Schaumburg woman delights in spooky fun - possibly for last time
At first glance, the house on Woodcroft Court in Schaumburg looks like something out of a Charles Dickens novel, with its overgrown brush in the front yard, boarded up windows and ghosts hanging from the trees.
Even inside, where the dining room is covered in cobwebs and a corpse bride hovers at the front door, owner Carole Tsukuno likens the decaying house to Miss Havisham's in Dickens' "Great Expectations."
Yet all at once, the spell breaks when Tsukuno herself appears out of nowhere, dressed in a decidedly more modern and less macabre fashion - as none other than Marge Simpson.
Her trademark blue beehive hair and lime green dress - a costume Tsukuno created - hint at her playful personality. Yet only when visitors approach the house and a black spider hits them squarely in the face do they begin to understand the full measure of Tsukuno as a prankster.
This year, though, her love of Halloween and all of her mischievous decorations and tricks seem bittersweet to her neighbors and many friends. It may be Tsukuno's last Halloween, as she's in her third bout with cancer.
"Unless the prayers of everybody come through, I don't think I'm going to be around for another year," said Tsukuno, who with her husband has two grown sons, Craig and David.
With the help of extended family members and friends, she's been able to continue her penchant for decorating for Halloween and creating larger-than-life costumes.
She dates her passion to her son David's Nov. 1 birthday. When he was a boy, she'd hold costume parties for his classmates each year. They started with guests T.P.-ing the house to set the mood and included elaborate outfits for her son and herself.
"She was the only person I ever knew to pass out toilet paper to T.P. her own house," said neighbor Katie Pritscher.
Things escalated from there.
Paula Saban, another neighbor, explained that Tsukuno lets her sunflowers along her front walk grow as high as possible "so that by Halloween they are brown and bowing their heads, making a maze to approach her front door.
"Better yet," Saban added, "is the anticipation of how she will be dressed, the creepy music playing and the inside decorations, which possibly could be oozing with something awful."
Wednesday, Tsukuno learned her decorating flair also earned her some officials recognition, as the overall winner in the Halloween House Decorating Contest, hosted for the first time by the Schaumburg Park District.
Tsukuno, whose sons are both Eagle Scouts, also helped started the Boy Scouts' Haunted Hike 13 years ago, donating many of her costumes and decorations to build the scary vignettes.
This year's hike was last weekend at the Methodist Campgrounds in Des Plaines, where more than 2,100 patrons needed nearly an hour to make it through the creepy scenes.
Tsukuno's neighbors in the Plum Rose subdivision knew she was a winner all along.
"Kids in the neighborhood love to go to her house, as she is known as 'the lady with the giant spider on her house,'" said Teresa Colby-Dokubo. "She even sets up traps for kids and will send spiders flying down on the older kids' heads as they try and walk up to her door."
When Denise Patton, who now lives in Palatine, moved into the neighborhood 11 years ago, "Carole was the first to invite me over. It was a Halloween bunco party, and everyone had to come in costume."
And not just any costume. The more elaborate and playful, the better.
Tsukuno has already attended one costume party this year and will surely show up at the door to spook trick-or-treaters Saturday. But she admits she is tiring and taking lots of pain medication.
"This keeps me going. I just really get into it," she says. "I just can't stop."