Dead End Indeed: Sarita Street Haunted by Art Student Ricky Hernandez

Ricky Hernandez, an Art Institute student, puts his creativity—and family-bred love of Halloween—to work at his parents’ home at 6101 Sarita St. in north La Mesa.

A driveway fright maze has become so popular in recent years that people he’s never met “come up to me during October to ask if there will be another haunted house,” Hernandez says.

Halloween will be the second night of the Sarita Street scare—aptly marked with a “Dead End” sign near its Nagel Street entrance.

His twin brothers—Nick and Alex, 16—lend a hand, he said, and cousin Jesse Nunez, his father, Rick, and mother, Christa, also help decorate the front yard.

“It all started with my dad about 13 years ago,” said Hernandez, 22, a Grossmont High School graduate from 2007. “He started by making small scenes in the garage such as a mad doctor sawing the leg off an unfortunate person.”

Hernandez said that when he got older, and became more involved in Halloween, his goal was to scare as many people as possible—just like his dad did.

“Very soon Halloween became my biggest day of the year and also my biggest hobby,” he said. “I started making bigger scenes from movies and any crazy thing that popped in my head.”

He makes his own masks and relies on “darkness, loud sudden noises, creepy music and visually scary props and scenery.” And torn white bedsheets.

Hernandez—who lives with his Grossmont classmate and girlfriend Karla Klistof, 23, in Fletcher Hills—also works at Costco on Fletcher Parkway.

Klistof helps sell hot drinks in its two-night run, but the family doesn’t charge for the tour, which will cost Hernandez about $60 this year.

“I have never counted the amount of people that come to my haunted house,” he said. “I just know [that], after the night is [over], I can barely walk, the three bags of candy bought from Costco are gone and my voice is no longer able to make anymore screams.”

How successful is he?

Teenagers have been so unnerved, he said, that they forget to ask for candy.

Said Hernandez: “I do everything I can to make sure everyone leaves my haunted house scared—because everyone is entitled to one good scare on Halloween.”