U City Couple Create Halloween Haunted House

If you're looking for a family-friendly fright night on Halloween head over to Derrick and Maryanne Coley's house at the corner of Jackson and Drexel in University City.

For more than a dozen years now the Coley's have gone over the top in decorating their house for Halloween, located at 7365 Drexel Drive, just north of the high school.

"Each year the theme is different, but one thing is the same - there's a haunted house," Maryanne told University City Patch. She said 500 kids turned up for last year's haunted house.

"If the weather is nice on Monday evening, we expect that many again this year."

"My husband spends the entire month of October each year getting ready for Halloween," Maryanne said. Her prep work included stocking up on more than $100 worth of candy.

This year's theme is "Homecoming at Monster High Sghoul, and the Zombies are playing the Pumpkin Heads at football. The haunted house is the sghoul classes - Math, Science, English, etc. And after school detention is something to avoid!

Maryanne Coley said while it's not a professiona" display, the kids and adults love it, and always have a great time on Halloween.

Although, Maryanne cautions that the streets around her house are usually very crowded with cars.

Derrick Coley said the haunted house would probably get underway around 5pm on Monday.