Halloween homes so scary that kids are banned! Homeowners spend hundreds to terrify their neighbours with spooktacular October 31 shows

Halloween obsessed Brits have gone all out this spooky season to turn their homes into terrifying haunted houses and one of the scariest of all is so terrifying that children have been banned.

Many other homeowners in all corners of the UK have decorated their houses in the hopes of securing donations to charity from impressed trick or treaters.

Decorations seen across the country vary from the more harmless traditional pumpkins and cartoonish ghosts to more sinister gravestones and horror movie murals.

Elliot Smith and his partner Tasha Quick have decked out their end of a terrace in Stafford with ghoulish decorations, ghosts and haunted mazes.

The Halloween-obsessed couple are daring thrill-seekers to enter their home on Halloween but the horror maze is too scary for children and is over-18s only.

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Elliot and Tasha spent three weeks turning the family home into an abandoned haunted house complete with a witch’s cave and pet cemetery.

They have even recruited actors to give people a fright by leaping out at them.

Father-of-three Elliot, 32, said: ‘We trialled the maze with some friend’s kids but they came out too terrified so we had to make it adults only.

‘Instead we’ve added a mini-maze for children which has animatronics.

‘Our main maze has actors who dress up and we scare people in there. People love it but they don’t realise how scary it is.’

While the front of the building follows a haunted house theme, with humanoid ghosts projected onto the windows, the side is a ‘witches cabin’.

‘There’s three witches in there,’ Elliot said. ‘They do all their spells and fly their brooms.’

And in the garden, visitors can go to a haunted pumpkin patch, where the vegetables tell jokes and sing songs.

Elliot, a building maintenance worker, spent hours in evenings and on weekends converting the home into the perfect horror house, as the couple hope to raise money for local charity Childhood Cancer Parents Alliance.

Another couple looking to raise funds through their haunting decorations is Lisa, 54, and Paul Spann, 59, who have created a spectacular light display at their home using more than 100,000 LEDs.

The pair expect to dazzle hundreds of visitors with the incredible display outside their three bedroom house in Bolton.

A 35-minute long show involves props dancing with the bright lights to Halloweens songs such as ‘Spooky, Scary, Skeletons’.

Lisa and Paul took around one month putting up the lights and spent £2,500 on extra props this year, Lisa revealed.

New additions include a 14ft tree two gothic lampposts and a light tunnel of light.

‘We’ve had 100 to 150 people stood outside all watching the show,’ Lisa revealed.

She added that their neighbours are ‘all behind’ the light show despite it causing the street to be closed.

‘They are all behind it because they know we are doing it for charity,’ she said.

The Hemley Close Lights are all in aid of Fortalice, a vital charity supporting women and children affected by domestic violence in Bolton.

Further north, the Howson family have set up their Halloween house of horrors for the 18th year in a row.

William Howson, 69, and wife Roslyn, 62, spend around eight weeks in the lead up to Halloween, enlisting their children and 17 grandchildren to help decorate their Motherwell home.

The front of the house has been lit with green lights, with a skeletal graveyard scene set up in the garden and spiderwebs adorning the exterior.

Inside are sinister animatronics that cackle and chant – and the Howson family, hiding in costume and ready to jump out at visitors.

Their tradition began in 2006, after decorations for a Halloween themed birthday party for their grandson attracted neighbours’ attention – and each year since, the family have opened their doors on October 31.

William and Roslyn now welcome hundreds of visitors each year for free, sometimes spending up to six hours in costume and scaring willing guests.

‘Over the last couple of years, we’ve had around 600 people,’ William said, ‘and I think it might be a wee bit busier this time.’

One Brit has sought to bridge the gap to the next festive season with a ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ theme to her decorations.

Lavinia Hedges, 27, has produced a number of displays over recent years on her house in Gillingham, Kent.

This one is in aid of My Shining Star – a children’s charity.

While it might initially look simply Halloween themed, the inclusion of a wreath and Santa hats on many of the decorations is a clear nod to the end of the year.

Her decorations also include a ‘Halloween town’ which houses an array of tombstones and ghostly figures. 

But Britain’s scariest house for Halloween, as crowned by budget supermarket Aldi, can be found in Anfield, Liverpool, where Katie Griffiths, 27, and her partner have decorated the home with giant spiders, menacing skeletons and eerie tombstones.

There are also live performers which helped the couple earn £1,000 of Aldi vouchers as the shop’s champions after a nationwide search.

Judge Darren Butler said the 27-year-old’s home stood out particularly because of its ‘cemetery’ front gate.

Ms Griffiths said she was ‘thrilled’ to be crowned champion after five years making the display, which has become a way to support two charities – Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool and Zoe’s Place Baby Hospice – which Aldi are also donating £500 each to.

While residents in London often have less space to work with at the front of their properties, they are determined not to miss out on the fun either. 

Locals in Kensington, Notting  Hill and Holland Park are among those pushing the boat this year to celebrate Halloween. 

Celebrity florist Warren Bushway of London Event Florist who counts Simon Cowell, Robbie Williams and Jamie Redknapp as clients has spent the past 10 days decorating multi million pound homes in the upmarket part of west London with many houses spending £1000 on Halloween celebrations.

In the absence of big gardens, Londoners are using their pillared entrances, steps up to their front doors and front gates as an opportunity to house displays.

People who do have  some greenery on their plot have draped shrubs in fake cobwebs and spiders, with the occasional skeleton hanging out from the trees.