For their third year, the Fixes’ Not-So-Haunted house opens to the public on Oct. 27.
Tanya Fix, who created the haunted house with her husband, said what makes them stand out is that their haunted house is family friendly and doesn’t include any jump scares or gory decor.
The theme of this year’s haunted house is “Mad Scientist” and will include a graveyard, a haunted mansion, and laboratory.
Fix said they have even extended the haunted house with close to 200 extra square feet into the backyard and added new sponsors to make it bigger and better.
“We didn't know what to expect and and in all honesty, I don't know what to expect this year,” Fix said. “I just know that somehow last year we made the hashtag #WorththeDrive and we had people from the far South of Calgary, from Seton and McKenzie Towne, coming and saying ‘Oh yeah, we saw the hashtag and we knew we had to come.’”
In a bid to get her Halloween-loving husband to care about Christmas, Tanya Fix decided to invest in his favourite holiday about seven years ago by taking the spooky decorations above and beyond the norm.
Three years ago, in year two of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Fixes and their neighbours felt the community could use some Halloween joy and they created the spacious outdoor family-friendly haunted house.
About 350 people filed through spider alley into the haunted house that first year.
“We [raised] a couple $100 and a couple 100 pounds of food for the food bank,” Fix said. “And we thought, ‘this is cool.’”
The inspiration the Fixes needed to make this an annual event came from a family with three enthusiastic little girls who begged their parents to let them go through the haunted house several times.
The following year the family kept a close eye on when the haunted house portal went up and visited as soon as they could.
“We got this beautiful little thank you card because [the oldest girl] loved it so much,” Fix said. “It was just that thrill and hearing from the neighbours that this was such a good thing. It was good community spirit.”
The Fixes are located in a community with homes that are over 18 years old surrounded by newer homes, which has created an interesting dichotomy of young families moving in around more established families. This haunted house, Fix said, has encouraged everyone to get to know eachother a little bit better.
Last year, the haunted house saw more than 1,310 people over four days who helped them raise over 600 pounds of groceries and $414 in cash for the food bank.
