Spooktacular Halloween house adds a little fright to Tri-Cities. Plus a map to others
What started three years ago as a yard display with a couple of tombstones and skeleton with glowing red eyes has transformed into a Halloween extravaganza on a busy Richland street corner.
Towering 12-foot skeletons with beady, blinking eyes and a giant spiderweb tunnel now span the length of David Huber and Phylicia Riggins’ driveway.
Every inch of their yard off Leslie Road is covered in all manner of spooky spectacles.
“Ever since we started setting up here on Oct. 1, it’s been nonstop,” Huber said. “Every day people are coming by - walking by, diving by, slowing down, shouting out the window.”
The couple says they’re glad people are able to enjoy the display at 2000 Orchard Way near Meadow Springs. Last year their elaborate set up at Huber’s previous house drew over 500 people on Halloween night.
This year, they’re expecting to have at least twice as many trick-or-treaters.
“We do want to thank people who have dropped off bags of candy,” Riggins said about the anonymous donations of candy left at their doorstep to help out. “They know we need it, that we’re attracting a lot of attention.”
They estimated they’ve spent 150 hours decorating with black widow spiders and ghouls to radioactive creatures.
But not all of the attention has been positive. There have been a couple of vandalism incidents in recent days.
“It could have been a lot worse, but it’s too bad it happened in the first place,” Huber said.
Still, he says, most people seem to love the display.
More scary sites
They aren’t the only ones getting into the spooky spirit of the upcoming holiday.
An entire Facebook group is dedicated to mapping out all of the Tri-Cities best haunted homes.
Olivia Paz, a youth program instructor at Safe Harbor, has spent much of her spare time to creating a comprehensive map of Tri-Cities Halloween homes.
Paz started the Tri-Cities Halloween Light Show website and Facebook page last year during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I wanted to give the community something to look forward to,” she said.
The page immediately took off, with over 2,000 joining the group and about 70 homes eventually listed as spooky stops.
It’s been a lot of work to coordinate, she told the Herald, but this year in anticipation of another big Tri-Cities response, Riggins volunteered to help her run the site behind the scenes.
“She and David have been very crucial in helping make it happen again this year,” Paz said. “They’ve been such a tremendous help. They’re such great people.”
Anyone who wants to add their home to this year’s Halloween light show map can do so by filling out a form on the website, which also has a link to the map for anyone wanting to check out Tri-Cities home haunts.