Skeleton-infested home welcomes trick-or-treaters
One Bella Vista home is covered with creepy skeletons, crawling spiders and other spooky things.
The house, at the corner of Sandridge Drive and Theodore Drive, was decorated by its resident, Teah Bidwell, who moved to Bella Vista last year in search of her dream home — this particular yellow Victorian home with a red door, which is currently covered in bones.
Halloween is her birthday, she said, as well as her favorite holiday, which makes it easy to justify putting in this kind of effort.
“Thank God my husband likes it too,” she said.
This is the fourth year they’ve put together a large display, she said. Her family partnered with neighbors and the city when they lived in Centerton to establish the “Trail of Fears,” a series of homes decorated for Halloween and set up to receive canned food for those in need.
“I would love to do that here in Bella Vista,” Bidwell said. “It raised so much food.”
Last year, she said, her new home wasn’t decorated because she was still working with Centerton. Last year’s theme, she said, was clowns. This time around she went for skeletons — something she didn’t have props lined up for yet — in part because they fit the Victorian home.
“Of course we had to pick a brand new theme this year,” she said.
There are currently 21 bony individuals hanging out on and around her house, she said, plus five child skeletons, a trio of skeletal rats, four dogs and four spiders.
Her 15-year-old, she said, is big on biology and doesn’t hesitate to remind her that the skeleton spiders are wholly inaccurate.
In addition to the characters, there are coffins, cauldrons, spiderwebs and a graveyard.
The setup, she said, will come alive at night with orange lights and fog machines adding to the spooky atmosphere.
But with all those bones, she said, the setup still isn’t complete.
“I need to get a few more skeletons this weekend,” Bidwell said. “We put them up all over the house and I feel like we need about five more to finish it.”
They’ve been tough to source, she said, because many stores have been sold out.
Moreover, she said, the skeletons were enough of a pain to put up that they’re staying up until Christmas — when they’ll get Santa hats.
Bidwell and her husband, John Bowman, have gone to a convention to learn more about making and sourcing Halloween props, she said. They’re not about to stop decorating. But this year, she said, she still wants her work to be seen.
“Come trick or treat on the 31st, we’ll be here,” she said. “We are prepared for anyone that wants to come out.”