Des Moines Haunted Houses

If you are visiting this site, you probably like haunted houses. Most folks are not into them. But, even those of us who do like them, don’t like them until late October. Only the truly “into it” folks start planning haunted house visits before then. And the stats for this site show that…

Virtually no visits to this site in the weeks leading up to October. Only a few hundred last week. The real thrills come later, as we see more folks start searching for things to do on the week of Halloween-proper.

And, for what it’s worth, the folks visiting outside of late-October are mostly hitting the page for The Haunt, the Slaughterhouse themed bar downtown which operates in the months when the haunt itself is closed.

Let’s see how 2025 does… But I don’t expect nearly as many visitors this year. The new A.I. search engines do a great job listing haunts before you even get to the search results:

I had to go to Page 2 of search results to even find my site, just after the listing for Slaughterhouse (when I searched last night). I feel bad for folks who do this for a living. 😉

I have slimmed down the website a bit this year due to lack of time, and I do not plan to use the directory plug in I have been using the past few years. It is $$$ to renew the full license, so we’ll see what next year looks like.

I only have name and website link so far for the haunts that have submitted information, but I plan to get full details added when I get a moment.

I expect to start updating this site for 2025 later this week. I am greatly motivated after spending two days exploring the fully-immersive “Dark Universe” section of the new Universal Epic Universe theme park in Orlando last week. That place is a dream for anyone who appreciates classic Universal horror movies, for sure.