By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – There’s a new haunted house in town. It’s big, it’s scary, it was all built by one woman, and your only chance to see what we’ve seen will be Halloween night in Port Angeles.
Rachael Jorgensen works at Olympic Medical Center by day, has two kids at home, and still found time to build a masterpiece of nightmares in the garage and patio of her home. Her collection of animatronic ghouls and scary clowns is vast, and you’ll meet them all as you walk through a dark, creepy maze.
What on earth “possessed” her to do it? It seems to have started when she played in the bands Big Fine Daddies and Mister Sister.
“I used to play professionally in a band that used to do Halloween shows every year at the Elks, and so I’d get to hear everybody going through that scary haunted house, and helping with putting on the production for our band. So, we’d always do…I had the costumes and the lighting and the sound and, you know, that was just kind of a passion of mine. And so now, I’m just at home raising two kids and trying to find a way to still put that in my life.”
Jorgensen had a kind of opening house for the project on Saturday night and saw as many as 100 people stop by. That helped her and a few volunteers work out the bugs, and get the sights, sounds and mood lighting tuned in and ready for the big night on Halloween.
Jorgensen says her spooky collection is partly the result of trading and bartering with like-minded people she met on the internet. And what do her two kids think about all this? She says she’s been called the coolest mom in the neighborhood.
“That’s what they tell me sometimes. They love it. I have an eight-year-old and a three-year-old. And my son was dressed as Super Mario, and he was the tour guide. He was running through this thing like it was just no big deal and telling everyone, “Let’s go.” It’s just so adorable. Yeah, I probably wouldn’t go this crazy if my kids weren’t also as obsessed as I am.”
The Jorgensen haunted house is located at 1514 W. 11th Street in Port Angeles, between H and I Streets. Look for the graveyard with the 12 foot skeleton. The door is open from 6:30 to 10:00pm on Halloween.
And while you’re in the neighborhood, we’ve learned that there is another haunted house just a few blocks away at 1612 W. 7th Street, open from 5pm-10pm. This family has also put a lot of work into making it a scary experience, and both hosts will be sending their visitors to one another’s location tonight.
(Staff photo of Jorgensen and her werewolf doorman)