Halloween is just around the corner! The time of scary movies, creepy costumes and yummy candy is approaching, but how many dorms are ready for it?

Most of what makes Halloween spooky are the decorations. The night won’t be scary if the ambiance is off. However, nothing is spookier than overpriced decorations people will only use once a year. Luckily for students, they don’t need expensive items to make their dorms and apartments look scary.

Dollar Tree is the best bet for cheap Halloween decor, and the store is stocked with a variety of trinkets and signs. However, Michaels also has a good stash of decorations for those who are willing to spend a little more money for decor of better quality. The price difference is not too horrific, though!

Now what does one do once they have all of these decorations? One idea is taking advantage of the long hallways of RWU’s apartments and suites. Students can make them into scary hallways by lining the ceiling with fake cobwebs, and then hiding plastic spiders and spooky lights within it. Students can take it a step further and place a speaker somewhere along the hallway to play eerie sounds or music. Hang a few more decorations along the walls, or whatever else students may have bought, then turn off the lights and boom — a spooky, scary Halloween hallway.

Some simpler ideas are buying window stickers and covering the windows of dorms, finding creepy magnets to place on refrigerators, or even buying a whole fake skeleton at a store and dressing it for the occasion. There is a lot students can do with a small chunk of money.

Other places to find inspiration are on popular social media sites, such as Pinterest or TikTok, which will have whole hashtags dedicated to this subject. In addition, YouTube has many tutorials of finding, or even making, spooky decorations.

Halloween is coming! The question is, though, is whether people are ready for it…