Because of the incidents in 1996 we cancelled the haunt in 1997 and 1998.
Many of the neighborhood kids had come to look forward to the annual haunt. One time in the summer of 1996, Jim and John were sitting on the porch talking. A young boy came by with his mother and started telling her that we were the cool house that always decorated and handed out the awesome goodie bags. We felt great!
This was always something for the kids. Oh sure, we enjoy the heck out of it. But it's really for the kids. That's why we were so disgusted and fed up in 96.
We were wearing the Death Studios masks. These are totally awesome but provide a limited field of vision. We had a few bad eggs from a nearby neighborhood that tried to steal the props when we weren't looking. This happened several times. We ended up having to take shifts on guard duty, to keep the little sticky fingers away from our stuff.
We had far, far more good kids than bad kids and it seemed like a shame to let down the good kids for a few little animals but we were totally bummed by the experience and needed a break to get back in the mood.