Thursday, October 18, 2018

SODA Halloween Decorations

Each year SODA awards several homes in our neighborhood with a certificate and window sticker for their outstanding Halloween displays. If you know of any that deserve that honor this year leave a comment with address on our Contact Us page.

Check out the video and article below from FOX2 news about two of our past SODA Halloween Decoration winners.



DEARBORN, Mich. (WJBK) - Ghost and goblins are haunting neighbors in one Metro Detroit neighborhood. The two homeowners behind the spooky display are going all out for a good scare.

Hundreds of people a day are stopping by the two homes every day on Grindley Park in Dearborn. Skeltons, spiders, plenty of clowns and even a T-rex help spook visitors.

One of the homeowners says he just loves Halloween and enjoys watching the scares.

"People love it. People always say it's a great job and thanks for me doing it and they appreciate it. I just love the little kids how they react," says Ray Stachurski.

This is Ray's eighth year setting up the display.

Ray says it takes him about two weeks to set up, and it gets bigger every year. He also changes things around to keep it fresh. This year, he says one of his different decorations is a skeleton scene where they're fighting dragons.

But Ray's not alone. On the corner is the Grindley Park Haunt, run the by Romanchuk family.

Savanna Romanchuk says the family has been doing their Halloween display for about five years in Dearborn but it's tradition that stretches back 30 years to when the family lived on Detroit' west side on Mansfield.

Savanna's mom's brother started it but died when he was just 28. Her mom picked up the tradition and, about three decades later, it's now in Dearborn with the Romanchuk family.

Initially, they were told they wouldn't get more than 60 kids trick-or-treating. The first year, they said they had 1,300 kids.

They even set up a Facebook page that reached all the way to the west coast, bringing a woman from California just to see their exhibit.