Humber Lakeshore campus gets Halloween spirit

Oct 26, 2012 | News

Humber’s Power House Recreation Centre. COURTESY POWERHOUSE OF TERROR

By Bianca Bykhovsky

If you want to feel like the main character in a horror film, the  recreation centre’s  Power House of Terror at Lakeshore Campus provides the perfect stage.

Humber’s Power House Recreation Centre,  built by patients of the Lakeshore Psychiatric Centre in the 1930s, has been transformed into a haunted house for its fifth annual Halloween event, the Power House of Terror. The event runs throughout October, says Lorne Andrews, founder of the haunted house.

Andrews recalls a few odd incidents during his time on the asylum territory.

“First year, our crew was unpacking smoke machines that came in styrofoam-covered containers. It was getting late so we packed it up, locked the door and put the alarm on,” Andrews told Humber News. “The next day, it said in a weird waxy film, that’s the best way to explain it, in calligraphy-type writing “Eliza” on the end of the packing Styrofoam container.”

Andrews recalls employees stopping their work duties for a while because of frightening things that occurred on the property.

The doll room [a room that holds the doll props] attracts the most odd behaviour from the spirits, he said. A doll acted out of the ordinary when it sang a “jingle bells” song in an evil tone, something that it has never done before, he said.

The power house is not the only building on the Lakeshore Campus that sparked rumours of ghosts.

Humber Business professor Steve Bang leads ghost tours all year round in the eight Lakeshore cottages that are around the recreation centre on campus. Visitors have claimed to see “spirits” in their photographs, he said.

The eight cottages are connected through one underground tunnel that Bang uses to conduct his tour. They are historic properties and could not be taken down, Bang said.

Many ghost sightings have been reported to torontoghosts.org/index.