least two weeks from now when I get my household goods, we could do this.

I think we need to do this. Then we got to a Dementor scene where they actually had Dementors strung up into the trees over us flying around and they used the audio from the third movie when Harry... And Sirius are being attacked by the Dementors. And Harry has gone back in time and cast his first Patronus to chase them off. And he thinks this is his father. That is the scene that we're walking through here. And same thing.

They used a white cutout of a stag and illuminated it just absolutely blindingly brilliantly as it came up. And they had multiple lights running with it. So that, you know, he goes expecto patrottom and you, it starts with light from behind so that you just start to see the shape of the stag and then they hit it with a light from the front. So it's this brilliant blue, white color off in the trees. And it was spectacular. It looked amazing.

And it's done with a freaking static 2d sign and lights like it was amazingly done and so simple any haunter could pull it off keep it simple stupid keep it simple stupid you don't have to be complicated you don't have to be even like technologically advanced to pull off something absolutely spectacular and this was a beautiful example of that i thought it was wonderful.

Go check out our instagram at hunting university i am putting all the pictures i took up on there you'll be able to see for yourself just what it looks like absolutely loved it so so some other scenes after the Dementors. Oh my gosh. So right in the middle, they had a... Kind of a break in the storytelling that they were doing where they had a few stations set up where people could practice their spells and it was interactive.

So the first one was a Lumos spell where, and like the way they had these set up, they had basically a sign with the spell on it. So you knew what to say, and then you put your arm out and cast your, you know, cast a spell over the sign. and there's a sensor on the other side of the sign that sees you that triggers some kind of effect on the other side. The Lumos and a brilliant white light shines up out of the trees on the opposite side.

Or you do... They had another one with Nox, which puts out light and a whole field of illuminated mushrooms that got put out when you did Nox. Or... Coloveria, where you could actually change the colors of all of these mushrooms that are there in a raid in the field in front of you. Oh, and Incendio. They had a whole bunch of lanterns set up where you do Incendio and it lights all of the lanterns in order. Oh, my gosh. It was beautiful. And it was interactive.

It was entertaining. It gave the kids something to really look forward to doing. It was super cool.

But then so after that we get into like the the goblet of fire and the triwizard tournament there's a whole section of the trail that are that have all of the banners from bobaton bobaton academy and durmstrang and hogwarts and the songs from like the school songs are playing as you're walking through each one with very uh dedicated speakers so like there was very little overlap between the sections, I was impressed. It was very well done.

But then we get into the Triwizard Tournament, so they have a Goblet of Fire right there with the line that Dumbledore drew, the age line to keep people out, all done with lights. They had the egg with the merpeople clue. They're playing the song. They had a whole section of the dragons in crates and one ginormous crate with a hole in it, the dragon's face on the other side with a moving eye looking around and the tail sticking out of another hole in the crate.

Every so often, you know, you would get a big flash of red light as it's breathing fire.

Was it was awesome we ran into gropp hagrid's brother out there in the middle of the forest impressive it was very impressive and then got into the dark part of the forest where really book six and book seven uh the darkness really starts to come in and creep in right yep ran into death eaters and we we never saw voldemort himself but that that whole section was super creepy it was it was very cool but the highlight was the end of the of the trail where people could cast their own patronus.

They had two stations set up where you would walk up on you know climb up a. Short thing of stairs onto a platform expecto patronum right and then they had a massive see-through screen hallucin screen set up there on the other side with a projector that as people would do it i think they had a a worker there triggering a video where and then you would have a bunch of different patronus animals get projected up on the screen and bounce around on the screen a few times before disappearing

nice one i have the technology to do that oh no two it was super interactive it was super easy to do like we can do something like that it has it has to be in line with our story but we can do something like that so there's a couple of things that i really like about just kind of what you're telling me one of which is there's a lot of things that home haunters can take away from it as evident by you know super excited to keep

it simple stupid now yeah they have budget they have all of these things but the practical applications of the basic effects are relatively straightforward yes and three as someone who has gone to so many events and things as a child, only to find all of the interactive pieces broken. I love the fact that there is not something that you can actively or easily break on all of the interactive activities.

So you're not having something set up and then having, you know, the one asshole go through and break everything. So that's really nice. You're not actually touching anything. Anything. Which is super interactive, but you're not actually touching it. So the chances of your guests breaking it are slim to none. Oh my gosh, there was a duel Station set up Where Luca, my oldest And I got to duel each other And And I won.

They give you special wands And you touch the wand To a. An led bar that's set up in a zigzaggy kind of a zigzaggy pattern. So as you touch it, it illuminates a different color for each of you. And then it like the color fights its way back and forth a few times before disappearing. It was super freaking cool. I loved it, but same thing. They, they gave us special wands that interacted with this thing.

I'm not totally convinced you needed it. Like it may have been a magnet switch or something to, to trigger it or something like that. But, yeah, it was so freaking fun. I want to incorporate so many things that we saw there into our haunt next year somehow. I don't know how yet, but we're going to dedicate an episode to figuring it out. Because I so want to make our haunt more interactive. I am so inspired by this to make our haunt more interactive.

And again the it can't necessarily be easily broken by an asshole yes crucial yes and i want to like what has been kind of a big takeaway for me for for this halloween was having something for people who don't want to go through the haunt who are too afraid to go through the haunt who have family who wants to go but they don't want to go whatever i want to have something for them.

And one i think we can do that with like the terror tap ghost system that that i picked up at fear expo and is with my household goods and we were not able to use this year super annoyed by that so i think i think that's one way we can make our our make the estate more interactive right but i think there are other things that we can do as well and incorporating uh you know simple controllers from either fright props or purgatory props along with media players

that are triggerable i think we can do some really cool things for not a lot of money and so i want to do some brainstorming over the next few episodes and kind of come up with ideas for that and ways that we can make our haunt more interactive because oh my god i'm inspired right now well and it is great it is nice to have those other options for you know again people who don't necessarily like going through haunts

or hey i don't need the nightmares tonight so i'm gonna pass on this one or yeah i'm, five years old and this was a terrible life choice that my parents took me here.

Those types of things you know my my kids and i have talked about doing like a lemonade stand kind of thing during our haunt and maybe not lemonade necessarily but maybe hot apple cider hot cocoa you know something like that that i think my kids would be perfectly willing to stand out there and serve and perhaps make a little bit of money off of yeah yeah 60 dollars.

Especially with that like all you need is like the packets and then hot water exactly exactly did i tell you guys about the last time my son ran a hot or a lemonade stand, it was while we were doing a garage sale getting ready to move right so you know clearing stuff out like hey we'll set up a lemonade stand and they can make a little money well my son ended up making a fair amount of money because he didn't fully understand

what change was and so people would give him like five dollars he'd be like thank you for the tip and keep it and people would not question him because they felt bad and they're like well i guess you're getting a tip now, that's an excellent business brilliant that is brilliant what you're saying is make a child your front man make a child your front man because no one will question him that's genius, but especially to turn that into a thank you for the tip Exactly.

Like no one. I'm acknowledging that what you gave me is more than what you owed, but I'm assuming that you're just giving me a tip. You're just looking straight at the face. Like I know. Oh my gosh. It was hilarious. That's brilliant. But yeah. So as John mentioned earlier, Halloween this year is a Friday. And what I have consistently found is people do not come to my house on Halloween. That is well documented over the last several years that we have been here and

set something up. Right. So I'm a little bit stuck because I don't know. Are we better off opening the haunt the weekend before or the weekend after? Yeah. I think before the interest may go down at me. I think depending on capability, why not both? Why not both? Both would be ideal. Because, and here's the, let's call it logic. Before you get all the pre-work, all the run up, et cetera. But after, especially was you're going to, you know, pushing in towards the, for collecting food.

Hey, it's November now. Donate of Thanksgiving. But also just as a, hey, wind down, final hurrah. You guys have already gotten your candy. Why don't you come in and, you know, extend the Halloween spirit, especially since it's a Friday, Saturday. Especially because it's a Friday. That's it. Like, my thought is we do trick-or-treating on Halloween. And then Saturday, Sunday after Halloween, we're open. Collecting food and letting people want.

I think... I think it could work. I see very little downside. That's it. I mean, what's the downside? People don't come. Well, we had no people come this year. We got nowhere to go but up. I think it's because I'll be honest. When you said, well, nobody comes to my house on Halloween. It got me thinking you were going to say something about, well, then you get into, as we discussed from that book, a giant weenie costume. As the HR for the podcast. I don't think that's a good idea.

I appreciate that. 100% appreciate that. I have some ideas on ways that we can... Well, I mean, obviously, if we do any more advertising, we will likely get more people to come. And I have some ideas on things that we can do to increase that advertising, increase our reach next year. But if we're starting from...

Now we have the time to do that which we did not have this year so i think it's perfectly reasonable to accomplish for next year and like i kind of love think it's an elegant you may be right john maybe we do both the weekend before and the weekend after well i think i was leslie's idea but, yeah you're right it was lost i apologize but i think remember you just made an hr person who agrees with theft. Theft is now corporate policy.

It's a rational idea. It was probably Leslie. Well, here we are. So this is where I want to go for this year. So go ahead, Les. Finance is going to overwrite it because I don't want to have to fill out the paperwork. Nice. Nice. So this is where I want to go for this year. We've got, you know, it's November 10th. We have 355 days until next Halloween, 354. And so we've got plenty of time to plan this. I think we can execute.

So that's where we're headed. And over the next several episodes, that's really what we're going to be doing.

We're going to be talking about the planning process for Sangria Creek Estates 2025. 25 and i hope all of you come along on that journey with us john why don't you give a round up of our social media you can find us all of the places you can find us on facebook facebook.com slash haunting you instagram haunting university we're on there we post a lot of content there youtube is just haunting you for yes it is i remember correctly so we have a good youtube channel you can

you can find the podcast anywhere where podcasts are are said you can do apple podcast google podcast audible spotify you can find us anywhere on there if you want to help the podcast just boost us a little bit give us a review good bad tell us what you like what you didn't like tell us what the hell that mouse was doing in the story somebody tell us some good feedback the best thing you can do to support the podcast if you don't want to give us money we we

will take it if you want to give us money but if you don't want to give us money leave a review give us a give us five stars ideally but any amount of stars honestly will make it easier for others to find us so go whatever podcast app you're listening on leave us a review we would greatly appreciate it and we'll take the time to read it and laugh and smile and we really enjoy hearing your feedback as well we may give you a shout out we may

give you a shout out especially if it makes us laugh yep all right what did we forget anything. Well, the other thought I had with doing it after into technically November is we could tweak a couple of things just in terms of, I don't know. We could tweak some things to make it, you know, more November-y instead of October-y. Zombie turkey! Zombie turkey! There will be no zombie turkeys. There might be zombie turkeys. You already know where to find one. There might be zombie turkeys.

It's right there! It's relatively reasonably priced. not to steal from universal but having a human on the table with the turkey family eating him, still my favorite haunted thanksgiving love it it's one of the few things that i love about halloween fortnights.

Anyway we're just we're just making the holiday transition from halloween yeah exactly and you know once hell freezes over we'll do another one into you know the holidays, we could do this as a we could do this as a theme like but i'm what i would really like to do is zombie arbor day zombie arbor day yes i'm thinking is it going to be zombie trees yes, zombie i approve this plan yes maybe we have a tip for trademark and popular reasons we probably about called events accurate but we can find a

way around that we always do all right i think that is a good place to leave it for today uh definitely come check us out on all the socials john mentioned subscribe to the podcast you can be notified every time that we release a new one and in the meantime we will see you all back in december hope you have a wonderful thanksgiving or if you're you know not in the country hope you have a wonderful november anyway Zombie Boxing Day,

Zombie Boxing Day From all of us here at Haunting You Happy Haunting, Happy Thanksgiving We will see you next time Bye, We are incredibly grateful. Music. Out the websites chamberofhaunters.com fear expo live.com and vfx creates.com check out our website haunting you for more information on everything that you do We'll be right back. Music.

Haunting You is a production of the Rocky Mountain Home Haunters, LLC. All audio clips and sound effects are used under a Creative Commons attribution or public domain license from Purple Planet Music at purple-planet.com or the Soundbible at soundbible.com. Please see the show notes for more information on all the clips used in this episode. Yay! Music.