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Denver Haunted House Safety Checklist

Sep 29, 2009
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Source: Larry Kirchner

What should be done before opening your Denver haunted house each night? Here is a list of some things we recommend you check off each and every night before you open your haunted house.

1) Nails and Screws: Before you even open your haunted houses to the public you should check every wall front and back for screws and nails. Many times you screw a spider on the wall and that screw is poking through the other side of the wall. Additionally, that same screw that holds your spider to the wall could be ripped off the wall as a souvenir. What happens if the spider is ripped from the wall? Well, you have a screw head exposed that could rip someone’s eye out! Many times you’re doing repairs to a wall that has become lose. You take a three inch screw and tighten it back up. Did that screw poke out of the other end? Or how about this one…did your repair guy drop any screws or nails during the show while making repairs? Stepping on a nail or screw can lead to a serious issue.

a. Solution: Even in daylight with all overhead lights on inspect your haunted house with a flashlight. The flashing will give your eyes a focus and highlight the area you’re looking at making it easier to find screws and nails. Perform this inspection each day before you open. You just never know when someone put a screw into a wall or dropped one the floor.

2) Deadly Weapons: Yes it is true that you’re actors are more effective smashing bats into the walls or taking sticks and banging a banister of your haunted house. Can you honestly trust your actors to never miss a metal barrel or something with their deadly weapon? Do you have strobe lights? Have you ever run into a wall in your own haunted house? Even though you know your Denver haunted house as well as anyone; in the dark, under the influence of strobe lights or confused by fog, you can and will make a mistake from time to time. You must NOT allow the actors to have any type of bat, stick, long metal chain or whatever in your haunted house. Again we agree they make louder noises and scare people but you can’t take the chance. Sticks break and then fly through the air and could hit someone in the face. A few years ago an actor hit a customer with a baseball bat by accident and gave the customer brain damage.
a. Solution: DO NOT ALLOW any type of sticks, pipes, bats, chains of any kind. Find safer methods to scare your customers.
3) Fire Extinguishers: Make sure your actors know where they are and how to use them. Fire departments will come to your location and train your staff as to how to use a fire extinguisher. Actors should be reminded each not night to panic if they see a fire but to react according to the training they’ve received. Where are those fire extinguishers? Do you know? Did someone move them? Will they work when needed?
a. Solution: Make sure you have your fire extinguishers re-charged by professionals each season. Make sure you have one fire extinguisher per room or per actor. Either check out fire extinguishers to actors each night or mount them in areas where the actors hide from customers.
4) Fire Retardant: Is your haunted house safe from burning down the house? Nothing will ruin your business faster than a fire, especially one that injures or kills patrons. Make sure anything you put into your haunted house doesn’t burn upon contact of a flame. Can you ignite your camo-netting, jute, plastic, latex, cheese cloth, or regular fabric with a lighter? If so, you’ve got problems and need to look into some professional fire retardants to make your attraction safe? Some of you haunters out there give no respect what so ever to this area and that’s dangerous. A five gallon bucket isn’t enough to make your attraction safe.  Have you ever used heavy jute to make your haunt creepy? Have you ever hung cheese cloth to give a scene that extra creep factor? You can’t just spray heavy jute; you need to dunk it in a 55 gallon drum to be safe. If you’re one of those haunts that’s too cheap to buckle up and buy a 55 gallon drum or two to spray your haunt each year GET OUT OF THE BUSINESS! PERIOD!
a. Solution: Purchase NO less than 55 gallons of flame retardant that can be sprayed from a deck sprayers. Take your deck sprayers and spray every inch of your haunted house until things are dripping wet. Pay closer attention to anything cloth, latex, foam, jute, light wood, etc. DO NOT retard your haunt until it’s DONE so that everything that’s going into your haunt is inside. Once you’ve completed the process to retard your haunt, make sure to cut small samples of cloth, jute, etc. and take them outside to a flame test. If the material burns you need to go back and retard the materials again. You may need more than one drum to properly retard your haunted house. Lastly, make sure that if you add any new props and materials to your haunt to retard them prior to placing them in the haunt.
5) Trip Hazards: Do you have trip hazards in your Denver haunted houses like extension cords, loose floors, un-even floors, rocks or a prop that has fallen over? Trip and falls are the #1 reason for filed lawsuits in America. Make sure your electric power tool actor doesn’t extend their cords into walk ways used by customer. If your Denver haunted house is outside make sure nothing got into the trail itself of the customers.
a. Solution: Make sure your actors KNOW they’re the eyes and ears of the haunted house. Institute a policy that your actors MUST make sure to pick up any debris, move any cords, or props that might cause a trip and fall. Your actors must notify the person who makes repairs. It’s more important for that actor to make sure that area is safe, and notify you of the problem than it is for them to continue to stay in character and get scares. Make sure you walk the entire haunted house each night, shaking props, looking for things on the floor, or holes, etc. Remind actors each night to look out for things that might cause a trip and fall.
6) Staircases: Do NOT scare anyone within 15 feet of a staircase top or bottom and make sure you have BRIGHT lights in the staircase with secure handrails. You do not want anyone falling down a flight of stairs do you? You may also consider putting a security person at the top of any staircase to make sure NO ONE runs down the staircase.
7) Access Corridors/Pocket Doors: Make sure you’ve added several pocket doors to your maze so actors and security can access different parts of the maze fast and without having to walk all the way through the maze. A pocket door is a door that slides into the wall, which is safer than a door that can swing open and hit someone. Additionally, when laying out your maze try to create a secret corridor that wraps around most of the maze. This corridor would have doors all through the hallway giving you access to literally any scene in the attraction. Lastly it gives the customer quicker access to the exits in case of an emergency.
8) Communication: Communication is king inside your dark, foggy haunted house. Make sure that many of your actors have radios so when they have a problem they can call out to management. Remember, actors are your eyes and ears inside the attraction. If something is going wrong, they’re usually the first to know about it. By not allowing them radios you’re hurting your reaction time to a problem.
a. Solution: Promote actors to be in charge of certain areas of the haunt and give them radios. Make sure you have no less than 8 actors with radios inside the haunted house.
9) Maze Supports: Do not kid yourself; mazes get beat to death every single night. Make sure before you open each night to push on walls and see if they’re stable. When you’re checking on your actors during the night make sure keep an eye on your maze. If a support comes lose do not hesitate to shut down your haunted house until it’s fixed. You can’t afford to have your maze collapse on your customers.
10) Emergency Exit Signs: Be sure your emergency exit signs haven’t been damaged and the light bulbs are still burning bright. If you ever need to use your emergency exits you can’t afford to have customers who can’t find the proper exits. Make sure you check your emergency lights and exit signs each night. Additionally, make sure you have directional arrows in your maze that point to the exit. We know that E-Lights do get broken from time to time during operation so make sure to walk your haunted house each day and check them.
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Bam Margera endorsed The Asylum – Denver Haunted House

Sep 23, 2009
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Bam Margera endoresed The Asylum, one of the top Denver Haunted Houses and advises everyone to go check it out!!!  If you would like more information on this Denver haunted house, check out www.getscared.com!

More on The Asylum in Denver, Colorado: The Asylum

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How to Create a Denver Haunted house this Halloween

Sep 16, 2009
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Have you ever been to one of those spooktacular Denver haunted houses that people set up in the neighborhoods during Halloween? I’ll bet you have and, if you’re like the rest of us gruesome ghouls, you’ve been chomping at the bit to make one for yourself. We’ll stop chomping and start reading because I’m going to take you through the “basics on a budget” spending as few dollars as possible.

Effect is everything with a Halloween Haunted House in Denver

And that effect should begin before the unlucky visitors to your house of horrors even step foot inside.

Outside Effects

Start by making sure that any windows which face the front of the house have been blacked out from inside. Black plastic garbage bags work fine. You may have to split them or double them up but they’re cheap enough. Black plastic shower curtains can often be found in the dollar stores. Grab a lot if you can find them because we’ll be using them later.

Replace your porch and outside lights with blue, red, or orange bulbs. A black light works great on the porch if you have some glow-in-the-dark critters or effects you can place nearby. If your street is well lit then the black light effect is reduced, so save your money in that case. Portable spot or flood lights with colored bulbs can be aimed at your roof or door to add additional lighting effects. If you have some Tiki Torches left over from the summer then place them strategically up and down the front walk.

Wal-Mart and even better a dollar store has Halloween lights that are a lot like Christmas lights but have little pumpkins or cats on each bulb. They’re cheap and you can string them around railings and lay them in bushes. Of course you’ll need some black cats, jack-o’-lanterns and fake spider webs hanging from the porch.

Decorate your front door to look like a coffin. It’s a great effect. You can also buy the Styrofoam grave stones to put on your lawn or you can make them yourself out of spare lumber and some black or grey paint. Don’t forget the scary music, wolf howls plus some moans and groans

Inside the Front Door

When you guests first step food into your Denver haunted house, set the tone for the remainder of their visit by having a body hanging from the inside light fixture or some other convenient point of death. Stuff a pair of jeans and an old shirt like you’re making a scarecrow. You can use an empty bleach container for the face and cut out or paint on the features. Top it off with an old hat. Or, as an alternative, hang a huge papier-mâché bat instead of the dead guy. Don’t forget plenty of plastic spiders and webs in your haunted house.

If there are rooms or staircases leading from the entryway which are not part of the tour, cover them with those extra shower curtains that we told you to get, or use more garbage bags. If you have a friend who is a cop, see if you can score some crime scene tape to wrap around off-limit areas.

The remainder of the house

Close off doors to rooms where you don’t want visitors to go. Decorate the doors to look like coffins, or hang ghoulish effects over them. You can also block them off using black plastic or shower curtains. Most visitors won’t even know that the doors are there. Doors to off-limit rooks are also great places to station your human ghoul helpers who will be jumping out and scaring the dickens out of your guests. Just make sure that they know to never actually touch anyone. That can open you up to a lot of legal problems and it might get them into a fist-fight with a visitor with no sense of humor.

Create you inside effects of your Denver haunted house by using dark and colored lighting in each room. Black light sensitive decorations work great inside but only if you have black light bulbs installed!

Sprinkle gruesome props throughout your rooms to look like the popular Denver haunted houses. You can make great bloody hands by filling surgical gloves up with sand, tying the open end off with a rubber band, and then some “blood” effects with red paint Dry ice creates great fog effects but it will burn the skin if touched so don’t leave it where guests can get at it.

Hang creepy things from the ceilings. Wet (not dripping wet) yarn feels really creepy when it brushes across someone’s face as they are entering a dark room. Spirtz it throughout the night to keep it wet. Remember that most fishing line will react to black lights so use black thread instead.

Walk through each room as if you were a visitor of your haunted house. Fill in empty areas with appropriate props. Re-walk the house several times until you are 100% happy. Remember that you have a lot of flammable things in your haunted house. Candles, smoking and lighted flames of any type are off limits! Keep several a fire extinguishers handy and spread them around the house. Make sure that your helpers know how to use them. Also make sure that each helper has a flashlight and knows where the room’s light switches are in case anyone gets hurt or a young child becomes too frightened to continue the tour.

That’s it. You’re on your way to having the dream Denver haunted houses that you’ve always wanted. Better get busy. It will be Halloween before you know it.

Stop by the Halloween Blog for our great “how to” article section that will help you create your own sound effects cd this halloween, create your own costume or create a homemade costume this Halloween. http://www.halloween-blog.com/articles/
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Dunafon Castle

Jul 9, 2009
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There are two issues here: the first is that sometime between Marcus C. Wright’s death and Bill Barnes’ acquisition, the castle was at one time a brothel and gambling casino.  The second issue is more serious.  The plane crash that killed three of the Barnes family has never been properly explained, and the investigation of the crash is still open.

With its history, it would be surprising if the castle did not have spirits.  Lisa Barnes, who lived there as a child, believes the castle is truly an entity, with its energy deriving from the structure being made of solid rock, with materials all from the surrounding area.  Wright, the man who actually created the castle, was building his own dream.  And the rock is granite, Lisa adds, which vibrates at a very low frequency and has accumulated its history over time, both positive and negative.

Lisa is a Sensitive, or Medium, and has been aware of a multitude of spirits around the castle.  As a child, she often heard footsteps along the long hallway from the garage into the house, though no one visible was there.  In fact, guests staying in the lower bedrooms adjacent to the hall, complained to her parents about the noise that disturbed their sleeping.  Another annoyance was a spirit dog whose nails clicked on the terrazzo floor and whose panting would awaken Lisa.

Following the airplane crash, the castle was on the market for four years, with several interested buyers.  But Lisa found it disturbing that these potential owners were interested in the land only, and planned to scrap the castle and rebuild.  Then Mike Dunafon and Debbie Matthews found the estate, and it was the castle that they wanted, and wished to restore.  Soon after, Lisa encountered the spirit of her mother who assured her that they were the right people to own it.  With its many unsolved mysteries, the Dunafon Castle is among the greatest Denver haunted houses.

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The 13th Floor Haunted House

Jun 30, 2009
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Where is the 13th Floor, and why is it absent in so many buildings? Come with us, as we attempt to explain the legend of the 13th floor, and introduce you to Denver’s most horrifying haunted experience, the 13th Floor Haunted House.

The levels of a multi story building are frequently numbered sequentially, from “basement”, “lobby”, “ground”, “one”, “two” etc. In some countries, as it is here in the United States, the number 13 is considered unlucky and building owners will sometimes purposefully omit a floor numbered 13. Hence, the 13th floor is sometimes given the number 14. Even building owners who are not superstitious realize that the desirability of units on a floor numbered 13 might be compromised because of superstitious tenants, or commercial tenants who worry about losing superstitious customers.

Based on an internal review of records, the Otis Elevator Company estimates that 85% of the buildings with their elevators do not have a named 13th floor. So why does this happen? Why are even skeptics so easily convinced that the majority would just rather avoid this floor? What has happened in history to create such a stigma about a 13th floor? For whatever reasons there may be, there seems to be a multitude of stories about what happens on the 13th floor of numerous buildings, some documented, some not. It seems that it has become largely accepted to just leave it alone, brush it under the rug, and don’t talk about it.

A good example is that some have suggested the 13th floor in government buildings is not really missing, but actually contains top-secret governmental departments, or more generally that it is proof of something sinister or clandestine going on.

It should be noted that to place a floor between those accessible from an elevator, it is necessary to either take longer to travel between the neighboring floors, or accelerate, both of which would be noticed by the riders. It would also be noticeable from the exterior, requiring either an extra row of windows or a conspicuous gap between rows.

Thus, it would make much more sense to build a secret floor, such as the 13th floor as a basement, making it much easier to hide 13th floor locations, in what appear to be single story buildings, underground.

The creators of the 13th Floor Haunted House have discovered locations, right here in Denver, Colorado, constructed in the manor described above. Not completely sure of what all of their past uses may have been, it seems that the majority of these locations are currently inhabited by unfortunate souls, living and dead. They have discovered their secret locations when seeking shelter from the environment, or society. Various species of rats, snakes and spiders have also taken up residence here, living in secret, and by their own rules.

(Source: 13th Floor Haunted House)

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The Asylum – Denver’s Top Haunted House

Jun 29, 2009
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“Within the walls of the legendary Nightmare Factory a hidden passage was unearthed! This passage descended two levels into Gordon Cottingham’s Hospital for the Mentally Insane, The Asylum. Much deeper and darker than the previous levels, the Asylum is a damp and musty place infested with spiders, rats, snakes, and the endless screams of the tortured souls.”

Check out more on this great haunted House in Denver, you’ll get scared!

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