House of Horrors closes doors after county concerns

ELKHART COUNTY, Ind. -- A free Elkhart haunted house went from neighborhood scares to a big-scale attraction, catching the attention of Elkhart officials, which ultimately resulted in the community scare spot to shut down.

For the past four years, ‘Best Ave House of Horrors’ has been transformed from a residential home to a walk-through haunted house. Doriana Stephens, a family member of the attraction’s creators, says it started a way to provide a night of fun filled terror for the community, without the costs of other local Halloween events.

The haunted house is complete with a 30-minute walk through, a 40-plus person volunteer scare team, and DIY decorations. They also put several safety measures in place, such as posting several rule and warning signs for guest before entry, getting permission from neighboring properties for public parking, and having neighbors around the haunted house sign petitions stating their approval.

However, this year, the haunted house gained more attention than they were expecting, drawing in nearly 1000 attendees in a single night last week. That resulted in a neighbor calling the police, and the sheriff’s office informed the owners they needed a permit to continue operating for that amount of people, resulting in the haunted house being shut down.

“So, for them [Elkhart residents] to not be able to enjoy something free for their community, in their community, it was really heartbreaking for us to just see all of our work not even be shown off,” said Stephens.

So, the haunted house owners went to Monday’s Elkhart County Commissioners meeting, where Elkhart County Sheriff, Jeff Siegel, explained why county officials had some concerns.

“Not only do I have concerns from a law enforcement perspective, I also have concerns from a fire perspective, and I also have concerns that if I lived in this neighborhood, I’d be a good neighbor for maybe one night of this, but every weekend or two nights for several weeks would be too much… I also have concerns about volunteers closing roads and the liability this could bring not only to her family, but the county,” said Siegel.

At the meeting, the haunted house operators were requesting two permits from the council in order to reopen, a special waiver to be omitted from the county’s noise ordinance and to have permission to close a road, but president of Elkhart County Commissioners and district two representative, Brad Rogers, explained the council came to a unanimous decision to deny those requests.

“We’re here to protect rights and help people that might be in the minority as far as not wanting this thing to happen, so that’s a decision that was made unanimously, we’re not against the haunted house, we’re not against them doing activities, but they need to stay within the confines of the law and things are getting out of hand so they might need to find another location, maybe a commercial area or someplace where they can have this for the community and the commissioners would be very supportive of that,” said Rogers.

Stephens says that wasn’t the outcome they were hoping for and would like to find a way to keep the haunted house in the same spot.

“Emotions are still really high right now to even think about for next year and think about what we could do differently to keep our haunted house running,” said Stephens.

She says they are hopeful they can find a way to open their spooky doors again next year.

“As much as it hurts them right now to not be open and show off their work, my parents always come back and their house of horrors we definitely be back,” expressed Stephens.