This woman bought her House a couple of years ago. The neighborhood she lives in has an elementary school and middle school within walking distance, so naturally, a lot of families with children live in the area. She, on the other hand, is child-free.

Before she moved into her house, the Smiths lived in this home and were well-known and adored in the neighborhood.

Mrs. Smith was a librarian at the local elementary school, and Mr. Smith worked as a health teacher at the middle school and announced during the high school football games.

“They had one daughter who was killed by a drunk driver in the late 90s when she was 16, and it was a huge thing. The high school theater is named in her memory because she was active in the theater and choir programs. When they retired, they named the high school football field after Mr. Smith,” she said.

Once they went into retirement, the Smiths moved to Florida, and she bought their house when they sold it.

Evidently, the Smiths were very enthusiastic about celebrating Halloween. Each year, they created intricate and painstakingly detailed Haunted houses in their garage. On one occasion, they extended the Haunted House experience into the house for trick-or-treaters to venture through.

The Smiths began preparing their haunted house right when each school year ended.

“Mr. Smith spent all summer building structures/props for it. They would take suggestions from the neighbor kids on what the theme should be,” she explained.

While she wasn’t aware of any of this history prior to buying her home, her neighbors have filled her in.

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In her new neighborhood, the community seems to go all out way more than anywhere else that she’s previously lived. A lot of people put up tons of lights and fake cemeteries in their front yards. One person erected a massive, 12-foot-tall skeleton from Home Depot, and another neighbor put up tons of Stranger Things-themed decorations. But she’d never seen anyone who extended their Halloween decorations into their homes in the way the Smiths did.

This past year was her first Halloween in her new house. She was looking forward to giving out soda because she had memories of getting soda while out trick-or-treating as a child, and she always loved it.

“I wore a witch hat and had a little battery-operated light-up cauldron from Spirit Halloween and dressed up my dog as a dragon and had a little setup at the end of my driveway with different buckets for the different pops. All night, EVERYONE was commenting about how amazing the haunted houses used to be. Reminiscing about the different themes. How nice it was that the Smiths did it for the neighborhood kids year after year, even though they didn’t have kids. How much the Smiths were missed,” she shared.

During the night, numerous people who stopped by her house said that they drove from other neighborhoods just to see the haunted house that the Smiths always built, and they expressed their dismay that it wasn’t here this time around. Understandably, she felt pretty sad by the end of the trick-or-treating hours.

Over the last few weeks, several neighbors, both children and adults alike, have asked her if she was planning to have a haunted house for trick-or-treating this year.

“One woman even offered that her husband would help me,” she continued.

A few days ago, someone anonymously posted to their neighborhood Facebook group, discussing how drastically the neighborhood has changed because of new people moving there. They expressed how the children in the neighborhood have had a tough time due to the pandemic throughout these last couple of years. The person continued and said that it’s crucial that they all unite as neighbors to provide beautiful memories for the children due to “‘time lost.'”

Then, the anonymous poster directly named “‘the haunted house'” and listed her street, as well as a block party and Fourth of July bike parade, as annual, treasured events that have been discontinued during the pandemic and everyone in the neighborhood greatly misses.

After she saw this post, she read it to her mother to get her opinion. In response, her mother called her a “grumpy old lady,” told her that she doesn’t know how much of a struggle it is to have children, and advised her to do something similar to what the Smiths did so that she could continue their Halloween tradition.

While she wants to be a kind member of the community, the Facebook post irritated her, and she doesn’t want to be expected to put in all this effort and spend a ton of money to continue the tradition of building a haunted house or allowing people she doesn’t know into her house during trick-or-treating in the way that the Smiths did.

Upon reflection, she decided to write a comment on the anonymous post. When she wrote her comment, the original post had 22 likes and only three comments, with nothing too noteworthy.

In her comment, she introduced herself as the new owner of the home where the Smiths used to live. She explained that many folks in the community have told her about the haunted house that the Smiths put so much hard work into each year and all the precious memories that everyone has gained every Halloween. She continued, writing that she hopes someone will be able to keep this tradition alive since so many people deeply miss the haunted house.

She expressed that she cannot host a haunted house at her home, but she would definitely be willing to lend her time over a weekend to help set up a haunted house elsewhere, joking that she cannot be near power tools and that allowing her to use tools could lead to “a whole different type of horror.”

Do you think she was right not to continue the Smiths’ tradition of building a haunted house?

You can read the original post on Reddit here.

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