Most Halloween decorating advice assumes a porch, a lawn and a garage to store it all in. In a one-bedroom flat the constraints are different: no drilling, limited floor space, a landlord’s paint job to protect, and the certain knowledge that everything must live in a cupboard for the other eleven months.

The good news is that small spaces reward the cheap half of Halloween. Silhouettes, candlelight and paper do more in a flat than any animatronic, because in a small room a single strong shape reads instantly. Here is what actually works, and what to skip.

1. Window silhouettes, seen from outside

Best for: A flat that faces a street or a courtyard where people walk past.

Black paper shapes taped inside the glass turn a lit window into the decoration, and your neighbours get the show. Bats and cats are the classics because they read at a distance; a detailed haunted-house scene turns into a smudge from the pavement. Use low-tack tape, and test it on the frame first — cheap masking tape can lift paint after a fortnight in the sun.

2. One good light, not a string of them

Best for: A living room where the ceiling light is the only source.

A single lamp with an amber or deep red bulb changes the whole room, and costs less than a set of novelty lights. Battery candles clustered in a fireplace or on a windowsill do the same job on a smaller scale. Flame-effect bulbs look better in person than they do in listings, but beware the ones that hum.

If you are in a building where the corridor is shared, keep anything with an open flame indoors. It is not just the landlord — candles cause a spike in house fires every autumn.

3. Paper garlands, hung from the ceiling

Best for: A room with no shelf space left.

The empty air in a flat is the only space Halloween can have without displacing anything. Paper bats hung on thread from ceiling hooks, or a garland above a doorway, take up nothing you were using and come down in five minutes. Removable adhesive hooks are the renter’s friend here; check the weight rating and pull them off slowly and downwards in November.

4. Swap what is already there

Best for: Anyone who does not want to buy new objects at all.

Turn the art around and tape a paper portrait over it. Put a dark cloth over the sofa. Fill the fruit bowl with small pumpkins. Decorating by substitution costs almost nothing, leaves no storage problem, and looks intentional in a way that bought decorations often do not.

5. A doorway, if you have one

Best for: A flat with an entrance hall or an internal door you never close.

A curtain of black streamers in a doorframe is the highest-impact thing you can do for a few euros. It moves when people walk through it, which is the whole trick. Cut them to just above the floor unless you enjoy sweeping.

6. Smell, which nobody thinks of

Best for: A small flat where a scent actually reaches every room.

Clove and orange, cinnamon simmering on the stove, a beeswax candle: in a large house this evaporates, in fifty square metres it defines the evening. Avoid heavy synthetic fragrance if anyone visiting is sensitive to it — a headache is a poor party favour.

What to skip in a small flat

Inflatables. They need a lawn, a plug outdoors and a fan that runs all night.

Fake cobwebs. They snag on everything, shed fibres into carpets, and are genuinely harmful to birds and insects when they end up outside.

Anything motion-activated. In a flat, the motion is you, at two in the morning, on the way to the kitchen.

Real pumpkins carved early. In a heated flat a carved pumpkin turns to slime in about four days. Carve on the 30th, or use a pumpkin you only draw on.

Storing it for next year

Everything above folds flat except the candles. One shallow box under the bed holds the lot, which is the difference between decorating again next October and deciding it is not worth the trouble. Label the box with what is inside; future you will not remember.

If Halloween is a fixed ritual in your household — the party you host every year, or the niece whose costume you always help with — it belongs on a calendar you actually check. Giftlify keeps dates like that and emails you before they arrive, which is more useful than a note on the fridge you stop seeing in week two.