This Dallas Man Made a Big Mistake With His Ebola-Themed Halloween Decorations

Impact

The news: The Ebola "house of horrors" is here — and it's not a hospital.

With a new diagnosis in New York City and Ebola fears running at a fever pitch, a Dallas man is trying to ride the cultural zeitgeist jackpot of combining the fatal virus and Halloween by decorating his house as a biohazard scene, WFAA reports.

James Faulk went all out. He stacked barrels labeled "biohazard" on his lawn, draped yellow caution tape around the windows and doors and even wrote "quarantine" on white tape. There's even stuffed red trash bags of "medical waste" just in case you weren't getting the, well, sick joke.

LM Otero/AP

When Faulk addressed reporters Thursday, he donned a face mask and a white protective suit with a badge that read "CDC Trainee," so you know he's in this for the long haul. 

"There's negative people everywhere and they are going to give me grief about it, but it's all in good fun," he said. "So the next step is: Let's have fun on Halloween and scare some people in the process." 

Faulk started decorating the house Wednesday, when he said things were "getting back to normal just a little bit." 

Until Thursday night.

LM Otero/AP

Too soon? Indeed, there were some well-documented recovery stories, except for one. Dallas health care workers Nina Pham and Amber Vinson, who contracted the disease while treating an Ebola patient at Dallas Presbyterian Hospital, were both cleared this week.

"But in the end, everything with Ebola has turned out good in Dallas, thankfully. Except for Mr. Thomas," said Faulk, sounding like he forgot for a moment.

Thomas, as in Thomas E. Duncan, the 42-year-old Liberian man who died of Ebola in the Texas hospital last month.

There are also two nurses and a recently diagnosed New York City doctor who are all recovering from Ebola. The World Health Organization estimated that around 5,000 people have died.

What about them?  

"It could be too soon," Faulk conceded. "It's a scary thing."

Sorry, Faulk: Ebola is not scary enough to get some cheap laughs out of it.