Fenton Home Undergoes Annual Transformation to Haunted House

Some obsessions start with something small.

The Gross family's Halloween decoration fascination, however, started with something very large.

“We went and found a six-foot-tall light-up mummy, and that started our craziness,” said Fenton resident Jennifer Gross.

Now the family’s yard, near the corner of Elizabeth and East streets, contains multiple ghosts, goblins, clowns and even heads hanging from a tree.

“I’ve always loved Halloween. My husband was anti-Halloween,” Gross said.  “I really got into it a lot with my kids. They love it.”

Every year the family purchases more decorations, changing the haunting look every year to change things up. New this year are heads hanging from a tree.

“We love it. We wait at the stores for them to open,” Gross said. “The one spirit store in Flint, the guys know us. We went in the opening weekend and they said, ‘Oh, they’re back, we are going to make quota.’”

The family has so much Halloween décor that some has even been moved to their neighbor’s yard.

While the yard is already decked out with more haunting images than most haunted houses, on Halloween the family takes it to the next level.

“You can’t even see the grass,” said Gross’ son Trevor McGowan.

“We do a lot more,” Gross said. “We sit out strobe lights. But I don’t want to irritate my neighbors with right now.”

The family, which also decorates extensively for Christmas and has won the Fenton Beautification Commission Holiday Light contest, encourages others to stop by.

“We get a good crowd. A lot of people stop,” Gross said. “We are not here to scare people. We want the kids to come. We buy tons of candy. We want people to enjoy what we have. We spend a lot of money on it and we want people to see it.”

Gross said her husband, Michael, dresses up and stands in the yard, often jumping out at visitors (not little ones, however). Sometimes his friends join him in the scare tactics.

Occasionally, they are a little too scary for some.

“We made one girl pee her pants,” Trevor said.