Homemade displays bring Halloween scares to communities throughout Lorain County

Things that go bump in the night are on display throughout Lorain County. Homemade Halloween displays can be found throughout the county, from Avon Lake to Amherst, North Ridgeville to Elyria and Lorain. Each house is a labor of love, many of the homeowners said, taking weeks to set up to be ready for visitors throughout October. Several homes in Lorain County with homemade displays are listed on Cleveland Haunt Club's website https://clevelandhauntclub.com at bit.ly/3Tvn9Kk. The nonprofit club provides educational events, as well as networking for Halloween enthusiasts. Several of the homes in Lorain County, alongside those throughout Northeast Ohio on the Cleveland Haunt Club's website are participating in Skeletons for St. Jude, which hoped to raise $100,000 nationwide for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. As of Sunday evening the fundraiser had collected more than $105,000 nationwide. The Cleveland Haunt Club alone has a goal of $25,000. As of Sunday night, it had reached about $4,500 of its goal. Homes participating in the St. Jude fundraiser have signs with QR codes for attendees to donate at bit.ly/3TMccDR. 387 James St., Amherst Tim and Lesa Skinner decorated their home for about 15 years, before a brief hiatus, but now they're back to expanding their year-round love of Halloween into the seasonal display. "We just missed the kids coming and checking," Tim Skinner said. Lesa added, "Yeah, people are always dancing around in our yard in the middle of the night," thanks to the music and lights that accompany the display. The pair start setting things up mid-September, Lesa Skinner said. She often designs the scenes, while Tim Skinner builds what is needed. Each tombstone is handmade, with the theme of "What happens in the graveyard at night" inspiring displays like a Hot Dog Heaven and Hamburger Hell and a Barbie car filled with miniature skeletons on a roadtrip. Tim Skinner also made an alien spacecraft out of discarded satellite dishes, a collar for the Munsters' reptilian pet Spot and set up a scene with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from "Ghostbusters." "When I first moved in my house, I had those little garbage bag ghosts or the garbage bag pumpkins, that's how I started out," Lesa Skinner said. "And then slowly over time I wanted to start making my own stuff and it developed into this." Their display will be up through Halloween, with music from dusk until 9 p.m. on weekdays and dusk until 10 p.m. on weekends. 1000 Royal Drive, Amherst About six years ago Jennifer and Eddie Eckenrode started with a handful of decorations on their porch and a small cemetery in their front yard. Every year since then they've accumulated more and more stuff, "Everybody started coming around, they started liking things, so we just ran with it," Jennifer Eckenrode said. "I enjoy doing things for other people to enjoy. So it's nice to see people bring their kids … We have elderly people that come through by themselves or they bring their grandkids — it's just a cool, fun thing to do." The couple starts putting their horde of animatronics out the first of September, to have everything ready to go by the first of October. It's become tradition for neighbors to keep an eye out for when the Eckenrodes start decorating, Jennifer said, and they've even gotten their neighbor across the street to join in a pirate theme this year and buy a matching phantom for the utility poles in their curblawn. "(Saturday) night we probably had 700-800 people come through here," Jennifer Eckenrode said. The walk-thru display is open until about 9:30 p.m. on weekdays and up to 11:30 p.m. on weekends. "It's just really fun, we enjoy it. I love sitting out here and watching the kids come through," she said. "Trick or treating is huge here." 3085 Cross Creek Drive, Avon Dave Siarkowski's Halloween display started when a friend of his was getting rid of a large homemade mausoleum about five years ago. From there, he's added tombstones, fencing and other details year after year. "He helped build the rest, actually — the fence, the pillars are all handmade. All the tombstones are all handmade," he said. His house is a favorite in the Avondale neighborhood, especially during trick or treat when he's known to set out the animatronics, and give out king-sized candy bars. The display is lighted, with red eyes glowing from the pillars in the fencing, and fog rolling along the ground. The display is 7-10 p.m. daily through Halloween. Animatronics will be out for trick or treat on Oct. 31. 44555 Stang Road, Elyria Undead brides and a row of clowncar skeletons await visitors of a home on Elyria's west side. Brandy Healy, husband Matt, and neighbors Sandy and Sam Woods and their son, Matthew Woods, all came together to fullfil the dream Halloween yard of Brandy's "black little heart." "I've just always loved Halloween, we moved here two years ago and my husband said 'Do what you want' so we went crazy," Brandy Healy said. Her home is participating in the Skeletons for St. Jude fundraiser for her undead-filled front yard. "That to me is a very special cause and a very special reason for doing all this," Healy said. It took the Healys and Woods about three weeks to put the display together, including items on the wraparound porch like a "spontaneous human combustion chair" and a skeleton Eddie Munson from "Stranger Things." It's been a lot of trial and error to get the displays right, Healy said — learning from YouTube videos to bolt her walker-using undead to their mobility aids and glue every piece of PVC reinforcement together. It's also become a community effort. While Sam Woods is now helping figure out how to get animatronics to zip through the trees next year, other family friend are known to drop of thrifted wedding dresses or other decorations throughout the year. "I just enjoy helping her, it gets me busy," Sandy Woods said. Healy added, "It becomes addictive — you think you have your setup, but you're like 'I can add this, just one more.' " 5875 Main Ave., North Ridgeville For more than 20 years, Michele Nemeth has decorated her yard — and in that time she's accumulated an army of skeletons and animatronics that now spill onto her neighbor's property. This is her fifth year for a clown theme, complete with creatures from the 1988 movie "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" and homemade details like a nightmarish ice cream truck careening toward Main Avenue in search of wayward children to eat. Nemeth even made dainty treats of bony fingers and donuts with plastic vampire teeth sold in the carnival from hell. The walkthru portion, including a corn maze, will be open 7-10 p.m. Oct. 29, 7-9 p.m. Oct. 30 and 6-7:30 p.m. Oct. 31. The corn maze was donated by an area farmer, Nemeth said, and there will be actors dressed up to scare those wandering through the expansive scene. "This is the fastest we ever put up this display, it was done in four weeks, both yards," she said, adding later, "Our neighborhood down here gets really into Halloween," she said. "I'm a very detail-oriented person … I put a lot of attention and it's not a display. It's an experience. I want people to come through here and actually experience it." Her boyfriend, Gary Yeyer, helped piece the scene together, including building the ice cream truck this year. Every year Nemeth picks a build she wants to do — last years' was a rollercoaster that is now part of the corn maze. "It's very intense to build something like this, this took about six weeks to build," she said. Nemeth is one of several homes with a Skeletons for St. Jude sign alongside her haunted display. She plans to also accept check or cash donations during the walk-through event next weekend, all going to the children's hospital. "I like the kids to come. Halloween is pretty insane, we get a lot of kids down here — last year we had over 350 kids come through, as well as 100 adults," she said. Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.