How to Haunt your House for Halloween --- the Cheap Ghost's Guide!

Halloween is big business - surpassed in holiday related sales only by Christmas. While prices for some Halloween house decorations are downright scary, for short money you can make your house a fright night scene that will be the talk of the neighborhood.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Jack O'Lantern
• blacklight
• costume
• plastic vampire bats, etc.
• proximity to discount department stores, dollar stores, etc.

1. You don't have to be a ghost to haunt a house. Think you don't have ghost of a chance of decorating your house for Halloween on the cheap? Think again. The talk of the neighborhood trick-or-treat set is my Halloween haunted house - even though I don't usually have a witches' cauldron full of money to spend on decorations.
   For a bare bones budget of under $35, you can create some great Halloween atmospherics! Start out with a black light (under $10 at Walmart), carve a pumpkin (cheaper at supermarkets than at garden centers) and a pick up a tape or CD of Halloween music and/or eerie sounds (2 or 3 bucks in convenience stores) and you're on your way. You can even record your own music! My home-produced tape includes thematic music from such old and new favorites as "Ghost Whisperer", "X Files", "Dark Shadows", "Fright Night" and "The Nightstalker". Check your local anything-for-a-buck discount stores for such paranormal paraphernalia as plastic bats, skulls, etc.; many of which will light up and/or make sounds. My under-$3-find-of-this-year is a plastic skeleton, which when its heart is pressed, makes a doorbell sound, its backbone lights up several different colors and he sings a few bars of "I Ain't got Nobody" -(get it, no BODY?) Stuff some old clothes with newspapers - add masks, hats, etc. to create scarecrows and monster scultures. Dry ice is tricky to find, but inexpensive - and when you put it in a dish of warm water it will create an eerie fog! Don't forget to wear a costume - even a cheap pair of plastic fangs and some fake blood and voila, you're a vampire - (or at least a performance artist wannabe)!
2. No, MY picture's at the top of the article! This maniac is made from a mask, fake eyes and hand and a plastic sword. If you have a few extra boo bucks, you may want to occasionally splurge on some more elaborate items. A 3 foot tall noise activated ghost "flies" along a wire while shaking its arms and moaning in my front yard. Another recent acquisition is a bat which flies in a circle with red light-up eyes. You might consider replacing your dry ice and warm water arrangement with a fog machine.
   Even better: wait until the week after Halloween when stores slash their prices faster than Freddy Krueger slices and dices unwary teenagers - and save your boo-ty for next year.
3. Wrong way witch was wicked cheap at the local bargain basement store. Over the years, you'll acquire new things to supplement your collection - as well as weeding out the stuff that breaks or doesn't work so well. When friends and relatives realize how bats-in-the-belfry you are about the holiday, Halloween-related presents may follow - like the two skulls I got on my last birthday that talk to each other, make scary music and have light up eyes. Before you know it, your house will look like a transplant from Transylvania!

Tips & Warnings

• Dollar-type stores are great resources for stocking up on staples like batteries, flashlights, extension cords, candles and different colored light bulbs.
• Circuit breaker/surge protectors will allow you to plug multiple electric gadgets when your outlets are limited.
• Other HOW TO articles by this writer: Collect Presidential Campaign Buttons, Make George's Special Homemade Mac and Cheese, View and Photograph a Wild Moose, Keep a Betta Fish, Photograph your Pet Bird, Feed Live Brine Shrimp to your Aquarium Fish, Photograph Wild Seals.
• While most kids LOVE the zaniness, the really little ones may be scared to approach. I'll sometimes walk to the sidewalk and hand them their treats, or let their older ones take extras for their younger sibs.