By Luke Voogt
Severed limbs, skeletons and blood spatters adorn a Mount Duneed front yard in a family’s scary first-time homage to Halloween.
With the kids suffering through boredom and home-schooling during lockdowns this year, Jess James decided to give the Americanised tradition a go.
“I just thought that with COVID and everything going on it was something to look forward to,” she said.
“We’ve had heaps of people walk past and say they’ll come on Halloween and can’t wait.”
The household spared no effort with graveyards, zombies, witches, pumpkins, severed limbs on hooks, crime scene tape, smoke machines, inflatables and, of course, cobwebs.
Jess began the creepy collection when Halloween products hit the shelves in late September, she said.
“I saw something in Bunnings and thought, ‘no, I don’t want to buy that because I know I won’t be able to stop.’ And then I did buy one thing and it accumulated into all this!”
Wind and rain this week forced Jess to keep some of the Halloween gear indoors but she hopes the weather will clear for tomorrow night.
Under current restrictions, Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has banned “traditional” trick-or-treating where kids knock on doors.
But the department recommends those that “can’t resist handing out lollies” leave prepacked bags of wrapped confectionary outside their home.
DHHS warned against using communal bowls and other shared surfaces to store the lollies, and urged residents to wash their hands thoroughly before preparing the bags.
Jess has hand sanitiser and pre-packaged lolly bags ready to go, although hopefully trick-or-treaters refrain from taking too many each.
“Otherwise we’ll run out of candy pretty quick!” she said.
