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One of the wonderful things about Amity Park, at least to the citizens, was the dirt-cheap cost of living. From cheap housing to non-existence school fees to huge discounts on all clothing and furniture to free lemons and limes. Sure the cheap housing was due to how often you’d have to pay for repairs and the high probability of a ghost invading your living space. The lack of school fees were entirely because it was actually safer to not go anywhere near one of the worst ghost hotspots, the place was stupid dangerous, but luckily no ones died. The school and furniture discounts and sales were because everyone had to rebuy things at least once every few months, unless you lived near FentonWorks in which case it was more like monthly at a minimum. And the free lemons and limes? Well that was because fresh lemon and lime peels were the best things for getting rid of ectoplasm to the point where their local government basically had to subsidise them; Amity probably single-handedly kept the organic lemon and lime farms going. Heck! You could get a tax write-off for growing them.
All this made for one very appealing town to move to in the eyes of outsiders. Outsiders unaware of the mass ghost issue anyway. Well they lol learned quickly enough.
First, there was Lynda Strone, who came here looking for cheap living to avoid having to work. Wanting somewhere she could live the rest of her days off her saved up half a million dollars. She was only twenty-five according to Mrs. Mellon. Also according to Mrs. Mellon Lynda flew the coop after seeing a mass of giant hornets. Green ghost hornets specifically. No one mocked her for that because, honestly? that was pretty reasonable.
Then there was Emilie and Reed Dreger who had the misfortune of running into Cujo on their moving-in day. The town was honestly amazed they chose to stay after that. They managed to make it a solid month before the town had an incident where they got sucked into the Ghost Zone again. Emilie and Reed left with one suitcase each and left some serious rubber on their driveway.
Then the man known only as ‘that-yappy-dog-guy’ who had the worlds most obnoxious dog and he complained about literally everything. So maybe the town decided to give him something to complain about. Namely the Box Ghost. Nearly every single resident gifted the man a cardboard box and waited, that sort of bait was just irresistible to the box crazy ghost. that-yappy-dog-guy didn’t last three days and the Box Ghost literally chased him all the way into the next city. The that-yappy-dog-guy tried to sue the city over lack of full disclosure, it got thrown out.
Then the Jamerson’s moved in with their two kids. Said kids were, of course, sent to Casper High. They probably would have been fine, if they hadn’t come in with that ‘we’re from the big city and know what real gangs are like so we’re better and tougher than you’ attitude, because oh Hell no would that not fly around students that very literally saw and survived death on a near-daily basis. They shut up real quick when Valerie Gray threatened to shove a gun up their asses and then pulled out an ecto-pistol to prove it; and fine, maybe every single student who saw also whipped out their own ecto-pistols. No Casper High student was stupid enough to show up without one after all. The kids’ of course told their parents and considering the family moved here to get away from gang activity and obviously thought a ton of teens having weapons equaled gang involvement, well they left real quick after that.
Then came that business tycoon who though he could make big bucks by flipping houses. He seemed to think the prices were cheap due to poor quality. Guy soon found out all the extra buildings requirements in Amity. From thicker structures to earthquake-proof windows to FentonWorks certified anti-ecto-flame insulation. Man cut his losses halfway through remodeling the first house, Vlad personally drove in front of the guy's driveway and grinned smugly.
The most interesting one was the first overtly religious man who showed up. A Mr. Zackary, who attempted to bless things and sprayed Phantom with holy water not once but twice. Phantom just casually made a portal and dropped the guy off into the Ghost Zone after the second time. The guy showed up a few hours later looking strung out and just walking out of town. Didn’t even go back to his house.
Then there were the people they all genuinely tried to help. Like Ms. Reeve who was one of many who got the complimentary Amity ghost survival gift baskets -a tradition started up due to the high turnover rate of new residents- and a personal welcome from one of the mayor's assistants. Didn’t do a whole lot of good as the woman was a stanch nonbeliever. Even in the face of FrightKnight’s yearly Halloween arrival. Couldn’t write off getting hit by the Soul Shredder though, she sought out-of-town therapy and never returned.
Jack Gale was a little more successful, having literally given a one on one walk-through of a ghost attack and what to do from the Fenton matriarch herself, and it was now standard procedure to get this from at least one of the Fenton’s. Jack Gale stuck around for half a year before he wound up getting overshadowed and noped the Hell out immediately after.
Then there was that guy that made everyone feel nervous and jumpy for a while about outsiders. Jeremy Holks. The guy was pretty good at first before the nineteen-year-old decided the ghost attacks were ‘funny’ and actually aided Walker in capturing Phantom for a while. And one thing you don’t do in Amity unless you were a ghost hunter and actually worth your salt as a ghost hunter, was go after Phantom. The ghosts didn’t have to drive him out, the citizens did it for them.
Eventually drawing in cultists was pretty unpleasant too but they never lasted since there was apparently this ghost that was killed by a cult who unsurprisingly didn’t take well to cultists. And seeing as that ghost could vomit blood on command... he was a very good deterrent.
It became a running theme actually. People coming and then promptly going. To the point where the residents would place bets on how long they were going to stick around. Good rule of thumb? If they came off like a tough guy, less than a week. Working single mom? Two months to three months depending on how well behaved her kid was. Nuclear families? Two school days. Overtly religious? Till Halloween unless they pestered Phantom. Cultists? One week if they were the determined type, otherwise they wouldn’t even make it past the moving-in phase. Single older bachelors lasted the longest usually, coming in around four to five months. But if it was an old lady, all bets were off because that was just unpredictable; could be a few weeks to just staying like Mrs. Bellri who was still around today. She was friends with that Johnny ghost surprisingly.
In the end, Amity was pretty content with their weird and anyone who couldn’t handle it wasn’t worth the joy and entertainment of living in the world’s most haunted town. The teens especially thought so.
Tucker runs up to Danny, “dude, one of our houses got featured on goddamn Infested, you know the one with the SignalShine’s? Yeah, except get this, the show called them fireflies”. Danny blinks, “well, I mean honest mistake I guess, minus the massive size difference. You could fit a damn million SignalShine’s in a bottle of water. Have fun trying that with fireflies”, chuckling, “but sweet, we’re on tv for something other than being ridiculously haunted”, tilting his head, “though technically the town could be labeled as infested right? Just infested by ghosts”.
Tucker snorts, “you’re the only ghost that actually stays here, Danny”.
“Hush you”.
Tucker rolls his eyes, “anyway, wanna pirate the shit out of the episode? One of my contacts from up north recorded it and sent it to another contact for processing, who then sent it to another contact to make it all anonymous, and now I’ve got it”. Danny stares at him, “and why the fuck did you go about that the hard way. I could probably Google it and find it in two minutes”. Tucker waves him off, “awww but that’s taking the fun out of it”.
“You, Tuck, are ridiculous. But fuck yes, let’s go watch this overdramatised slightly-inaccurate-because-the-world-doesn’t-want-to-admit-ghosts-are-real shit”.
The two boys high five and rush off to Tucker’s house.
End.