For years now, I’ve been watching most of the trick-or-treaters go to the house on one side of me, take one look at my house and walk right past it, and then go to the house on the other side.
I had no clue why. Maybe they were scared of my house or thought I’d give cheap candy (my house is a bit of a fixer-upper)? I completed my “curb appeal” projects; didn’t help.
Maybe they thought nobody was home? I not only have the porch light on, but also have the living room TV on, clearly visible through the (open!) front window, and it makes no difference.
Maybe they think I’m not participating (despite the clear signal of the porch light and jack-o’-lantern)? I put up a bunch of Halloween decorations this year, and it still didn’t help!
Well, I finally found out the reason, after hearing one kid scouting ahead yelling to tell his friends to skip my house: “there’s no bowl on the porch!”
…You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
Yep, unlike my neighbors, who had apparently just left unattended bowls of candy on their porches, I was actually sitting there inside the house, with the bowl of candy, waiting for kids to knock or ring the doorbell before I opened the door and handed it out. You know, like how trick-or-treating is supposed to work.
This is ridiculous. Kids these days are skipping viable houses with candy because they can’t be bothered to actually knock on the damn door and say “trick or treat” to the person who answers? Residents are expected to be too lazy to answer the door, and just put out the candy without even receiving the traditional threat first? With no actual interaction with the neighbors for the kids to show off their costumes, what’s even the point‽
I finally stuck a sign on the door saying “yes, you have to knock or ring for candy!” and that helped, but even then, some kids are still skipping my house because they apparently can’t be bothered to read the sign.
At my house we get north of 200 kids every year it’s decent outside. Sometimes over 250. We’re talking about a kid every minute for the 3.5 hours we do it.
I just set up a table outside, invite a few friends over, drink some beers and give kids candy as they show up. Fuck having to answer the door every minute for 3.5 hours.
My older neighbors complained that the kids don’t have to come up to the front door and are skipping their house because I sit outside. I felt a little guilty, but honestly sitting outside (it it’s cold I get a fire pit going, not tonight tho) is much nicer. One older couple followed my lead this year and agreed. So I’m over it now. Welcome to the new world.
Give out the best candy possible to the few who come by. The rumor of the amazing trove will spread. But then “run out” early so that some of them will miss out and learn the lesson for next year
King size candy bars, give out 2 to each. Everyone always loved that guy
My guess is, the kids aren’t supposed to knock and interact with strangers anymore cause their parents are scared.
Some places, trick or treating has been replaced with a group of parents driving to a parking lot and their kids going from truck to truck.The latter has been popular in rural areas too for years, because the alternative is driving your kids from house to house. I would have made it to like 5 houses a year max if I’d tried to walk as a kid (and probably got run over, lol).
We’re semi-rural (multi acre lots often with houses set almost at the back of lots), this was my first Halloween out here, I was following the kids with a car cause it was cold and snowy. But apparently the other parents in the neighborhood all hang out and set up a flatbed trailer with a fire pit, lawn chairs, and beer just being hauled around by a UTV. I need to learn how to make friends as an adult.
They’re doing trunk or treat now, when they go to a planned event hosted by businesses during the sunlight hours. I guess it’s still fun, but it loses the neighborhood charm.
Finally, a day when it is acceptable for me to lure children into my van!
Vans don’t have trunks asshole!
(A paraphrasing of “Castles don’t have phones asshole!” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show …)
That’s just how economy works. Anyway I always hated to interact with strangers and still do.
I put a bowl out once. The first kid that came emptied the whole lot into his bag and I had nothing left. So now I keep it inside and if they don’t knock it’s their loss and I get treats.
I had a doctor’s appointment on Halloween a few years ago. I was getting ready to go out, I put out a bowl of candy (nice mix of different chocolates) and went back inside to grab my purse and my test results for the doctor. I was inside for maybe 45 seconds? During which time I heard a couple kids come up to the porch, say something like “What do you think?”, and a slight scuffling sound. When I exited the house about 20 seconds later, they’d scooped the entire bowl clean and disappeared.
We sit on the porch and pass it out.
This year we offered candy or pickle. We went through a gallon jar of pickles!
A few years back, I handed out candy for friends while they took their kids around the neighborhood, and a group of kids jokingly asked for potatoes. I obliged and grabbed them each a potato from the pantry.
When my friends came back, the potato house was apparently the talk of the kids in the neighborhood.
Kirkland pickles
WTF really? My parents were super anal about anything not prepackaged.
Mine were too. And my wife is usually skeptical of strange baked goods, but a pickle straight out the jar with tongs and tissue paper can’t get much safer!
When the weather is nice like it is this year, we put a table and chairs out on our driveway and decorate it. We sit there and have a drink and pass out candy. It’s more fun than answering the door, and we end up chatting with neighbors and parents. Our next door neighbors did the same thing as us this year, and it was even more fun, as they were right next to us hanging out.
Its probably a covid relic or something. Kids knock on my house when I’m not even there cause I have my own kids (and yes, I leave a bowl outside and they still knock)
That seems plausible, except that I’ve been living here since long before COVID and have been suffering a lack of trick-or-treaters the entire time.
Actually, that reminds me of another failed hypothesis: when I first moved in, the neighborhood was just starting to gentrify and was still a little rough, so at first I figured the lack of trick-or-treaters was due to the lack of families with children in the neighborhood in general. Plenty of 'em now, though.
We just finished. We were 0-10 on knocking on doors. Eventually they gave up and kept on trucking.
You are if course right and they are wrong. But it’s possible they learned this by being yelled at by some curmudgeon who sits at home with their lights on, watching TV on Halloween but screaming at anyone who dares ask for candy. And at all the houses with kids, who welcome them, the parent is out chaperoning their little tribe. Ergo bowl. I say parent because of course they’re all divorced by the time the kids are walking.
How to teach them right? Put a sign on your gatepost, not at the door, easily seen from the street. Remember, if they’re under 3rd grade they’re still learning to read, so keep it simple:
RING BELL FOR CANDY! 🎃🍫🍭🍬👻
Once they do that, you can remind them to say Trick or Treat, and/or admire their costumes.
Baby steps.
We hand it out - one chocolate and 2 non-chocolate. I do most of it because my husband lets them put their disgusting paws in the bowl and take handfuls.
ETA: you could put out a bowl with a little candy and reload it after each kid/group.
I had a similar situation, and even if I left out a bowl on the porch, the kids would look but keep walking. Finally figured out that some neighbors had shared a link to my Megan’s Law profile on Nextdoor.
They’ve grown up in a world where immediate gratification is expected.
I know every generation says that about younger generations, but perhaps that’s because with every generation it just gets worse and worse.
