A Dublin electrician has said adults and children from the community are vital to transforming his home into a House of Horrors every year.
For years, Ken Carraher has filled his Killiney home with ghosts, ghouls and monsters for the Halloween period in aid of charity.
Mr Carraher said: “I like doing this, but scary movies or anything else – no. Never watch scary movies – petrified. I watched one once and that was it.
He said he has been woken in the middle of the night by a sound downstairs, only to realise it was crawling arm and leg props he had forgotten to switch off.
“That can happen,” the electrician added.
Mr Carraher said that when he began decorating the house 22 years ago, he had just two models and one light, and now has a “couple of thousand props in total”.
“So what people see is about 20-30% of what we have.”
“I’ll be on four to five weeks’ annual leave to kit it out, put it on, take it down, and my friend John, he’ll be on two weeks’ annual leave to give me a hand.”
Mr Carraher said it gets “very good reactions” from neighbours.
“It’s adults and children, it is a community thing, you couldn’t do this on your own, you need the support of the community.
“The children, teenagers and that, they’ll be helping to say, scare people, and the adults kind of check everything’s OK, hand out sweets.”
Mr Carraher’s terrifying transformation now raises funds for a charity that helps people living with the rare skin condition epidermolysis bullosa (EB), also known as butterfly skin.
The funds go to Debra Ireland, which helps around 300 people living with the painful disease that causes skin to blister at the slightest touch.
Ken’s Halloween House of Horrors is open on October 28, 29 and 30 from 4pm-8pm and on Halloween from 4pm-9pm.
