{"id":1316266,"date":"2019-10-30T13:49:49","date_gmt":"2019-10-30T19:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=990301"},"modified":"2019-10-30T13:49:49","modified_gmt":"2019-10-30T19:49:49","slug":"rifle-couple-continue-to-haunt-their-neighborhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/rifle-couple-continue-to-haunt-their-neighborhood\/","title":{"rendered":"Rifle couple continue to haunt their neighborhood"},"content":{"rendered":"
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David Hall walks through the spider room, just a small part of the Halloween Haunted House he and his wife Katie have been hosting at the Rifle home for 17 years. (Kyle Mills \/ Citizen Telegram)<\/strong>
<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

It began one All Hallows\u2019 Eve 17 years ago, when David and Katie Hall purchased their home at the corner of Eighth Street and Dogwood Drive in Rifle.<\/p>\n

The neighborhood nestled on Graham Mesa is a favorite of trick-or-treaters in the small western Garfield County city. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe never had any aspiration of a haunted house, we had recently moved in and wanted to be a little different,\u201d David Hall said.<\/p>\n

David said the first year instead of answering the kids at the front door; they opened up their plastic lined garage, covered in glow in the dark paint and black lights. <\/p>\n

They had a large bowl full of candy and hot chocolate to serve as trick-or-treaters filed through.<\/p>\n

\u201cKids would just walk in and walk out; we were in costume. We did that for a couple of years and decided to bring it out to our backyard,\u201d David said.<\/p>\n

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For nearly two decades David and Katie Hall have been inviting families into their home for a little candy and a lot of scares as part of haunted holiday. (Kyle Mills \/ Citizen Telegram)<\/strong>
HallsHauntedHouse-rct-103119-2<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Once they expanded into the backyard the ideas began to flow for the Halls.<\/p>\n

With the help of a friend and an air hose hiding just outside of the garage, the scaring of trick-or-treaters began.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as we did that, it was like a drug, people\u2019s reactions were so funny,\u201d David said.<\/p>\n

From that point the Halls decided they had to go bigger the next year.<\/p>\n

With the help of friends, neighbors, and the community the Hall\u2019s spend countless hours building the maze through their backyard every October.<\/p>\n

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WIth help from the community, friends and family members, the Halls spend countless hours prepping their backyard for Halloween. (Kyle Mills \/ Citizen Telegram)<\/strong>
HallsHauntedHouse-rct-103119-3<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Like a spider weaving its web, slowly the Halls added new frights, growing bigger and more scary with each Halloween.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of our beautiful friends that help out and volunteer, all bring a bag of candy each,\u201d Katie said. \u201cThe thing I love the most is just seeing all the community help, because nobody has to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Using shade awnings to cover scare rooms from the always-unpredictable Colorado weather means the house can be haunted rain, snow or shine.<\/p>\n

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With the help of 15 canopies the Hall\u2019s turn their backyard into a haunted good time every Halloween in Rifle. (Kyle Mills \/ Citizen Telegram)<\/strong>
HallsHauntedHouse-rct-103119-5<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

What started with a couple awnings in their back yard has escalated to 15 covering the whole yard.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never ever thought it would take the whole yard, just with the elevation changes alone, but year after year it\u2019s got to be better than the one before,\u201d David said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want the kids to say, well that was the same as last year. That\u2019s absolutely the worst thing we could ever hear.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the help of 20 loyal friends the Halls spent the final weekend before designing room in the maze and preparing for the pending weather.<\/p>\n

This year the Halloween House will open 2-5 p.m. Thursday for a daytime walkthrough for the little children that might be too afraid to pass through at night.<\/p>\n

After a two-hour break and with volunteers in place the scaring will begin around 7 p.m., and stay open until the last brave soul dares to make their way though the haunted house.<\/p>\n

Up until three years ago the haunted house was only open Halloween for five hours.<\/p>\n

With an average of nearly 1,000 visitors the Hall\u2019s found that the demand has been too high and one night didn\u2019t quench the Hall\u2019s emotional investment in the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year total we had about 1,500 between both nights,\u201d Katie said.<\/p>\n

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Tiffany Klausing, left, and Jamise Baker work on a clown mask for the backyard haunted house in Rifle. (Kyle Mills \/ Citizen Telegram)<\/strong>
HallsHauntedHouse-rct-103119-4<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The Halls estimate they spend between $1500-$2500 every year on setup, new animatronics, severed headed, creepy spider and more.<\/p>\n

Even with the costs of putting the event on the Hall\u2019s continue to have free admission for the haunted house only welcoming for donations.<\/p>\n

Katie said they usually have decorations donated every year, and any money they are given goes to buying more scary decorations at after Halloween sales.<\/p>\n

With this year\u2019s second night landing on Friday, the Hall\u2019s anticipate one of their largest turnouts yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone is so supporting, our neighbors are so amazing for putting up with the noise,\u201d Katie said.<\/p>\n

kmills@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Hall walks through the spider room, just a small part of the Halloween Haunted House he and his wife Katie have been hosting at the Rifle home for 17 years. (Kyle Mills \/ Citizen Telegram) It began one All Hallows\u2019 Eve 17 years ago, when David and Katie Hall purchased their home at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1316266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-29 08:23:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1316266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1316266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1316266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1316266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}