Giant Skeletons

The only Halloween legend bigger than the recycled Facebook posts warning about cannabis-infused Halloween candy is Skelly, Home Depot’s 12-foot-tall skeleton. The $300 piece of ghoulish decor has dominated suburban yards, social media, and local news nationwide since the hardware store chain released it in 2020. But every hero must have an enemy, and Skelly’s greatest nemesis is the local homeowners association (HOA).

The “12 Foot Skeleton Owners Group” on Facebook has 268,000 members and a healthy feed of posts with topics like how to use guy wires to erect your Skelly and photos of HOA complaints that Skelly’s humans have received.

One example:?Tampa, Florida, resident Corey Bassett first put up his Skelly, which he affectionately named Hal, outside his home in late August. “My neighbors love him,” “There’s even a little toddler who loves to see him daily on their walk with their mother.” But that didn’t sway his HOA. He received a warning that gave him seven days to remove what the association labeled “Improper Item in View – Seasonal Decorations.”

To avoid a potential fine, Bassett took Hal down until early October. But other Skelly fanatics have grown bolder and started keeping him up year-round.

• To skirt strict neighborhood rules, people have dressed their skeletons in holiday-themed clothing, turning the Halloween decoration into a bony Pilgrim or a skeleton Cupid.
• One TikToker even?shared ?a step-by-step DIY Grinch costume you can slip over all those bones to create a wholesome wintertime yard ornament.

The success of these strategies can depend on the strictness of a neighborhood’s community association. In Bassett’s case, he admits his HOA isn’t too harsh about rules violations and will mostly “just send a vague passive-aggressive letter,” like the one he received.

HOAs are a common enemy.

When HOAs try to run their neighborhoods like the Navy, it can sometimes backfire: A Texas family’s Halloween decor went viral a couple of weeks ago because they filled their lawn with skeletons, receiving?HOA fines ?for offenses like “overgrown cobwebs.” For the pièce de résistance, they placed a “defund the HOA” flag in the hand of their giant skeleton.

Etsy is full of sellers trying to hawk anti-HOA merch, and the meme account?Middle-Class Fancy ?has ridden, slamming the organization to 3 million Instagram followers.

• Since the 1970s, the percentage of people who live in communities governed by HOAs has skyrocketed to almost 25%, according to Bloomberg.
• Less than half of homeowners in an HOA neighborhood are glad to have an HOA, and 31% of them feel their board has?too much power , according to a recent Rocket Mortgage survey.

While some of the most commonly issued violations are for overgrown lawns or parking improper vehicles, 12-foot-tall skeletons are the new seasonal threat to so-called “curb appeal.”

The people want Skellys.

No matter the write-ups HOA members receive for the big-boned decoration, consumers can’t get enough of Skelly. When Adam Polczynski announced last year on the Facebook page for his store, Hartland Liquidation Sales, that one 12-foot-tall skeleton would be in stock the next day, he woke up to messages from customers offering more than the Skelly’s list price if he’d set it aside for them.

“I’m like, ‘What the hell’s going on? What’s up with this? Am I missing something?’” This year, he ramped up Hartland Liquidation’s inventory: On the first day the Skellys went on sale, he said about 15 customers were waiting in the parking lot for him to open the Milwaukee-area store.

Hartland Liquidation has been selling about eight Skellys per week, Polczynski said, and customers often call ahead with their credit card information. He said they’re always excited to find a source of Skelly inventory…especially since this?could?be the decoration’s final year in production.

Is Skelly ghosting??Rumors are?swirling ?online that Home Depot is discontinuing the 12-foot-tall bag of bones after this year, potentially firing up a resale market. Home Depot is keeping things mysterious. One spokesperson told the Washington Post, “We have not made that decision yet. Stay tuned next year.”—ML, MM