Homemade Display Wins Fair Lawn's Halloween House Contest

Three houses, as chosen by Patch readers, stood out as the most outstanding.

Three terrifically terrifying Halloween houses separated themselves from the pack of 11 nominees in this year's Scariest Halloween House in Fair Lawn contest. They are, in reverse order of votes, 8 Townley Road, 1-27 Hartley Place and this year's winner, 12-10 Ellis Ave. At 12-10 Ellis Ave., artist-engineer John Bernabeo has 27 monsters that he built himself using PVC pipe and chicken wire. He began making monsters in 1995, and has been adding new ones each year. This year, he added three zombies.  Bernabeo uses his electrical and plumbing skills to place motion sensors on a number of the monsters, rigging them to jump out at trick-or-treaters (had there been any) as they walk by on the sidewalk. A chorus of monster sounds, thunder and …

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