Ask Lemmy

Lots of neighborhoods just don't have that many kids left. They've grown. Easily 80% of my suburban neighborhood is over 65. And they've been here since the 90s.

When young families can't buy homes their trick-or-treating becomes relegated to their apartment complex or (when those complexes are sketchy) to trunk or treats.

For my neighborhood it was the busiest I've ever seen it in 17 years. A lot of home made costumes, even teenagers dressing up and getting in on the action with the gaggles of little kids. A few houses even did mini haunted houses in the front yards and garages. A lot of other houses had people chilling in the driveways with a small fire going. It was in the 50s (F) so not particularly warm either... I'm in a lower to middle class area, no HOA neighborhood so people do what they want with decorating and it's great.

No sidewalks. And nearby gated communities with sidewalks. Those communities are richer and setup tables outside. Two houses were handing out jello shots to the adults, one had a DJ and light show. My neighborhood still has some houses that do hand outs, but without a sidewalk most people drive up to each house, get out, knock, get back in, drive down to the next house, stop, get out, etc. Parents are worried their walkers will get run over. We can't compete with the other neighborhoods So, in my opinion, communities built to only serve cars and not pedestrians is the problem.

There's one area in my town a few blocks away that gets SLAMMED with trick or treaters. It's got the highest density of nice houses. We'll see about a dozen families as they make their way over to that neighborhood.

Over the years, people in my neighborhood haven't bothered to pass out candy since nobody goes through here, which makes even less people go through here, and so on.

I wondered this year. Last year 60 bags were not enough. This year i have 30 left. I think a lot kids got older and don’t do it anymore (though the biggest groups were some teenage girls admiring my decoration, i do the most fancy one in my area as i have a long path to fill).

Unfortunately I am not sure if i will ever be able to do this again due to my health.

For years we've had almost no trick-or-treaters come to our house. We know there are tons in the area, but the number who actually stopped at our house kept dropping.

Last year it was warm enough on Halloween for us to leave the front door open, and we saw tons of kids walk past our house and heard one kid say, "That's the creepy house."

Which is ridiculous. There's nothing creepy at all about our house.

Anyway, last year I decided I should make a sign to let the kids know they could stop at our house.

I made a post about the sign.

Anyway, the sign worked. We had double-digit trick-or-treaters this year.

Neighborhoods go through cycles. If all your neighbors have no school aged kids, you will see low turnout.

Our street only has 2 houses that do it, so everyone drives right on by our block. Some of them go to parties instead, some of them are just lazy and disinterested.

I've kind of shamed people into decorating for Christmas, I made my house elegantly lit with a warm white glow and theirs were dark and depressing. But Halloween, just the 2 of us for years.

We're in a high crime city so a lot of folks do trunk-or-treats and I get that, but, those kids are gonna be adults that have to learn to live here too. There's something humanizing about going up to strangers doors, finding out your neighbors aren't actually monsters or assholes, but kind people.

My wife I walked around our area in Los Angeles this year and many areas were completely full of trick or treating. Strangely though some of the most expensive neighborhoods had zero Halloween decorations and no activity.

Nobody seems to have mentioned this yet, but Trunk or Treat for lazy and/or helicopter parents has cannibalized door to door visits.

We usually have several groups of families in our neighborhood. Our streets were packed this year, though. First Halloween in a while that wasn't cold or raining or both.

Our neighborhood only has two entrance streets with a lot of connecting interior streets and cul de sacs which makes it a wee safer due to no through streets and less traffic.

Many families set up firepits in their driveways to hand out candy, sometimes with music playing or movies projected on garage doors, one house has a popcorn machine every year. This year several houses had buckets of mini shots for parents and a lot of others smelled like some dank vape. When we drank we used to bring a wagon with wine and cups to share with neighbors. It's a really great time.

This year there was even an Inflatable Cupcake Castle of Doom.

Last year there was a haunted house set up so that at the end you were watching the next group on cameras and you controlled the puppets and stuff, very Jigsaw style. That house has always had an elaborate haunted house but couldn't do it this year.

So...yeah, trick or treating is still alive in our neighborhood.

My neighbors with kids took them to another neighborhood to trick or treat. Only one came to my door

My neighborhood has kids living in single-family homes, but they all go trunk-or-treating. It's extremely disappointing.

We had much nicer weather this year. I had maybe a third of the trick or treaters as I did last year.

It was much less than I expected, and I have a ton of candy left over. Like 90 full size candy bars left. Last year I went through 120 to 150. This year, we handed out about 70, and as it got later into the night I was handing out multiple to kids.

I'm in a middle class Chicago suburb. We've had ICE in our city and neighboring suburban cities. While I haven't seen them on our street, we do think the general political climate kept a lot of families home.

Nope. Still going strong. And I'm in Germany. There were a lot of kids and teenagers around and people had an excellent time scaring the bejeebies out of each other. Standing outside and hearing the screaming was pretty funny.

Yeah.

I “blame” popular neighborhoods. Used to be you went around your neighborhood or went with a friend in town if you were more rural or something.

Now there are “it” neighborhoods or even small towns that seem to attract large groups, it’s almost like a block party. Tons of people arrive, there’s wild and extreme halloween decorations, effort gets put into costumes, and sometimes even full-size candy bars. My kids started going to popular areas with friends, one friend lives in a neighborhood like that so everyone uses his house as a starting point. It’s cool, but unfortunately large gatherings tend to bring assholes, too, and now there’s a cop nearby on standby because some people have to be dipshits and start being destructive or try to start fights.

We barely handed out one bag of candy in our neighborhood, last year we went through two big ones.

No kids around. I'm in a what should be a solidly middle class neighborhood except its like 80% retired folk. Just a handful of families with kids.

Definitely on a down swing. Not a lot of houses do it. Lack of kids and candy prices. Kids get transported to more expensive neighborhoods or the trunk or treat events. I haven’t done it the last few years cause of the decrease in traffic, raising cost of candy, and the increasing number of rude ass kids (teenagers) that grab everything they can without saying a word.

I meant to set stuff up this year but didn't make time for it. it was windy and the second day of constant rain in a row, which might have had an effect, but my street was dead.

we put out candy and decorations for a couple years until two thefts the same night, then my ex got so annoyed by that that she didn't want to do it the next year. the first theft was just the usual kid taking the whole bowl, whatever. but the second was a woman driving kids house to house and sending them to steal all of the candy. fuck that removed. it was a pretty nice car, too.

my neighbourhood is very walkable for this kind of activity, so it is a bit surprising, but I blame this year on the weather, it truly was miserable. hopefully I find time over the winter to make decorations for next year

also, candy prices are insane

Edinburgh, Scotland - we had quite a lot of T/Ters (or guisers, as it's often better known here, among older generations anyway). Maybe 10-15 groups. A lot of families round our way and we usually have a fairly busy night, so no change from normal :-)

We sat on the porch, in costume, with candy and the light on. Several people just skipped our house entirely. They went on either side and across the street, but not ours.

We had maybe 4 groups.

Neighbourhoods have less kids because they grew up and then didn't have kids at the same rate, it's prob more active near new suburbs built by schools or other areas they are renting at.

We had maybe 3 small groups come by. Very young kids with parents. For our kids, we went to a downtown event where businesses handed out candy. I liked that it was pretty dense with costumes and a down/back loop so we got to see lots of costumes and run into other families we knew. It's definitely changed and moved away from neighborhoods but there's also a feedback loop. Fewer kids, fewer houses passing out candy, fewer kids. Now I have to figure out what to do with 95% of a Costco candy bag

If anything, it's gotten worse since this place gentrified.

Used to be, kids weren't allowed out after dark, this was a proper dangerous estate, we had murderers and even one or two people with actual guns!

These days it's all weirdly big cars trying to copy the huge American ones, custom reg plates and live laugh love signs. They can even afford a second car this lot, AND fancy security cameras!

Gone are the days we used to get our cameras smashed so people could nick our motor.

What's the world coming to?

No trick or treaters in my neighborhood this year. Some teens were out and about making trouble (the fun, to be expected kind), but it seemed that parents took to other areas for the actual candy quests.

Got some of my decorations stolen tho, which brought a smile to mine. Reminds me of being a little hoodlum in my own younger days lol

Depending on your neighborhood and how long you've lived there, you'll see ebb and flow overtime. Families age out but stay in the neighborhood. My neighborhood actually saw an uptick for the first time since before COVID. We had some old families move out and replaced with just a few families with kids.

Maybe it's because no one can afford to have kids or buy candy.

My area was full of trick or treaters. I saw more homemade costumes. Had some teens in the spirit, lots of adults, too. My kid got to hang out with some friends and trick or treat.

However, I didn't dress up this year. Too much to do. My daughter's costume was all stuff we already had. Didn't decorate because, again, too much to do.

Things died down since start of covid and this year was more dead than last year. I suspect it has to do with ICE making people feel safer

/S

Neighbourhood is dying, new or expecting parents do not move here any more. And old folks get really aggressive when you dare go around as a young teen, for some reason.

Steady uptick in trick or treaters over the last 3 years. I think the neighborhood demographic is shifting to having more kids in the area.

We have a pretty large population of new immigrants in the area too, many with kids, and I think they weren't super familiar with the concept of Halloween when they arrived. I mean... it does sound kinda insane if you didn't grow up with it.

But I think they've realized that yes, it is a real thing... strangers will happily shovel candy at your children when they knock on a door.

Makes me very happy, it's such a community building event. I was explaining to my newish-to-canada wife that as a kid it's almost better than Christmas. As fun as Christmas is, as a kid you're still the passenger. Halloween you actually have some agency... what are you going to dress up as? Who do you want to trick or treat with? What route do you want to take? What candy do you want to barter with your friends afterwards?

Nobody my age can afford a house. I just got lucky with an okay job. All my immediate neighbours are old people. No kids.

That was true for the first 7 years here. I'd get 0 to 3 kids max. Then suddenly last year it's shot up to 30+.

I figure that means as old ppl are dying, landlords are buying. The houses aren't any cheaper yet, Carney.

More kids this year than any other year.

I live in an urban area and we run out of candy in two hours there are so many kids.

Not here. Insane amount of people out last night, most ive ever seen.

It was bonkers this year!

In excess of 650 candy given out, though not my usual Famous Amos packs (wildly more expensive than last year). A solid wall of kids and families from 7-8:30 when we ran out.

I do go crazy for decorating and candy delivery mechanism.

Lots of kids in the neighborhoods across town wherre the families now live. In the part of town where I am where it is all rental units filed with childless professionals and retirement homes for affluent snowbirds, there was no trick-or-treating. My husband grew up here and in this part of town it used to be crawling with kids in the 60's and 70's. Then again, that was before rich people "discovered" our city and snapped up all the affordable rentals and converted them to luxury condos.

Definitely a lot quieter here as well - we live in a neighborhood in a rural town. Not many options to go trick or treating here. We did get maybe 40-50 kids last night, but in past years (definitely before Covid), it was more like a few hundred. People would drive their kids from the area here and let them loose. We had to have the cops drive around the neighborhood to make sure everyone was safe. Definitely different last night. Still lots of little kids, but very few teens. Used to be the other way around. We have lots of candy left ...

No kids Trick-of-Treating showed up at my door yesterday, but holy shit it was loud outside. People (adults) were lining up stretching around the block to get into some event, I guess, in an adjacent building. Lots of yelling / very loud talking, honking, etc. Bunch of police sirens at like 3am or so. Some Friday nights are kind of like that normally around here, but this one was extra rowdy.

Downtown area of a city on the US West Coast.

Trick or treating is alive and well in places where you can walk safely, and houses aren't too far apart from each other. The problem is too many places in the US don't fit that description.

We normally have kids up until 11 pm, this year we had less then normal, and only 3 after 10 pm. We live on a main street, and are the known Halloween house with the way we decorate. We probably had 1/3 less this year. We attribute it to the trunk or treats. Our next door neighbor took his kids trunk or treating 6 times in the past week. Safer? Maybe. Lazier? Very much so.