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.
That’s honestly pretty sad. If they don’t want candy so be it. Eventually someone will knock.
The last time I was handing out candy at my old neighborhood, kids would ring the doorbell but then they’d just stand there and stare at me until I handed them candy. You’re supposed to say “trick or treat”!
Now I live in an apartment, so I don’t get trick-or-treaters. (I have candy just in case, but nobody ever knocks.) My roommate went to hang out with his sister and hand out candy at her place, and apparently their neighborhood has decreed that trick-or-treating ends at 7 sharp now so that nobody is out after dark? I don’t get it. I thought staying out late (and, for teens, potentially unsupervised) was part of the fun!
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.
We’re also a sit outside house. Luckily October is pretty warm nowadays (wait…)
I do the same, minus the fire pit and friends but add in a costume. I’ve been a drunk pirate lately. I used to jump scares, but I find this routine more fun because, apparently, everyone is on edge and creep scares are jsit as easy
That sounds like such fun! We got none this year. Maybe next time.
I’d sit outside with a table, candy, and a sign that says “You HAVE to say trick or treat, change my mind!”
I took my kids out, one is almost 3 and the other is just over a year. So few houses in our neighborhood had ANY appearance of anyone home, let alone participating that it took nearly two hours to get about 15 houses. In a pretty standard suburb. At least two houses that were heavily decorated had nobody home and no bowl out. Two also had colorful lights but when we knocks on the door they looked confused when there were two toddlers yelling at them. One just shut the door in our face and the other sort of stood there for a minute with his mouth agape and finally said “I don’t have anything”. I mentioned to that guy that he MIGHT want to turn his lights off or there would be kids all night, but walking past at the end of our evening, all his lights were on still.
I left a bowl on my porch and had two small groups of respectful kids each take a couple pieces each (video doorbells have changed the game a little).
I mentioned to that guy that he MIGHT want to turn his lights off or there would be kids all night, but walking past at the end of our evening, all his lights were on still.
I think this is definitely part of it. When I was a kid, lights == giving out candy. Now, tonight, I had multiple trick-or-treaters almost go by my house before they noticed I was sitting outside with a bowl, despite the lights and decorations.
There’s a lady in my neighborhood who gives out juice boxes instead of candy. She’s become famous for it. In warmer years, trick or treating is thirsty work! I’ve heard that the parents sometimes ask for one.
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
Or give the option of a nice potato.
I once got a pear
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.My town does this at the city square. It started with all of the businesses around the square getting together to give out candy. Then the next year more people showed up for it. Then last year the city took over, did no advertising and almost no one showed up for it. Heck we went to another area to give out candy because we did not know. This year the city did it again, with zero advertising. There was a decent turn out for kids, but very few people giving out candy.
Our town is small and old, there are huge gaps between houses, much more so than when we lived in the city.
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.
I knew I’d miss it this year. Honestly, just didn’t decorate so no candy. It got me thinking though. Maybe something like an automatic pet feeder can curtail the greedy little shits. Obviously, the feeder would have to be out of reach.
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.
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!
But what if someone hid a Bat’leth inside one of them?
Yeah, I hear that’s a thing now. People these days.
That wouldn’t be very warrior like, but let’s ignore that. If a klingon wanted you dead, then i think something hidden in the pickle jar is the least of your concerns
Kirkland pickles
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.
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 just finished. We were 0-10 on knocking on doors. Eventually they gave up and kept on trucking.
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.
