Check out St. Charles’ Gallery of Ghoulish Homes Tour

They hear “Wow!” often, as well as “It’s Disney’s Haunted Mansion!”

“That’s cool to hear,” says Christine Acosta, whose home at 38W207 Oak Drive on the west side of St. Charles is part of the St. Charles Park District’s 14th annual Gallery of Ghoulish Homes Tour.

This is Acostas’ fourth year of participation. They make a lot of the props themselves, such as movable panels Cesilio builds and Christine paints. They also go to a haunt show each year, the kind that haunted house producers go to, where they see what’s new on the market and buy new props for their house.

They make their own tombstones and corpses — the “corpse” being a skeleton with melted plastic on it.

The whole family is in on it. They have four daughters from grade school age to 24.

All of the girls made their own tombstones, except for the youngest.

The couple were big fans of Halloween before they met. They love doing the haunted house, hearing and seeing people’s reactions as well as scaring people. However, they do a “no scare” tour for little kids their youngest daughter leads.

Neighbors of all ages come over and help by being live characters.

The Acostas decorate the inside of their house during the first week of October, completing it in under two days. They started decorating the outside in September, including putting together the graveyard.

If you want to see this, or other homes featured on the tour, you’d better hurry. Everything comes down starting Nov 1.

For details on the Gallery of Ghoulish Homes Tour, visit www.st-charlesparks.org.