# adding an entrance structure to my haunt, legal issues?



## Moon00 (Oct 7, 2007)

This is probably a silly question but I'm wondering would there be any legal issues to deal with by adding a entrance structure for my haunt. Usually what we do is decorate our yard and front porch for our haunt, with the porch being the main display. However because our town made trick or treating hours earlier many of our TOT's miss out on seeing the display in full effect with lighting and all at night. Because our display this year is really dependent on the lighting, we decided to enclose the porch to block out the sunlight. Then build a little entrance like hallway out of wood that leads up to the front porch. It isn't going to be very big at all, probably about as long as those inflatable Halloween castles and basically just there to help with the sunlight problem while adding to the haunt as well. Do you think we would run into any problems with this? We own our house, don't charge admission, and won't have anything dangerous in there. Also we only run our haunt/display for trick or treat night.


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## turtle2778 (Jul 9, 2006)

I cant see any reason why you would have a problem. As long as there is not permanent roof then its not considered an addition to the structure.


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## BoysinBoo (Dec 10, 2007)

Better check with the city. My neighbor builds a haunt in his driveways every year. A local pro haunt went to the city (because my neighbors' was better and FREE.) The city said that if it was attached to the house he had three choices:

1) Pay for a building permit = $1000
2) Pay for a temporary structure permit = $500, but only good for one night. Has to be torn down within 24 hours
3) Tear it down completely and rebuild it in the back yard, but not touching the house.

The crappy part was that they waited until Oct 29 to tell him. He picked option 3, but then sent some kids to hand out flyers to people at the pro haunt. I understand that the pro needs to recoup his money, but come on...can't we raise each other up. A rising tide lifts all ships and all that.


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## eanderso13 (Apr 10, 2008)

Wow, BoysinBoo, that sucks about the pro haunters being such pricks about it... Moon00, I used to do something very similar at my house in Virginia. I built a structure and enclosed the whole thing in black plastic. I had no issues, but then again, there were no pro haunts within about 3 hours of where I lived! And my house wasn't necessarily in the nicest possible area (AKA, Richest area). I'd say it depends on your neighborhood and possibly city ordinances. I doubt where I live now that I would be able to make any temporary structure attached to the house, but I don't plan on it so i haven't checked.


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## Moon00 (Oct 7, 2007)

Thanks everyone, I'm going to check with the city just to be on the safe side. I live in a more "upscale" neighborhood and haven't seen anything like this done around here before. So it does make me wonder if we'll be given a hard time about it. Our structure won't be permanently attached to the house but it will be pushed up very close to it, so it might appear to be attached.


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## Moon00 (Oct 7, 2007)

Oh and also the structure won't be made entirely out of wood, only the frame. We're planning on making the roof and walls out of foam.


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