# Back Story Fun



## bitterroot Haunted (Jan 30, 2012)

It started with a Boy Scout leader who was a phenominal story teller. He was a master at taking the features of the area we were in and creating a spooky story behind it. Within two days he had a story that made you honestly believe sOMEthIng was out there. I used his idea to create a story from features around the area I was haunting to create quite a stir at times

For a few years for example, I lived in a rather nice trailer park. One year in deciding a theme for my yard haunt I considered the layout, the woods around it and the simple fact that it was a trailer park and not a regular development. While setting up a pet cemetery two teenage girls walking by asked what the heck I was doing. "It's a pet cemetery" I replied to which I got "Thats stupid". I told them I was doing it because this area was in fact a resting place for pets and that approximately near my house was the original entrance. "Yeah right" I was told. I explained with a back story of a wealthy woman who created it because her favorite cat died and in decidiing to bury him bought some land to create a pet cemetery for others. After she died there was no one to look after the property and it became overgrown. Many years later it was bought for a trailer park. Of course this did not convince them. "look" I said "Think about it. This park is huge. They could have made a fortune selling regular houses here but they didn't. Why? because regular houses have foundations and basements. IF they were to start digging for foundations they would unearth all these pet graves. They just picked up all the headstones, and set trailers on top, therefore eliminating the need for digging up the graves and nobody would ever know they thought. If you dug the ground up you would find pet graves all over this park." I also told them thats why there were so many stray cats around. they are drawn to this place because the original owner was a cat lover and her favorite cat is buried here."

With a straight face I watched as they became thoroughly creeped out. "Are you serious?" they asked. "Yup" i said and went about trying to attach some fake rats to a headstone. I made a flyer at the mailbox shed where everyone got thier mail telling them to come to our house on Halloween when we would expose the deep dark secret of the park. Word of mouth advertising from the girls did the rest and before halloween had even started, the park manager came to me. "Thanks a lot, I've been feilding phone calls for a week from concerned residents that they were actually living over top of an old pet cemetery" She said she didnt believe it, but thought it was a good story and it had most of the kids creeped out.

Halloween night between the cemetery entrance, gravestones, some midnight syndicate music, chilled fog and a few other things, There was a surprising number of people who stopped to read the "expose'" sign I made on the park. Adults had a good laugh, but the true testament was the amount of kids who were actually too creeped out to come on the property and get candy. I ended up bringing a bunch of candy to work the next day.

The cemetery rumor floated around for two more years after that. 

I was quite tickled with the success of that baloney story. I know many use a back story for thier haunt, I'd love to hear if anyone else has used features around them to create a story like that as well.


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## austenandrews (Aug 22, 2010)

I've always loved spinning stories about the history of an area. Very cool that you incorporated it into your haunt.


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## Abby Normal (Jan 4, 2011)

that is sooo good! love the creativity. I might try something like that


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