If you’re looking to be creeped out for a cause this Halloween season, look no further than 5686 Rumble St. in South Burnaby.
Until Oct. 31, the front yard will be alive with skeletons, ghosts and ghouls that talk and move, thanks to hardcore Halloween enthusiast Jimmy Sharma.
“For me, Halloween is huge,” he told the NOW.
Sharma grew up in South Burnaby and, come October, loved to walk around his neighbourhood as a kid looking at Halloween displays.
“It brought me such happiness,” he said. “You used to see lots of people decorating for Halloween, and I feel like that tradition is dying.”
From the looks of his family’s front yard, it’s clear Sharma is determined to keep it alive.
The outdoor display features strobe lights, a smoke machine and about 20 moving pieces arranged in various tableaux: two skeletons enjoying tea with an undead crow looking on, a ghoul puppeteering a terrified girl on one of the home’s balconies, a grim reaper waving his scythe in front of a pile of skulls and more.
“These are the things that I wanted to see when I was a kid,” Sharma said.
One ghost he modified moves thanks to a printer motor he repurposed. Another spook is built over an oscillating fan.
“I love bringing static things to life,” he said.
Sharma and two friends, Matthew Erickson and Forrest Halldorson, started working on the project at the beginning of September.
It’s the display’s second year, and it has grown thanks to a $1,000 grant from Home Depot and a $300 grant from the City of Burnaby.
Sharma said he decided to collect donations for B.C. Children’s Hospital as a way to give back.
When his younger brother was a teenager, he needed multiple lung surgeries, according to Sharma.
“Now he’s doing really well,” he said. “They saved his life.”
Sharma gets a kick out of passersby who stop to check out the display, especially one boy who comes by multiple times a day to see if anything has been added.
“That kid is me,” Sharma said with a laugh.
The Haunted House of Rumble is open for walkthroughs from 6 to 11 p.m. Donations are appreciated but not mandatory.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
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