However, I offer nothing in the form of Halloween décor compared to my significant other, i.e. spouse, aka Gary, or more simply referred to around our house as “Fischer.” Last year at this time, our yard was well on its way to earning the title “Halloween Threw Up Here.”

There was no competition. I was the self-appointed judge.

It got to the point where the Amazon delivery driver would sit in his truck reconsidering how badly I needed that package. Sadly, I didn’t just tolerate it, I contributed. Throughout the month of October, this absurd abundance of Halloween garb peppering our house had a their proverbial “resting place”. Come November, however, they became their own kind of nightmare. I don’t have a storage problem. I have a twelve-foot skeleton with nowhere to spend the next 11 months.

Christmas decorations generally have the courtesy to fit in a box. Halloween is more demanding. In fact, I knew we wouldn’t have enough ceiling clearance for some of these items, even with RV parking. Nevertheless, we spent the next month all the way up until Thanksgiving, reorganizing our garage and acquiring additional shelving and hanging racks.

Granted, it was a bit unsettling, at first, to hear animatronic zombies groaning every time we entered the garage, but we tried to ignore it. Eventually, however, it wasn’t just the fake dead person with batteries and boundary issues that posed the challenge. It was all of it. When Christmas came and we had to orchestrate a search and rescue party to find the tree, I began to question whether we needed to keep the entire apocalypse in storage.

Of course, Halloween and Christmas decorations are only part of it. There are also the camping supplies, the exercise equipment, the luggage, and the box of cords we cannot identify but are afraid to throw away. Somewhere in there is an appliance we bought because it was going to change our lives. It has. We now have less cupboard space.

By the time spring arrived and daylight exposed the full extent of our storage situation, I was done. One day I came home and told Fischer, “I can either book a therapy appointment, or we can get rid of this stuff. I’m feeling claustrophobic in my own garage.” He sheepishly admitted he felt the same way. He put out an APB that we were on the lookout for anyone that needed some Halloween décor, to give us a holler. Our neighbor two doors down, conceded. She is personal friend as well, so I knew she was just taking one for the team, but I was grateful.

The next day I got a text from said friend, “Jen, your ‘kind’ husband loaded up his truck and brought us every single solitary particle of Halloween paraphernalia that was in your garage. Now your problem has become mine.”

All I could respond with was, “You’re welcome.” It was the Halloween equivalent of a Christmas fruitcake: passed from one household to the next until it disintegrates. Which, judging by the fruitcake currently in circulation in our family, should happen sometime in the next five centuries.

As a real estate agent, I hear plenty of buyers say they need more storage. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they need to open a few boxes and have an uncomfortable conversation with a bread maker. The trouble is that “we’ll find somewhere to put it” works right up until we’re getting ready to sell. Then we discover that “somewhere” was every closet, half the garage, and an entire room downstairs.

I don’t regret clearing out that graveyard of paraphernalia. In fact, we sent some Christmas stuff along for the ride. I can breathe in my own garage now. I have room in my head to think and room in my closets to see what I actually own. I’ll gladly commandeer a bowl to hand out candy this Halloween, but I don’t miss the rest. Turns out, my favorite thing in storage is the empty space.

For the record, here is the takeaway: Buy a house for the life you actually live. And if that life includes a twelve-foot skeleton, figure out where he’s spending February before you make the offer.

Jen Fischer is an associate broker and Realtor. She can be reached at 801-645-2134 or jen@jen-fischer.com.