When Lia Adams-Steele set up her Halloween display in her front garden, she didn’t anticipate the negative reaction that would follow.

The mum-of-two, from Bristol, felt terrified after receiving a letter from an displeased neighbour. After spending hours and hours constructing three witch figures, a cauldron on top of a fake fire, and a gingerbread house, she didn’t expect a complaint.

But shortly after putting the Halloween display together, Lia received a typed-up note addressed to her.

The note stated: “Dear resident… as a member of the Longwell Green community, I would like to ask you to be considerate of young children and others who may not be comfortable viewing your outdoor displays, which are quite scary and aggressive.

“Not everyone celebrates Halloween. Images of witches/occult and such like can be offensive and scary to some, and actually gave nightmares to my child, who has to pass these most days.”

Speaking to Fabulous, Lia said: “I found it quite scary that someone from nearby wrote a letter like this. I had no idea who the writer was and I worried about what they might do next to be honest with you.”

Lia feared what could happen if she didn’t take down her Halloween display and felt “intimidated” – it wasn’t like she knew who the writer of the letter was to have a conversation about it.

Plus, it’s not like it was only her house that was putting on a show for Halloween, so why was she the only one being targeted?

Lia explained: “In the past few years, the whole Halloween thing became a biggie in my area of Longwell Green. Local residents created a Facebook page where you can tag your display and it will be featured on the trail map so kids know to trick or treat there. I was really inspired by other people’s displays and decided we could do something really big this year.”

What baffled Lia the most when she received the complaint last year was that other households had much scarier displays.

“Our display was not scary,” Lia insisted. “There was no blood or body parts anywhere, we had nothing jumping out and scaring children like a lot of the other houses I’d seen.”

Lia now stands by her belief she she “hadn’t done anything wrong” after posting the anonymous letter on Facebook alongside pictures of her display.

“Not one of the comments was negative, everyone was so supportive and reassured us that there was nothing wrong with the decorations,” she said.

This year, Lia will be doing a smaller Halloween display in her new home in a different area.