Turn Your Home Into a Haunted House for Halloween

A pumpkin, candelabra, and Halloween decorations covered in cobwebs.

Halloween is just around the corner! Time for candy, costumes, and most importantly, turning your house into a haunted experience your friends and family will remember all year long. Whether you’re planning a small get-together or a full-fledged bash, a lot of planning and work goes into decorating your home.

The experts at Urban Self Storage are here to help. We have created this guide on how to be ready to make the best haunted house on the block by keeping all your DIY Halloween gear stored in an easily accessible storage unit from a facility you can trust.

Setting up for Surprise

You don’t have to convert every room of your home to make a haunted house, so the first thing you should do is outline the limits of your environment. A living room, basement, garage, or even just a hallway may be all you need to get some screams out of your visitors.

Next, if you live with family or roommates, get them involved in the setup and operation of your haunted house. On top of dividing up the labor of transforming each room into a Halloween-themed adventure, each person can also have their own role as an actor in your newly haunted home.

Set the scene with dark lighting or even blacklights if you’d like to write hidden messages with UV reflective ink, found in most highlighters. Burn incense or spray a pumpkin spice aroma to create an immersive experience, and feel free to add a smoke machine or creepy music to up the scare-factor.

The most important trick to remember as you construct your haunted house is to treat your visitors to surprises as they explore. To help you establish expectations and then break them, try out some of these fun haunted house ideas in your own home this Halloween.

Transform Your Home Into a Terror Factory

At the entrance to your haunted house, create a crawl-tunnel using chairs with tarps over the top for a dark and narrow corridor.

As your guests make their way through the darkness, all it takes is a feather hanging from above and the well-timed unbridled shriek of a 7-year-old[1]  to cause bone-chilling fear in anyone who enters. Send the dog in the tunnel with a ghost costume on and you’ll be sure to get some screams—or at least some laughs.

From there, it’s all up to your creativity. You could open up to a foggy, dimly lit room with puzzles for your guests to solve using clues hidden around the furniture. Of course, this is a distraction from the speaker you’ve hidden under the table with your favorite spooky song queued at maximum volume.

Remember, the key to making an unforgettable haunted house is to break down your guest’s expectations. Walk in and tell them that they’ve reached the end as you guide them towards the door with someone at the ready near the light switch. Give them one last scare on their way out and get ready for the next round of frightening fun.

Pack Up Your Haunted House for Next Year in an Urban Self Storage Unit

A good haunted house does not have to be complicated or even that big. As long as everyone who visits leaves with a memorable experience and in a reasonable amount of fright, you’ll all have a Halloween no one will forget.

When it’s time to put your scaring supplies away to make room for the winter ahead, Urban Self Storage can help with both. Swap out your props and smoke machine for a snow blower and dust off the holiday season decorations in your storage unit along with everything else you need to keep your home free from clutter. And while you can’t turn your unit into a haunted house, you can always rely on an Urban Self Storage facility to keep your stuff stored for the rest of the year.

Finding the space you need isn’t a scary process when you choose Urban Self Storage. From haunted houses to residential and office storage solutions, we have the right unit for you. Start your rental online or at a facility near you and be ready for everything the next season has in store.

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