Most of the trick-or-treaters have been skipping my house, and I finally figured out why

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.

Leave a bowl out with a sign that says "if the bowl is empty, please knock." You don't even have to fill the bowl with anything.

They go for the unattended bowls so they can just take it all for themselves. I dressed up as a decoration scarecrow one or two years after I was too old to trick or treat myself and held a bowl of candy in my lap out on the porch. Every kid that attempted to take the entire bowl, got a scare as I stood up and shouted scary things like "TAKE THE BOWL, I TAKE YOUR SOUL!"

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

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.

The last time I left a bowl on my porch, literally the first group that came took all the candy and threw the bowl into my lawn. It disincentivized from doing so again.

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.

That's just how economy works. Anyway I always hated to interact with strangers and still do.

Put a bowl out but in the bowl just have a sign that says "please knock"

It’s a holdover from Covid. It isn’t some glaring indictment of “kids these days”. The social contract changed with Covid and will take time to go back or maybe never does.

Ah yes, let's skip the social part and get right to the obligatory consumption.

I don't really care for Halloween, but I don't actively hate it either. I like seeing kids and parents in cute costumes walking around. To me, the whole point has always been one of social activity, of walking around the neighbourhood and showing off your cool costume and such. You know, the whole "reinforcing horizontal social ties" deal we've done since forever.

That’s sad. We only leave the bowl out during the time we are out trick or treating ourselves. All trick or treating is under fire, it seems. Have you heard of trunk-or-treat? Gah. And even people who live in safe areas will like their kids into a car and go drive to some affluent neighborhood where the decorations are fancier and full size bars are being given out. I greatly value the experience of knocking on my neighbors’ doors and it’s sad to see people discount this community building experience.

I think you're looking at it wrong. It's likely not that kids are too lazy to knock but that your neighbors are too lazy to answer the door. The kids see everyone on the street leaving bowls out and assume that if someone on the street doesn't have a bowl, then they're not doing Halloween like everyone else is.

We sit on the porch and pass it out.

This year we offered candy or pickle. We went through a gallon jar of pickles!

LOL put a ginormous bowl on your porch with a sign in it that says RING BELL FOR CANDY

I sit on the porch with the bowl, it's nice to see them walking around. It's easier for both parties, and I can dress up too.

I think it's because fewer houses are doing it, mostly. But I don't understand skipping very decorated houses, and honestly wouldn't leave out a bowl of candy here.

The sitting on the porch thing is traditional here now (my mom sat inside but I'm over 50 now and since being old enough to be on the treating side have always sat out with the candy and that's more usual as far as I can tell) Though my kids always did go up and try if a light was on outside.

Maybe they are also a little more sensible too, lol - a princess last night looked in the bowl and said, nah there's nothing I like, happy Halloween. My kids would have taken some anyway and traded it around, but it is always too much by the time they are done.

Overall I agree, they should yell TRICK OR TREAT but am glad nobody is, like egging your house if you don't have a treat for them.

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!

I didn't get a single knock last night.

Spooky decorations, LED candles, WLED providing backup lighting, 12 XL Hershey bars with frozen Snickers as backup.

Not. One. Knock.

Fuck em -- we'll be eating smores all winter. 🤷

Is it only me who is surprised that they have a scout to optimise the process?

Me and some friends of mine went out “reverse trick or treating” tonight, we carried around a door knocking at houses and giving them candy, and doing the same for any trick or treaters, that kind of thing. We were really disappointed by how few people we saw, and a majority of the houses in the area just had bowls. It made us feel quite sad actually.

I think we were just in an older neighborhood, full of mostly empty nesters with a few younger couples. I hope anyways. There’s a part of me that’s worried that Halloween is like a dying holiday I guess, but maybe that’s just because I’ve gotten older and have a different perspective. Who knows.

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)

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.

That's so weird. When I used to trick-or-treat (not murican so it was different ofc, and also we went to apartment doors instead of houses) I always assumed that if someone had a candy bowl it was just because they weren't home that night, and I think I preferred it when they answered the door and gave us the candy themselves. It was nice to show off my costume and perhaps even get a compliment from an adult pretending to be scared.

Do you live in a sketchy area? That hasn't been my experience at all. We had 90 kids in total knock on our door yesterday for trick or treat!

Not my experience. When I've had no decorations, my house was mostly skipped. When I put a few out with lights on, I got plenty of knocks and rings from both little kids with parents and young teens. And when I was cooking dinner one time, a teen could smell it and asked if they could have some, LOL. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In our neighborhood a lot of families set up a fire pit in the driveway and hang out passing out candy. It's something we hadn't seen before moving into our neighborhood and we love it.

Everyone in my area stays outside, no matter the weather. No kids knock on any doors. Also, no one leaves out a bowl, that shit would be gone in minutes. But people are outside with portable fire rings, music, some have cocktails for the adults. It's the only night of the year all of the neighbors are outside and socializing. Honestly it's great.

I went out with my kids and we went to a few houses actually that had lights on outside and inside, told my kids to go to the door and knock, waited a minute or so, and nothing. This was maybe half-a-dozen houses, so it’s not always a given that just knocking on the door will get results. The new “normal” is that people are either waiting outside to hand out candy or they’re leaving bowls out for kids to help themselves. Knocking on the door for trick or treating is a crapshoot and it’d be understandable why most kids will skip that. Compared to other houses, it’s more effort for potentially no reward, or, even if there is a reward, it’s the same as every other house.

150 chocolate bars gone! And they had to ring the bell. Its a good neighbourhood for this.

If it came to skipping my house because no bowl, I'd skip Halloween altogether.

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.

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.

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).

One of the houses this year had a couple of signs that led you to "knock three times" on the door. It was pretty fun for the kids.

I took my kids trick or treating tonight and, in the neighborhood we go to, everyone who is handing out candy sits on their porch or driveway and it's like a big block party. Nobody goes up to the houses with nobody outside because it's assumed they aren't participating. Being in rural texas, I probably wouldn't let my kids knock on those doors, only if that's what was the norm for the neighborhood. People be crazy out here.

It is because all you had was those weird black and orange taffies. No-one can eat those.

Maybe meet them half way and sit on the porch and hand out candy? I used to go to my parent's house to help them hand out candy and I noticed it took a bit of effort for the smaller kids climb the stairs. There's no railing and knowing how dangerously slick their steps got if they were damp, i started sitting at the bottom to hand out candy.

It seems trick or treating isn't as popular with the kids as it used to be. Ironically, it seems more popular than ever with adults. Some houses I've seen look like they must rent a storage unit to keep all the decorations they put up. We used to fill a set of dad's old clothes with leaves, splap a plastic punkin on top for a head and call it a day

We just finished. We were 0-10 on knocking on doors. Eventually they gave up and kept on trucking.

I left a bowl of candy out once, and some teen boys took the whole bowl.

That's honestly pretty sad. If they don't want candy so be it. Eventually someone will knock.

You gotta be outside chilling shooting the shit with neighbors at the end of your driveway these days. My door would fall off the hinges if I had to open it for every kid

This probably varies significantly place-to-place, all the kids in my neighborhood this year rang my doorbell fine.

When people have moved to leaving candy out, perhaps kids thought that not having them out means you're not participating. Also, when many houses have left them out, for efficiency, it makes sense to only go to those houses.

I'm glad to hear that the sign helped. Shows that some kids aren't just about getting as much candy as possible but also having a bit of fun.

Most of our neighborhood sits outside with the candy and to hang out and see everyone's costumes. They make it very obvious they're handing out candy so when it's knock houses, we're less likely to go

what ours changed to is we'd sit on the porch. we live in a nice warm climate so it doesn't make much difference if we sit in or outside, but the older kids know if your porch light is on, you can knock. If it's off, go away.

I would be mad if some kids would come begging for my candy. MY CANDY! yes I'm fat.

We only had one group visiting on Halloween. But that's due to a decline of Halloween in general in this area - the fad is over. Here it basically started when our kids were young, and there were maybe five to ten groups coming through. But after a few years, it simply declined.

I still buy some sweets - I don't want to disappoint kids - but whatever is left goes into the sweets bowl at work.

I live at the end of a cul de sac with a bunch of killjoys who never give out candy, so kids wouldn't visit my house.

So I take my bucket of candy and go walking around and deliver it to the kids. Plus this means everybody sees my costume.

I took my kids last night and every house had people sitting on the porch with a bowl. None of the houses they knocked on opened the door. There were hundreds of kids around us and I didn’t hear anyone say trick or treat.

When I was a kid in the early-mid 2000s, knocking on the door was always a daunting prospect - people sitting out on their porch or steps were much more approachable, and much more the norm.

I never liked bowels. More fun to hand fist fulls of candy.

I used to live in a townhouse and no one would bother going along the row. Finally we got together with other residents and set up a table in the parking lot next to the street. That was a lot of fun hanging out with the neighbors all evening, handing out candy

Pre-COViD we used to take out the screen in our storm door (and after put in glass for winter). It really freaked some people out when we reached through to hand out candy! Even better when someone didn’t keep a good hold on the dog and he leaped through! Of course today I have a pit bull instead of mini poodle so that wouldn’t go over as well

I saw quite a few people sitting outside their houses with their candy ready for the kids. Some even organized them on tables so the kids could come up, pick one, be handed it and go.

I live in an apartment building on the ground floor, I always tape a sign to my decorated window to inform people where to ring for trick or treating. It works quite well for me, and groups know immediately who is willing to give out candy

My front door faces the courtyard, so you’d have to come through the gate, walk between the house and fence, and then around to the back to knock on the door. My house is one of the older ones in the neighborhood, with big trees and bushes and no porch light or anything. I’ve never had a trick-or-treater knock on my door. Maybe I should get a massive, highly coveted bag of candy just in case someone does - and then just give them the whole thing.

Idk, in my area they knock on the door and it most often than not starts so early that were not even done eating. It's usually so busy here that we have to stay at the door outside and we're out of candies by the time the older kids start arriving when it's actually dark

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’ve done Halloween for the first time in the uk with my 2 year old, and we passed a few lightly decorated doors (apartment block). Most other flats had a bowl of candy outside and is this one not having it, we were not sure if we could knock or not. I found myself thinking that they were out or didn’t want to be bothered. It has become very unclear. I think next year even if I’m at home (before we go trick or treating) I will put a sign on the door if I want them to knock, so I make it clear to all.

The houses that do leave bowls are my favorite, the kids trick or treat as normal but when there's a bowl-house I take one extra for dad lol

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.

put a sign on your door next year, and report back on how well it works lol.

I see you did it this year, but doing it again next year should also increase the amount of visitors. We do a little science.

lmao that Skinner reference though 😆👌

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.

We don't get many trick or treaters in my neighborhood so I usually do just a leave a bowl out because I can't be bothered to wait by the door for a couple of groups.

Never had a problem with it until this year when some little shits clearly took all of the candy for themselves shakes fist at the clear downfall of society

I took my kids trick or treating and didn't observe anything like what you're describing. Pretty sure you made this up. Congrats on the internet points though!

There is never and has never been a legitimate reason for anyone to use the phrase "kids these days".

Ok Boomer.

You get between 5-730 in a lot of neighborhoods to do trick or treating. It's a school night. I'm not spending a cumulative extra 30 minutes of my time watching my kid stand by the door so your old ass can slide off the couch and mosey over to the door and slowly talk to my kids individually about their costumes. And by some weird extension try to make small talk with me or a parent.

If your lonely, go to a bar. I'm trying to run these street with my kids and make some real candy profit.

Just put the fries in the bag, dude.

EDIT : Downvote me all you want. You're the ones sitting inside instead of putting out a table in your driveway like every other house next to you. Social holidays evolve naturally and this is one of those times. Trunk or treating and drive way exhibitions is the new Halloween.