In 1997, Mary Kane’s 14-year old daughter inspired her to open up a haunted house for Halloween. People would walk through a scary decorated tent, and get candy from her front porch.

Today, her haunted house spans her whole driveway, front porch, and front yard, and consists of eleven different areas, including a mirror room, a clown room, a zombie enclosure, a spider area, a purge room, and more.

The whole experience is designed to elicit a visceral feeling of fear and excitement for anyone who comes through.

The free-for-everyone attraction is found on Halloween, from 6:00 pm to 9:30 pm, at 125 East Mountain St. Glendale, CA.

Kane loves “scaring the hell out of people.”

According to her, “I no longer even get dressed. I stay at the front and answer questions before people go in, and then just listen to people get scared.”

Her collection of decorations and costumes is enormous, and when people ask where she keeps “all these monsters,” her answer is “at the bottom of my pool.”

She’s had vandals at times, but she gets a lot of support for what she does from attendees.

“I’ve had people come through and tell me I should charge for this. I don’t charge for it, because I just love to do this for the community.”

The whole project is driven by the work of dozens of volunteers, and since it’s been around for so long, she’s seen several generations of people helping.

“It turned from my daughter’s friends, and then my nieces and nephews, and then my grand-nieces and nephews, and then my neighbors,” she says.

Given that most of her volunteers come back several years in a row, she’s built a lot of trust with them.

In 2016, she broke both of her hands in a bike accident two weeks before halloween.

“My neighbors, and my triathlon team, they all came and helped. I couldn’t do anything with my two hands, all I could do was direct. It was still an awesome haunted house.”

Kane plans on living in her current house for another five years. After 24 years of this tradition, it seems the end is in sight.

The people of Glendale have five more years to take advantage of this community attraction.

She may pass the torch to other nearby volunteers, but there aren’t any well-defined plans.

For now, if you hear screams near North Brand and Mountain on Halloween, know that Mary Kane’s haunted house is in full swing.