Jeepers creepers! Spooky season is here and Thorold South resident Doug McIntyre is once again going all out with the Halloween display in his front yard.
“People kind of look for it and wait for it to see what we're doing,” McIntyre tells ThoroldToday. “I try to make everything by myself if I can. Most of the stuff that we've done is ideas we've seen on the internet.”
This is the 17th year that McIntyre is transforming his front yard into a haunted cemetery.
“We just redesigned it a little bit, put a couple of different items in different areas and tried a different layout this year,” he says. “Some of the tombstones were getting a little older so we'll make a couple new ones or spruce them up.”
This year has not been without incidents however. Earlier this month, one of McIntyre’s skeletons was stolen overnight.
“This one was near the front of the yard, just behind the fence that we put up,” McIntyre says. “He looked like he was digging the ground up to find bones. We got up one morning and somebody had taken it from the yard.”
It’s the first time that McIntyre had a piece of his display stolen.
“We’ve had kids at Christmas in the hedge, they'll take light bulbs and stuff for a joke,” he says. “That part doesn't bother me, I understand kids. But this is the first time we've ever had anything taken.”
Still, McIntyre says that the incident has not deterred him from going out all out for Halloween, as his house attracts a lot of trick-or-treaters.
“Our street has had a lot of turnover with house sales and there's a lot a lot of newer families and younger families,” he says. “So usually for the most part, we have around 200 kids at the house. I know last year was a little bit better than that, and then some years it's a little less but around 200.”
Unfortunately, McIntyre doesn’t really get to enjoy the fruits of his labour as he is volunteer firefighter with Fire Station 2. Every Halloween he goes down to the station to help hand out candy.
“We do Halloween at the fire hall,” says McIntyre. “This year we're going out into the subdivisions and we hand out bags of candy for the community that way. So normally, I'm not home for Halloween.”
But before he leaves for the fire station, he makes sure the scene is all set.
“I set everything up because we have smoke machines that go on Halloween and a couple of animatronics that I don't want out in the rain. So I set stuff up and then we'll go up to the fire hall and do our fire hall Halloween there and then come back.”
To check out McIntyre’s Halloween display, head to Cowan Drive in Thorold South.
