Asia House offers haunted house in basement

The Halloween spirit - or rather, spirits - are alive and well tonight in the basement of Asia House.

Approximately 15 residents of the program house, as well as members of the Community Service Committee, are perpetuating Asia House's annual tradition of putting on a haunted house for both College students and residents of the Oberlin community.

"We have a really scary basement and it's the ideal place to have a haunted house," said Community Resident Organizer (CRO) junior China Weber, one of the primary coordinator of the haunted house.

A miscommunication between haunted house coordinators and city officials led to the scheduling of the haunted house tonight instead of last night, the city of Oberlin's mandated date for town residents to trick-or-treat.

"We don't know what kind of turnout to expect; we'll just have to see what happens," Weber said.

Open to visitors free of charge tonight from 7 to 8 p.m., the haunted house features ghosts, witches and bowls full of eyeballs for the brave of heart to touch, as well as a few surprises.

Weber said this year's haunted house is a tamer version of its predecessors a number of years ago. "I heard people got really scared in the past, even parents who took their children. This is the first year I'm working on it; I've actually never been to one before. I've been too scared myself," she said.

"We want everybody to have a good time and get scared but we don't want it to be a traumatizing experience. We're just out to have fun," Weber added.