'Mr. Krickl Has Left The Garage'

OAK LAWN, IL — So there aren’t a million kids going over to the 10500 block of Kildare on Halloween looking for the crazy Michael Myers guy and overwhelming the new homeowners, who we hear are lovely people, a headsup for residents: Mr. Krickl has left the garage.

After 23 spine-chilling years of pranking the neighborhood youth on Halloween with his one-day-only garage haunt, Billy and Nancy Krickl sold their home in Oak Lawn over the summer and have moved out of state — thus ending the haunted garage’s run.

I first stumbled upon the charms of Mr. Krickl’s haunted garage in 2011, when I went over to Kildare to take pictures of trick-or-treaters for Patch. Dressed as Michael Myers inside a cage, kids were challenged to walk up and grab a piece of candy without being lunged or woofed at. I recall a mother reassuring her 3-year-old: “It’s okay, that’s just Mr. Krickl.”

Oak Lawn Patch went back every year since, following the screams of trick-or-treaters which could be heard blocks away. It became an Oak Lawn Patch-Halloween tradition to visit Mr. Krickl’s haunted garage.

Billy grew up in Berwyn loving Halloween. His father used to drink beer with Cookie from WGN’s “Bozo’s Circus.” He started the haunted garage tradition in 1999 to amuse his young sons. The first year, he bought some overalls, boots and scary mask from a thrift store. He stuffed the costume full of hay and left the figure on his front lawn all October. But then neighborhood children started playing with the dummy’s head, throwing it around, unafraid. On Halloween, Billy donned the overalls, boots and mask, and sat out front with a candy dish.

“Kids would come up, and boom! I had them!” he said, cementing his reputation as the neighborhood fun dad and head scaremeister.

Through snow and rain and COVID, Mr. Krickl never failed to disappoint the neighborhood kids on Halloween, who came to see Billy’s lavish recreations of a haunted maze, complete with 18 bales of hay that were later donated to a goat farm; a dead forest, a clown carnival, a dog pound for old-school werewolves and Haddonfield, Illinois.

It became a rite of passage for kids to make it up to Michael Myers for candy, getting braver as they got older. The babes in arms who came in 1999 returned in the 2000s carrying their own babes in arms.

In recent years, Billy shared that “Mr. Krickl’s Haunted Garage” may be reaching the end of its run. Ironically, that happened a year before the Village of Oak Lawn decided to hold a Halloween house decoration contest.

Not only did Billy and his family create memories for two generations of Oak Lawn children, they allowed us adults to relive our own childhood memories of wild Halloweens. Billy’s feeling a little lost this year, but eyeing a patio pad at his new house which would be perfect next year for four fake graves, he’s been told that his new neighborhood only gets two trick-or-treaters a year — if that. I suggested a haunted trunk at a trunk-or-treat event, or tell his new neighbors to start handing out full-sized candy bars.

So, many thanks to Billy and Nancy, and their sons — Marty, Jack, Andy and Henry. You brought the community together year after year with your shenanigans and popcorn machine — but we had all the fun. And to the new homeowners, you might want to buy some more candy this Halloween because Mr. Krickl has left the garage.

Mr. Krickl's last haunted garage in 2022. (Lorraine Swanson | Patch)