A family fills their house and the street with Halloween decorations and the City Council orders them removed 24 hours before due to security risk

Halloween is approaching and more and more people are daring to decorate their homes. In these cases, you must take into account whether you live in a community of neighbors, which altering common areas may mean having to remove themor if the decorations are too flashy, it can cause problems with the neighbors and even the City Council.

This is exactly what happened last Halloween to a family in Scotland who had been filling their home with ghosts, witches and skeletons for years and who, just 24 hours before Halloween, received a letter from the City Council asking them to remove part of the decoration because it could pose a danger to those passing by.

According to the information published by BBCthe owner of the house had been decorating the façade for Halloween since her children were little and, as time went by, she expanded the setup until it also occupied part of the path next to the house.

There they had built a tunnel of terror through which visitors could pass, made up of pumpkins, witch figures, skeletons and other decorations supported by plastic tubes and wooden rails.

A complaint led the City Council to ask that the tunnel be removed

The problem for this family arose after a complaint to the City Council related to the safety of the passage structure. After reviewing it, the authorities sent a letter to the family in which they considered that the tunnel posed a “risk to public safety,” since there was a possibility that someone would be injured when passing under it or that part of the structure would end up collapsing.

The City Council also pointed out that the family should have requested authorization to occupy that space and explained that, even if they had requested it, it would probably have been rejected due to the risks detected.

In addition, he warned them that any claim for damage suffered by a person while passing through the tunnel could end up being the responsibility of the owner.

“When I received the letter I was really surprised,” explained the woman, who assured that it had never occurred to her that she needed a permit to install decorations that would only remain there for a few weeks.

The family assured that the structure is safe and wanted to keep it until Halloween

The owner defended that the assembly was stable and that it had been installed for weeks without any type of problem or movement. He also regretted that someone had decided to report it, taking into account that it was a temporary installation.

“The structure is very safe and I am disappointed that someone has reported it to the City Council, since it will only be installed for three or four weeks at most,” he said.

The woman also explained that her tunnel of terror had become a kind of local attraction, since many people visited it to see the decorations. In addition, their initiative also had a solidarity objective, since along the route there were piggy banks for charities.

Despite the City Council’s request, the family explained that they could not immediately dismantle the entire structure because they needed several people to do so and they hoped to be able to maintain part of the assembly during the Halloween celebration.