As you approach 1920 Hill St., you’re more likely to hear raucous laughter than screams.
But tonight, it’ll be a rock of horrors as the full effect of Halloween takes over at one of Merritt’s most elaborately decorated yards.
Sisters Terina Price and Val Cox spent the better part of the last two weeks preparing for Halloween with an elaborate display on their mother’s lawn.
“We’re all Halloween people,” their mother, Susie Dufault, laughed.
This year, the goal isn’t just to give trick or treaters and their parents a thrill. The family is using the attention and high foot traffic the house gets to solicit donations for the food bank.
If you can make it through the scary display all the way up to the house, you’ll find a bin set up on the front step with a sign for the food bank.
The sisters said people who might be in need of more than just fun-sized chocolate bars can also take from the non-perishables as needed, and the rest will go to the Nicola Valley and District Food Bank.
Dufault said in the week leading up to Halloween, the display was already catching the attention of passers-by.
The family has been setting up their Halloween display for about a decade with a different theme each year, and the sisters and their mother said they do it for the community and simply for fun.
The family said they have been lucky in all their years of decorating and have experienced very little vandalism — just a stolen rat that they could think of. Dufault joked about doing a head count of decorations when she wakes up during the night.
This year’s theme is a rock concert, complete with a skeleton drummer and a creepy version of KISS. At the time of their interview, the family was trying to choose a name for the band from a list of suggestions they generated, including “Bone Jett and the Halloweeners,” “Rocktoberfest,” and “Black Stabbath.”
Dufault keeps a scrapbook of the display and the Halloween activities each year, and said the house attracted 128 visitors last year.
Price said she loves seeing the kids’ reactions to their costumes and decorations. Some are too afraid to approach the door and even some parents are wary of the display.
“A little boy last year just got about halfway and he turned around and bolted,” Price said with a laugh. “He was going down the road and his mom was chasing him, and he wasn’t coming in.”
Price said some trick or treaters are repeat visitors because it takes them a few tries to work up the nerve to come all the way up to the house.
She and Cox said they hear plenty of words of appreciation and praise for the display from enthusiastic visitors each year, and the family fun it provides is what keeps them going.
