WEXFORD, PA — A 14-foot Home Depot skeleton dressed as a Steelers linebacker now towers over the cul-de-sac at Birchwood Court, where what neighbors describe as a “completely friendly” Halloween decoration rivalry has escalated to the point that one resident has filed a temporary obstruction notice with the Federal Aviation Administration.
The notice, filed Tuesday by retired dentist Greg Donnelly, covers the airspace between his split-level and the matching 14-foot skeleton across the street, which is wearing a hand-stitched witch hat and holding what locals confirm is “a real, working chainsaw, but unplugged, probably.”
“It started in 2022 with normal pumpkins,” said Marlene Quist, who runs the Birchwood Court Facebook group and has been documenting the escalation in a 47-post photo album titled Things Are Getting Weird. “Then somebody got the 12-foot skeleton. Then somebody got two 12-foot skeletons. Now Pat across the way has a skeleton on a skeleton, and Greg has hired a structural engineer.”
The structural engineer, Dale Reems of Reems & Son Residential Load Bearing, confirmed he was retained to assess whether the Donnelly front lawn could support a planned 16-foot animatronic grim reaper without “compromising the septic field.” He said he had not previously worked in seasonal decor but that the math was “the same math.”
Tensions reached a new altitude last weekend when Pat Hennessy reportedly rented a boom lift to install a strobe-lit raven on the skeleton’s shoulder, prompting two separate 911 calls from drivers on Route 19 who believed they were witnessing a hostage situation.
Hennessy, reached at his garage where a fog machine the size of a deep freezer was being calibrated, declined to characterize the dispute as a feud. “It’s a celebration,” he said. “Greg knows it’s a celebration. His wife knows it’s a celebration. The FAA knows it’s a celebration now, I guess.”
The Wexford Township zoning board has confirmed that residential decorations are not subject to height restrictions, a loophole that Marlene Quist described as “the original sin.” The board’s October meeting agenda now includes a single line item reading Skeletons (Discussion).
Trick-or-treating volume on Birchwood Court is expected to triple this year, with parents from as far as Cranberry Township planning visits despite the route being, according to one mom interviewed in a CVS parking lot, “genuinely a little upsetting for the under-sevens.”
Donnelly, asked whether he planned to de-escalate, gestured toward a tarp in his driveway covering what he would only describe as “phase three.” The FAA notice expires November 2.