This week on Weird and Wacky Wednesdays: Halloween Edition
It is Wednesday, which means it is time to look at what is weird, wacky, and legal. Halloween falls on Saturday, and this week the decorations have been causing more legal trouble than the costumes.
The Mannequins
In Bristol Borough, Pennsylvania, a homeowner decorated his yard with a small graveyard, two monster scarecrows, and six mannequins. Five of the mannequins hang from a large tree and one is lashed to it. They are wrapped in black plastic and held together with duct tape.
A neighbour complained at the borough council meeting on October 12. A zoning inspector had already visited the house, and council members and the borough manager have since contacted the homeowner to ask him to take the display down. He declined. The council president has acknowledged that the homeowner has broken no ordinance. The mayor invited him to dinner, which is a generous way to handle a lawn decoration. Everyone in the borough is now familiar with the display, and I expect that was not the outcome the neighbour wanted.
The Doll Collection
In Breda, in the Netherlands, Esmeralda Melgert has spent about 10,000 euros turning her house into a Halloween attraction. It has been up for nearly two months. The municipality ordered her to remove it by noon yesterday, or it would do the removal at her expense. The stated reason is that the decorations sit on public land without a permit. According to the letter, the municipality has not found that the display blocks the sidewalk or creates a safety risk. Enforcement officers had visited earlier and admired it. Her youngest son bought one of the dolls with his pocket money, so the city is now in a dispute with a child’s investment portfolio. The neighbourhood Halloween celebration is scheduled for October 30.
Ellie the Skeleton Dog
In Surprise, Arizona, surveillance video shows a woman getting out of a Jeep at about 4 a.m. on October 21 and pulling Halloween decorations out of front lawns. Sydney Ostrander lost two tombstones, a skeleton head, and a skeleton dog named Ellie. The family first assumed the overnight storm had blown the decorations away, since a tree had also landed on her mother’s van that night. The items are worth about $100, and Ostrander has said she is willing to prosecute. After she posted the video, other residents sent in clips of the same vehicle at their homes. Police received a tip identifying a possible suspect, visited the residence twice, and found no one home.
Taking decorations from a lawn is theft, and the cameras on every doorbell in the neighbourhood made this one easy to document. A thief who wants a skeleton dog should consider that the dog has already been filmed.
Happy Halloween, and enjoy the week.
