Haunted house: Difference between revisions

[[Halloween]] themed "haunted houses" began appearing around the same time as "[[trick or treat]]", during the [[Great Depression]], as a way to distract young people whose Halloween pranks had escalated to [[vandalism]] and harassment of passersby.{{Where?|date=July 2022}} These first haunted housesexhibits were low quality, being put together by groups of families in their basements. People would travel from home to home to experience a variety of frightening situations, such as hearing weird moans and howls, cardboard cutouts of black cats, damp sponges and hair nets hanging from the ceiling to touch people's faces, hanging fur on the walls of darkened hallways, and having to crawl through long dark tunnels.<ref name=smithsonian>{{cite web |last1=Heller |first1=Chris |title=A Brief History of the Haunted House |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/history-haunted-house-180957008/ |website=Smithsonian Magazine |publisher=Smithsonianmag.com |access-date=14 January 2020}}</ref>