The only thing to fear at most of Northeast Ohio’s haunted houses are the zombies and goblins as local fire marshals say they’re pretty sure you’re safe inside the buildings.
Not just any ghoulish commoner can erect walls, put on some scary music and invite people to enter their walk of fright. These purveyors of fear must comply with Ohio State Fire Code requirements before they can think of opening to the public.
Lt. Craig Peeps of the Kent Fire Department said he’s worked with four or five people who planned to create haunted houses in Kent, but only one of those actually made it to opening day.
“Usually, once the people see the requirements from the state code and all that’s involved; usually things don’t end up coming to fruition,” Peeps said.“When you’re looking at having to put in fire alarms and train all the people and all that, yes it gets pretty costly.”
Stow resident David Shonk is among those who has been turned down by the fire marshal in the past. He’s been making his own walk-through haunted house at his home in Stow since he was 13, and he avoided the fire marshal’s eye until 2009. Haunted houses have fewer restrictions when they’re not in enclosed buildings. But Shonk’s garage was part of the haunt that year.
“He showed up an hour before we opened. Every actor was in makeup and costume. We had everything running. Sounds were running, fog was on, lights were on. And [he] told us we weren’t doing it,” said Shonk, 21.
“We were the ogres,” said Stow Fire Marshal Jim Leidel. “I’ll tell ya, he is a very bright, very talented young man. It broke my heart to have to take the wind out of his sails.”
Leidel said Shonk’s agreement with the Stow Fire Department was that he must limit his haunted house to his immediate friends and not advertise it as “open to the public.”
That year, there were fliers all over Stow. When he opened it just for his friends, it was outside the fire department’s regulatory authority, Leidel said.
Shonk said his haunted house was hardly a secret as it had been featured in newspapers — including the Beacon Journal — in the past so he figured it was safe to advertise. He was wrong.
Shonk would have had to install a sprinkler system along with other expensive anti-fire protections to be able to open his haunted house to the public. Other haunted houses have been around so long they don’t have to comply with the current code.
This year marks the Hudson Haunted House’s 40th anniversary. When the building was built, the fire code was different than it is today. So the inspections of the attraction are mostly to the old standards.
“If they made what the fire code calls substantial changes to, substantial additions to, deletions of, the maze or the building itself, then they must bring it to the current fire code regulation,” said Hudson Assistant Fire Chief Jerry Varnes.
Hudson’s attraction has kept its maze in the same surface area of the building and just moved a wall or two inside to mix things up from year to year — avoiding having to be subject to today’s standards.
Although the house doesn’t follow the current code, Varnes thinks the house is still very safe. He checks the emergency system, which turns the music off and emergency lighting on, every Friday and Saturday night to make sure everything is operating correctly.
Along with the building safety requirements, those aliens and monsters who are trained to make you scream for your life are also trained to save your life. When the fire marshal does his twice-weekly checks, he also quizzes the actors to make sure they know how to guide visitors to safety.
The Haunted Schoolhouse and Haunted Laboratory in Akron are two other older haunts, having been around for 39 and 32 years, respectively.
Although they are considered “grandfathered in” for many of the new regulations, the Akron Fire Department still required the owners, Don and Cindy Johns, to install a state-of-the-art heat and smoke detection system. The improvements are in place for this season.
“Because the nature of a ‘Haunted House’ is to confuse, disorient and distract its occupants, it is extremely important that these minimum safety features be provided in the facilities in case an emergency of any kind occurs,” according to the Ohio Division of State Fire Marshal’s Haunted Houses provision.
Akron Fire Capt. Al Bragg agrees.
“It’s probably one of the safest haunted houses you could actually attend,” Bragg said. “They were really up to code. The only thing that they did not have that the code would require of a new haunted house would be a sprinkler system.”
In place of the sprinkler system, the operators have installed the new heat and smoke detection system.
Bragg said in some ways the detection system actually offers more safety for visitors.
“Keep in mind, sprinkler systems don’t activate until there’s a substantial buildup of flame.” Bragg said. “[This system] is going to activate long before there’s a substantial buildup of heat, so in essence people would be out.”
Along with the new system, there are non-ghouls behind the scenes who are just there to help patrons out if an emergency arose.
Bragg makes a trip to the Schoolhouse and Laboratory every year before they open to make sure they are safe for the public to enjoy.
For the operators, there’s a lot more to haunted houses than just putting up some walls and throwing masks on people. It is not an easy or cheap undertaking for those in the business.
Carnival of Horrors owner Ryan Pluta estimates that he spends five figures on fire safety at the Carnival every year.
“To do everything right the way that we do, it’s probably one of my biggest expenses per year,” Pluta said.
Pluta, 40, is a haunted house veteran, having spent more than half of his life in the business.
“Everyone just thinks, like, building a haunted house is just showing up with some plywood and putting up the walls, but it’s a lot more complicated than that,” Shonk said, “especially in this day and age.”
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