Residents take part in spooktacular early Halloween celebrations

Windsor, Ont. -

A south Windsor house has been transformed into an ‘epic’ scare house every October for the last decade.

Over the last two weeks, thousands of people have walked through the spooky attraction at 3150 California Avenue complete with evil clowns, witches and zombies.

“It’s a passion project for sure, ideally, we’ll keep it going for years into the future,” says Rebecca Burkoski. “Today we’re doing the no scare day, so some of the kids are absolutely loving it, they can’t wait to come at night. And some of them are saying we never want to go through this again. It depends, but it’s been a positive. That’s what we want to see, right? We want to scare people.”

Residents have lined down the block for a chance to take in the free attraction.

Donations are being accepted for a family dealing with the effects of COVID-19.

Over in east Windsor, a spooky pre-Halloween “trunk or treat” brought out hundreds of costumed small dry.

The event was put on by the Optimist Club of Riverside.

Hundreds of kids flooded the parking lot at Average Joe’s getting an early test run on their Halloween outfits and of course to get their hands on some candy and free pumpkins.

The event doubled as a coat drive with chilly season around the corner.

Organizers say they have hundreds of coat donations to go through before handing them over to a number of neighbourhood organizations for distribution.

“We’ve got lot of coats, we’re going through and sorting we’re making sure they’re all sanitized and everyone’s going to be safe and nice and warm,” says Riverside Optimist Club president Meaghan Cousineay. “I’m so happy that we’re available to be out and about. Last year we did this in a drive through manner, and it’s so nice to have the kids out and the weather worked out and everything was great.”