Tours offer Halloween enthusiasts visits to former psychiatric hospital and funeral home

WESTLAND, Mich. (AP) — It’s not enough these days for some Halloween enthusiasts to be scared by actors dressed up in spooky getups at makeshift haunted houses: They want the “real” thing.

At a former psychiatric hospital in suburban Detroit and a former funeral home in Toledo, Ohio, visitors can embark on guided paranormal investigations or even set out on their own with rented equipment, such as a handheld electromagnetic field (EMF) meter.

“Guests that come here on our paranormal tours, they get touched, they get grabbed, handprints on clothing, whistled at,” said Justin Cox, founder of Michighost Paranormal, which leads paranormal investigation tours of the Eloise Asylum attraction’s upper floors, where patients were treated. “Everything that you can imagine has happened here, and we’ve heard it all.”

The facility began as a 19th-century poorhouse and operated under various names as it expanded into a complex with dozens of buildings. By the late 1920s, it was one of the nation’s largest public health facilities.

“In the paranormal field, we believe that trauma leaves energy, which creates hauntings. This place had a lot of tragedy, a lot of trauma, so we believe it’s super haunted,” Cox said.

Family members of patients and others with ties to Eloise have argued against offering for-profit amusement at a site where vulnerable people suffered.

Most of the complex’s buildings were razed in the 1980s, but a five-story, red-brick structure that came to be known as the Kay Beard Building still stands and is home to Eloise Asylum.

It’s there that Cox and his team lead guests on tours of the upper floors, including a room with a bathtub used in hydrotherapy sessions. It’s not uncommon for guests to get in the tub.

And if you "think you can handle the night here, we offer that as well,” Cox said about their overnight stays.

Eloise Asylum haunted attraction’s lead makeup artist and scare actor, Lexi Carter, has gone on the paranormal investigation tour. She said the upper floors feel alive.

Paranormal investigators use spirit boxes to scan radio frequencies for sounds they believe could be messages from spirits. They also use EMF readers to measure changes in electromagnetic fields that some associate with paranormal activity.

Carter said it was wild “watching those go off.”

“Oh, my God. It blew me away. I was like, ‘No way. This is real,'" she said. "'This is so cool.'"

Fifty miles (80 kilometers) south sits the former Urbanski Funeral Home, which hosted thousands of viewings and services from 1926 until its sale last year. Now called Mortuary Manor, the 60,000-square-foot (5,580-square-meter) building serves as a funeral home museum and much more.

Paranormal investigators can check out the embalming and autopsy rooms, as well as a morgue where it is standard practice for guests to take pictures of themselves lying on a slab that juts out from a basement wall.

Mortuary Manor will host its first wedding in November on Friday the 13th, of course. And guests who pony up $200 can spend the night in a five-room suite. Operations manager Cory Leibenguth lives in a neighboring upstairs apartment.

He said the building has modern amenities like indoor plumbing, heating, air conditioning and Wi-Fi. That "sets us apart from some of these other abandoned locations that don’t have any of that. And then there’s not a lot of funeral homes you can go investigate, either.”

Mortuary Manor visitors can also watch a horror movie projected onto the wall of the main sitting room while surrounded by caskets.

It’s all part of elevating the Halloween experience for hard-core fright fans.

“In today’s world where everybody is so stressed out … Halloween is a time that everybody can just relax and just enjoy the time with their friends and their family, maybe get scared along the way,” Cox said.

A movie is projected on the wall in the sitting room of Mortuary Manor, a former funeral home that has become a museum and host to paranormal investigations Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, in Toledo, Ohio (AP Photo/Mike Householder)

A sign above the doorway indicates it is the entrance to the autopsy room in the basement of Mortuary Manor, a former funeral home that has become a museum and host to paranormal investigations Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, in Toledo, Ohio (AP Photo/Mike Householder)

A blindfolded Ayla Robinson, a team manager with Michighost Paranormal, lies in a bathtub at Eloise Asylum during a paranormal investigation Monday, Oct. 12, 2026, in Westland, Mich. (AP Photo/Mike Householder)

Lexi Carter, the lead makeup artist and a scare actor at Eloise Asylum, stands in the hallway on an upper floor at Eloise Asylum that treated patients when the building was a psychiatric hospital, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Westland, Mich. (AP Photo/Mike Householder)

Lexi Carter, the lead makeup artist and a scare actor at Eloise Asylum, sits in a bathtub once used for hydrotherapy when the building was a psychiatric hospital Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Westland, Mich. (AP Photo/Mike Householder)

BUNIA, Congo (AP) — The fast-moving Ebola outbreak in Congo has reached 10,000 confirmed cases, government data showed Tuesday, as health authorities race to slow the spread of the disease in multiple African countries.

It is the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in history and nearly half of the 10,060 confirmed to have the virus have died, according to data from Congo’s Ministry of Health. That also makes it the deadliest outbreak of the disease in the country’s history.

The outbreak declared in May is caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, for which there is no approved vaccine or treatment. Response teams are battling armed conflict, poor roads and violence from residents fueled by mistrust and misinformation. Those obstacles compound the challenge of persuading people to report symptoms and accept care in communities that have endured years of violence and repeated epidemics.

Compared to the West Africa Ebola outbreak of 2014-2016 – history’s largest and deadliest with more than 28,000 cases, including over 11,000 deaths – this has had at least three times the number of cases and number of deaths in the time since it was declared.

It has spread farther across Africa than any previous Ebola outbreak, reaching three regions with cases recorded in Kenya and Nigeria as well. It’s so far been recorded in five countries including Uganda and France, both of which have no active cases at the moment.

A recurring problem in the spread in Africa is what appears to be lax surveillance efforts as most of the first cases were confirmed long after people started showing symptoms or after traveling.

African health ministers are to hold a virtual summit on Wednesday to strengthen the continent's collective response. “Ebola is crossing borders. Our response must move faster, with stronger coordination, greater solidarity and decisive political leadership,” Dr. Jean Kaseya, head of Africa CDC, has said.

At least 2,600 patients have recovered from the disease in Congo, bringing rare moments of joy to affected communities. A viral video this week showed health workers in full protective gear dancing as the last two patients were discharged from a treatment center in Mongbwalu, Ituri province.

“The outbreak is far from over, but every life saved is worth celebrating,” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said of the video.

In Congo, the disease has spread to 66 health zones across eight provinces, from three zones when it was first declared in May. Responders have told The Associated Press that they’re seeing treatment centers in some of those health zones getting overwhelmed, people still skeptical and violent toward them, and health workers are regularly going on strike to protest delayed or unpaid wages.

“Some people still don’t seem to understand the seriousness of the situation even though they are directly exposed to the risk,” said Sephora Bgosi with the Ebola burial team in Ituri province, the epicenter. “Ebola disease is extremely dangerous and can be deadly," said Bgosi.

About 80% of recorded cases are still coming from outside of monitored contacts, showing there are ongoing chains of transmission that health authorities are not aware of. At least 95% of recorded cases are supposed to be coming from known contacts for officials to say the outbreak has largely been brought under control, the Africa CDC has said.

At least half of deaths recorded are among people who have not been admitted to treatment centers, a sign that people are still not reporting symptoms at all in many areas.

In many zones, health workers are battling challenges ranging from basic needs such as adequate vehicles to complex ones like persuading families to release their relatives who are sick with the disease or who have died from it and need to be buried safely.

Last week at the Nia Nia health zone in Ituri province, some Ebola responders, including surveillance and community engagement officers, went on strike over unpaid bonuses owed since late August, a common trend across many affected localities.

More than five months since the outbreak was declared, health workers are still being attacked by angry villagers, including on Saturday when a nurse was killed and another health worker severely injured while responding to an Ebola alert in Bafwasende, Tshopo province.

The outbreak has disrupted essential health services that are already underfunded and overstretched and has shifted attention away from other disease outbreaks the country is battling, such as cholera.

More pregnant women are dying as they avoid hospitals over fear of infection and isolation, causing maternal mortality to double in some provinces soon after the outbreak was declared.

It has also disrupted routine healthcare services such as childhood vaccinations, interrupted schooling for children where millions are already out of school, caused trauma and stigma for affected families and further stretched the livelihoods of many already struggling with hardship.

Asadu reported from Abuja, Nigeria.

For more on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse

The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

FILE - A health worker checks an individual's temperature at a temporary health clinic at the Mpondwe border crossing linking Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Hajarah Nalwadda, File)

A Kenyan health worker checks the temperatures of travelers crossing from Uganda to Kenya as part of measures to contain the spread of Ebola virus, in Busia, Kenya, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Kasuku)