Haunted House Safety Checklist

By Larry Kirchner

What should be done before opening your haunted house each night? Here is a list of some things we recommend you check off each and every night before you open your haunted house.

1) Nails and Screws: Before you even open your haunted house to the public you should check every wall front and back for screws and nails. Many times you screw a spider on the wall and that screw is poking through the other side of the wall. Additionally, that same screw that holds your spider to the wall could be ripped off the wall as a souvenir. What happens if the spider is ripped from the wall? Well, you have a screw head exposed that could rip someone's eye out! Many times you're doing repairs to a wall that has become lose. You take a three inch screw and tighten it back up. Did that screw poke out of the other end? Or how about this one…did your repair guy drop any screws or nails during the show while making repairs? Stepping on a nail or screw can lead to a serious issue.

a. Solution: Even in daylight with all overhead lights on inspect your haunted house with a flashlight. The flashing will give your eyes a focus and highlight the area you're looking at making it easier to find screws and nails. Perform this inspection each day before you open. You just never know when someone put a screw into a wall or dropped one the floor.

2) Deadly Weapons: Yes it is true that you're actors are more effective smashing bats into the walls or taking sticks and banging a banister. Can you honestly trust your actors to never miss a metal barrel or something with their deadly weapon? Do you have strobe lights? Have you ever run into a wall in your own haunted house? Even though you know your haunted house as well as anyone; in the dark, under the influence of strobe lights or confused by fog, you can and will make a mistake from time to time. You must NOT allow the actors to have any type of bat, stick, long metal chain or whatever in your haunted house. Again we agree they make louder noises and scare people but you can't take the chance. Sticks break and then fly through the air and could hit someone in the face. A few years ago an actor hit a customer with a baseball bat by accident and gave the customer brain damage.

a. Solution: DO NOT ALLOW any type of sticks, pipes, bats, chains of any kind. Find safer methods to scare your customers.

3) Fire Extinguishers: Make sure your actors know where they are and how to use them. Fire departments will come to your location and train your staff as to how to use a fire extinguisher. Actors should be reminded each not night to panic if they see a fire but to react according to the training they've received. Where are those fire extinguishers? Do you know? Did someone move them? Will they work when needed?

a. Solution: Make sure you have your fire extinguishers re-charged by professionals each season. Make sure you have one fire extinguisher per room or per actor. Either check out fire extinguishers to actors each night or mount them in areas where the actors hide from customers.

4) Fire Retardant: Is your haunted house safe from burning down the house? Nothing will ruin your business faster than a fire, especially one that injures or kills patrons. Make sure anything you put into your haunted house doesn't burn upon contact of a flame. Can you ignite your camo-netting, jute, plastic, latex, cheese cloth, or regular fabric with a lighter? If so, you've got problems and need to look into some professional fire retardants to make your attraction safe? Some of you haunters out there give no respect what so ever to this area and that's dangerous. A five gallon bucket isn't enough to make your attraction safe. New York Fire Shield sells a 55 gallon drum fire retardant. Usually we buy 3 or 4 of these drums to properly retard our haunts. Have you ever used heavy jute to make your haunt creepy? Have you ever hung cheese cloth to give a scene that extra creep factor? You can't just spray heavy jute; you need to dunk it in a 55 gallon drum to be safe. If you're one of those haunts that's too cheap to buckle up and buy a 55 gallon drum or two to spray your haunt each year GET OUT OF THE BUSINESS! PERIOD!

a. Solution: Purchase NO less than 55 gallons of flame retardant that can be sprayed from a deck sprayers. Take your deck sprayers and spray every inch of your haunted house until things are dripping wet. Pay closer attention to anything cloth, latex, foam, jute, light wood, etc. DO NOT retard your haunt until it's DONE so that everything that's going into your haunt is inside. Once you've completed the process to retard your haunt, make sure to cut small samples of cloth, jute, etc. and take them outside to a flame test. If the material burns you need to go back and retard the materials again. You may need more than one drum to properly retard your haunted house. Lastly, make sure that if you add any new props and materials to your haunt to retard them prior to placing them in the haunt.

5) Trip Hazards: Do you have trip hazards in your haunted house like extension cords, loose floors, un-even floors, rocks or a prop that has fallen over? Trip and falls are the #1 reason for filed lawsuits in America. Make sure your electric power tool actor doesn't extend their cords into walk ways used by customer. If your haunted house is outside make sure nothing got into the trail itself of the customers.

a. Solution: Make sure your actors KNOW they're the eyes and ears of the haunted house. Institute a policy that your actors MUST make sure to pick up any debris, move any cords, or props that might cause a trip and fall. Your actors must notify the person who makes repairs. It's more important for that actor to make sure that area is safe, and notify you of the problem than it is for them to continue to stay in character and get scares. Make sure you walk the entire haunted house each night, shaking props, looking for things on the floor, or holes, etc. Remind actors each night to look out for things that might cause a trip and fall.

6) Staircases: Do NOT scare anyone within 15 feet of a staircase top or bottom and make sure you have BRIGHT lights in the staircase with secure handrails. You do not want anyone falling down a flight of stairs do you? You may also consider putting a security person at the top of any staircase to make sure NO ONE runs down the staircase.

7) Access Corridors/Pocket Doors: Make sure you've added several pocket doors to your maze so actors and security can access different parts of the maze fast and without having to walk all the way through the maze. A pocket door is a door that slides into the wall, which is safer than a door that can swing open and hit someone. Additionally, when laying out your maze try to create a secret corridor that wraps around most of the maze. This corridor would have doors all through the hallway giving you access to literally any scene in the attraction. Lastly it gives the customer quicker access to the exits in case of an emergency.

8) Communication: Communication is king inside your dark, foggy haunted house. Make sure that many of your actors have radios so when they have a problem they can call out to management. Remember, actors are your eyes and ears inside the attraction. If something is going wrong, they're usually the first to know about it. By not allowing them radios you're hurting your reaction time to a problem.

a. Solution: Promote actors to be in charge of certain areas of the haunt and give them radios. Make sure you have no less than 8 actors with radios inside the haunted house.

9) Maze Supports: Do not kid yourself; mazes get beat to death every single night. Make sure before you open each night to push on walls and see if they're stable. When you're checking on your actors during the night make sure keep an eye on your maze. If a support comes lose do not hesitate to shut down your haunted house until it's fixed. You can't afford to have your maze collapse on your customers.

10) Emergency Exit Signs: Be sure your emergency exit signs haven't been damaged and the light bulbs are still burning bright. If you ever need to use your emergency exits you can't afford to have customers who can't find the proper exits. Make sure you check your emergency lights and exit signs each night. Additionally, make sure you have directional arrows in your maze that point to the exit. We know that E-Lights do get broken from time to time during operation so make sure to walk your haunted house each day and check them.