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Image Credit: Realtor.com The listing also mentions that prospective buyers should bring their “tools and vision” as the “restoration potential is limitless” (the term “fixer-upper” being so passé and all). Despite the retro touches throughout, the property is bright and charming inside. Highlights include a kitchen with a massive walk-in pantry, a brick-clad fireplace, a full attic, a garage with a finished bonus room and loft, a sizeable front porch, and a large corner lot measuring in at 0.22 acres.
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Image Credit: Lindsay Blake The new owners took the listing advice to heart. Prior to the 2013 sale, the front yard was in quite an unkempt state. Google Street View shows that the pine needle-covered lawn aesthetic dates back to at least 2007, which I’m sure only served to make the place a shoo-in with horror directors. The landscaping has since been given a major revamp, as have portions of the interior as evidenced in these more recent photos. (Please take note of the bulkhead door-accessed basement, which is basically a scary movie hallmark!)
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Image Credit: Lindsay Blake In the “Halloween” segment of the season three episode of “Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction” titled “For the Record/Halloween/Precious/Get Your Kicks at Motel 66/Phantom Drifter,” the pad appears as the Ratcher house, where curmudgeon Harold Ratcher (Bernard Hocke) lives with his long-suffering wife, Mary (Roberta Bassin). As host Jonathan Frakes tells viewers, “Every community has a home like the Ratcher house. It’s the one owned by the meanest man in town!” A so-called “Halloween Scrooge,” Harold terrorizes any child who dares ring his doorbell for a trick or treat come October 31st. Someone who doesn’t like Halloween? Is there anything scarier? Harold gets his comeuppance, though, in the form of a Grim Reaper who decides to haunt him one stormy All Hallows’ Eve.
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Image Credit: Realtor.com Both the interior and the exterior of the home are featured in the 2000 episode. IMDB even features a photo of Roberta Bassin posing in front of the pad during the shoot, prop mailbox in full view.
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Image Credit: Lindsay Blake The residence’s horror pedigree doesn’t end there, though. The Colonial also popped up on “My Haunted House” in “The Church” portion of season three’s “The Church & Skin Book.” In the 2015 episode, which details the supposedly true story of a demon-possessed woman named Mariana (Brittany Faith Rosoff), the property is said to be located across the street from Saint Mary’s Church. In actuality, the “church” used on the show is the oft-filmed Mountain View Mausoleum, which isn’t actually directly across the street, but just up the road.
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Image Credit: CBS “Criminal Minds” location managers really like the residence, as it has been featured in no less than four episodes of the perenially macabre CBS procedural! It first appeared in season four’s “Cold Comfort” as the “Olympia, Washington” home of Ivan Bakunes (Matt Winston), a mortuary apprentice with a penchant for dressing up dead bodies to look like a deceased weathergirl he is fond of. Shudder!
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Image Credit: CBS Aaron Hotchner (Thomas Gibson) and other Behavioral Analysis Unit agents visit the house while going door-to-door in “Ashburn, Virginia” during the investigation of a kidnapping in season five’s “Mosley Lane.”
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Image Credit: CBS Serial killer Patrick Jon Murphy (Mark Deklin) attacks his children’s nanny there in season 10’s “Breath Play.”
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Image Credit: CBS And Derek Morgan (Shemar Moore) is held hostage by Chazz Montolo (Lance Henriksen) at the residence in season 11’s “A Beautiful Disaster.” The episode marks the only time a full view of the house is shown on the series, thanks to a real estate listing Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) looks at while trying to figure out where Derek is being kept.
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Image Credit: Variance Films The Colonial has also appeared in some non-scary productions. In the 2011 dramedy “The Perfect Family,” it portrays the home of Mrs. Punch (June Squibb).
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Image Credit: Indican Pictures Ironically, it plays the residence of Squibb in another film, as well! June, as Irma Page, lives there with her husband, Rex (Ernest Borgnine), in “The Man Who Shook the Hand of Vicente Fernandez,” a 2012 movie described by Wikipedia as a “Western comedy-drama.”
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Image Credit: NBC Universal Television The dwelling also masks as the Catoosa, Oklahoma residence of Danny Castellano’s (Chris Messina) fake secret son, Eric (Justin Prentice), where Danny and Morgan Tookers (Ike Barinholtz) stop in the season four episode of “The Mindy Project” titled “Road Trip,” which aired in 2015. Spoiler – the grave of Eddie the dog from “Frasier,” aka the “holy grail of celebrity pet monuments,” is not actually nearby, nor can it be found in Catoosa, as purported in the episode – which is a shame as such a connection would be yet another macabre claim to fame for the property!
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Image Credit: Lindsay Blake Those looking for even more of a scare factor can rest easy, though, because Mountain View Cemetery is situated just steps away!
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: The Ratcher residence from “Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction” is located at 2221 North Marengo Avenue in Altadena. Disclaimer: Please remember this is a private home. Do not trespass or bother the residents or the property in any way.
For more Dirt on the property, head back to the main page.