Sherry Mailloux’s house, located in the 400 block of Piccadilly Lane in Turlock, has been a destination for many trick-or-treaters and the ogling eyes of parents for the past five years. Her elaborate “haunted house” is visited by hundreds, if not thousands of youth throughout the month of October, but this year she got slapped with a $100 fine from the City of Turlock.

According to Mailloux, an unknown man complained to the City, which caused an officer with the City of Turlock’s Neighborhood Services to come out to her house and issue her a $100 fine for “structure obstructs sidewalk.”

Understandably, Sherry was peeved — not so much at the city — but at whoever decided to complain about her Halloween haunted house.

“Look, we were all kids once and this is something fun for kids to do here, and lets face it there isn’t a lot to do for kids in Turlock,” she said. “I don’t understand how some gentleman can just decide he doesn’t like Halloween. It’s not fair to cause a fuss over this, it’s like me saying I don’t want a parade and the city didn’t have one and cancelled it because of just me.”

City of Turlock municipal code dictates nothing can block a sidewalk in any way, but Sherry says the sidewalk is not blocked. “If you see there is a clear walkway and there isn’t even any webbing touching the ground,” she said.

Sherry said she is planning on just paying the $100 fine, because she believes that her haunted house brings joy, or frights, to many children and it’s not worth the trouble to fight it.

In the past five years, she says she has never had a single complaint about her house and that it takes at least 16 hours of work to create what is easily one of the best Halloween-decorated houses in Turlock.