Wealthy Londoners pay me up to £20,000 to decorate their homes for Halloween

Whether you like Halloween or not, it’s safe to say that the spooky celebrations are getting bigger and bolder each year.

But while some families are quite content with a few fake cobwebs, there are an elite group of Halloween fanatics paying top dollar to turn their houses into spectacular haunted mansions.

And helping them do it is Warren Bushaway, the go-to man for Halloween decor, whose clients include the likes of Real Housewives of London star Juliet Angus.

‘It took off about four years ago and I started working with a lot of American ex-pats who had brought their children over here,’ the London Event Florist owner tells Metro.

‘The kids weren’t getting the sort of Halloween experience that they’d get over in the US.

‘It started from that – and then of course with the age of Instagram, it’s just blown up.’

Nowadays, Warren has around 40 Halloween decoration clients, many in upmarket areas like Kensington and Chelsea.

Each of their extravagant installations – including giant skulls, spiders and severed limbs – is planned months in advance before being carefully installed in late September.

Warren’s prices start at approximately £2,000, although most of the customers he works with tend to pay around £5,000 to achieve their dream look.

That being said, if you have more dough to spend, he’s happy to accommodate – one of his most expensive installations set a client back a whopping £20,000.

Some go big all year round too, meaning the business (and busyness) keeps coming in long past All Hallow’s Eve.

‘What’s great about this for me is it’s a really big piece of advertising, just before Christmas, which is a really profitable month for me,’ says Warren.

‘I’ve actually got my first Christmas installation tomorrow. Halloween comes down and we start the next season almost straight away.’

While it might seem as though it’s only the richest of the rich who can splurge on this kind of luxury, Warren also has clients who ‘save up all year for this to do it for their children.’

It’s these people he tries to think about when he’s considering fees, because he’s aware of just how much this holiday means for some families.

However, the especially wealthy folks who’ve got disposable income coming out their ears are keen to impress whatever the cost.

‘They are competing with each other for who’s going to have the best display – to prove to other people who’s visually got the best life,’ Warren adds.

One thing customers love about Warren’s displays is that his team ensures each one unique, so ‘won’t ever replicate something we’ve done for someone else before’

‘Even if some of the props are the same we’ll always rework them or paint them a different colour so that they’ll always look different,’ he says. ‘People don’t just want to see the same thing but on a different street.’

For him it really is art, and this creativity also seems to play a big part in why he’s so popular.

Warren says: ‘There are a lot of florists out there where you’d need to give clients an image of what it’s going to look like, but people don’t come to me for that.

‘They come to me because they want something unique – not just a stack of pumpkins on the staircase.’

Fake blood and skeletons aren’t the only scary part of the Halloween decoration business though.

‘I had one installation that was trashed this year,’ Warren says. ‘It was definitely another florist that did it.’

The reason he’s so convinced it was an inside job lies in the subtly-professional way the cable ties holding everything together were cut.

‘Only a florist would know how it would have been constructed,’ explains Warren. ‘If a member of the public was going to commit a random act of violence they’d just start pulling stuff out, but they cut the cable ties at the top and bottom of the pillars so the entire thing just collapsed.’

Haters or no haters, Warren loves what he does.

One of his regular clients told him she feels as though she’s doing something fun for the street she lives on, contributing to the festivities and keeping the spirit of spooky season alive.

‘It’s a community thing – it’s about giving back,’ he says. ‘It’s something the kids can look forward to for the entire week.’

Looking back on his childhood Halloween memories, Warren adds: ‘I remember when I was little, getting a bin bag, cutting a hole in it, chucking my head through and going to get some sweets. It’s evolved a bit from there, but it’s still a positive thing for lots of people.’