SAN ANTONIO -- While most people eagerly anticipate the frightening fun of Halloween, some Bexar County officials dread the holiday because it attracts nothing but trouble at one of their properties.

The days leading up to Halloween attract thrill seekers, amateur ghost hunters and vandals to a piece of property known as the old Bexar County Farm located off Southton Road. What attracts the visitors are stories that the buildings on the property are an abandoned insane asylum that is now haunted.

"It is a pure fabrication on the part of the young people who decided to post a video on YouTube," said Betty Bueche, Bexar County facilities division manager.

According to Bueche, the buildings on the property were once used as a home for the county's poor elderly residents, a reform school for troubled boys and a tuberculosis hospital. The buildings were last used by the Bexar County fire marshal as offices and a training facility. Shortly after being abandoned, vandals began breaking in and doing all sorts of damage. The wanton destruction picked up after someone posted a video on YouTube and made up a story about it being haunted.

"The facts have been misreported, and as a result of that misreporting, kids have gone out there and vandalized those buildings even worse than anyone would have imagined," Bueche said.

To keep people out, the county has repeatedly boarded up windows and doors, costing taxpayers thousands of dollars. Crews also erected fences, posted No Trespassing signs and even resorted to building a large earthen berm around the property. Those measures and frequent patrols by sheriff's deputies have not kept people out.

The county is currently developing a long-range plan for dealing with the 400-acre property which has been given historic status by the state because one of the buildings was built by Alfred Giles, a renowned architect. That leaves the county with three options for dealing with the property.

The first option is to keep mothballing the buildings.

"We attempted to do that and you see what the vandals have done to those very costly efforts on our part," Bueche said.

The second option is demolition. But in order to tear down the old buildings, the county would have to get a special permit from the Texas Historical Commission. After tearing the buildings down, the county would have to pay for an archaeological survey of the site, which would increase their costs.

"The demolition of the property at a minimum at this point is approximately $750,000," Bueche said.

The final option would be to restore the buildings and reuse them. To do that, the county would have to run utilities to the site, bring the buildings up to current code, and retrofit them for their new use, all of which could cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

Until a decision is made, the county will have to keep dealing with a problem they wish would just go away. Bueche said even though the county removed asbestos from the buildings nine years ago, there are still many things that could injure curious visitors, especially those looking for a spooky adventure on Halloween.

"We are calling on all parents to make sure they do not allow their kids to go out to these buildings during Halloween," Bueche said. "We would really prefer that everyone just stop talking about it because it seems to encourage more and more vandalism and places these kids in more and more danger. The bottom line is stay away."