Do kids go trick-or-treating anymore?

We bought a bag of candy "just in case" some kids come to the door, but haven't had any takers the last 3 or 4 years. Not a lot of kids in our neighborhood, but I think it's more a sign of the times. Does anyone get kids knocking on their door?

Yes, we still get about 30 to 50 each year, depending a lot on the weather.  (It is supposed to be clear, but cold this year.)  West Peoria is a suburb of Peoria, and I live just 3 blocks from the boundry line, so we get some coming from Peoria.  There are also quite a few parents who load their kids (and their kids' friends) in the car and drive them to our area. 

We're near the end of a 1/4 mile long cul-de-sac street so it's never been a hotbed of Halloween activity, it's kind of out of the way. We only usually get the local kids and a few others with enough energy to make it all the way down here.
 
That being said, where we used to get 10-15 groups of kids each year, the past few years it's been more like 3 or 4 groups.

We only get about 10 a year because we don't have a lot of kids on the street and we are near a busy road but everyone I know with kids still goes.  I have not heard of anyone around here who doesn't go for precautionary reasons.

Any kid walking up the long gravel driveway to my large old house on the side of a mountain bodered by woods, would get a 10 spot...never had one in 25 years!

Chewer, the word is out now!
 
I live in a neighborhood w/ about 50 housed. It is all on one long street. We have a hay ride, and other activities, for the kids. There are always over 100 that join in the fun. They all come down the road to TRT at once. It's a sight to see!
 
My three Great Grandzillas, ages 2-4, will be comeing down. Ohhh, it's tonight!!!!
Joe

Boy there isnt anyone like it used to be IN THE 80S!!
 
I remember TONS of trick or treators!!
 
I also remember ALOT OF VANDELS
 
Now there is hardily anything!!! (Its not a big deal as candy now is all garbage (Tatses like crap,etc))
 
Im glad i enjoyed the 80s (BEST DECADE EVER)
 
 
 

I have some families with young children on my block, and they like to dress them up and take them around, but we are talking about 3 yr. olds.   Some neighborhoods with children have block parties. 
 
Our sheriff's office puts on a Halloween fair, complete with hay rides, blocks of hay and pumpkins for effect, plus a visit from a fire pump - but no trick or treaters in any sizeable numbers like when I was a kid.  I had a huge bag of candy from Sam's the first year I moved into the neighborhood - that I ended up giving away to a friend's church nursery.

PapaJoe8


My three Great Grandzillas, ages 2-4, will be comeing down. Ohhh, it's tonight!!!!
Joe

All was quiet tonight - watching SEC football and county ribs on the grill -  since we live on a hill  way out of town I thought the trick or treaters thing was going to pass me up another year until....................
the spouses grandkids showed up - obviously on some sort of sugar rush because they were totally off the chart.  I felt like I'd been through a hurricane  after they left -
Papajoe - I hope your experience was much less painful than mine tonitght.

We live in a safe subdivision with quite a few kids so we get a bunch. Some of our neighbors gather at my next door neighbors house, sit in the driveway, pass out candy, eat some chili and sip a few brewski's and enjoy the kids. The adults accompanying the kids usually trick or treat for a cup of  the golden adult beverage. 

We will get quite a few trick or treaters here. I noticed a resurgence in the holiday around here right after 911. Allot of people from the area died or knew someone who died. Halloween was the first holiday to occur and I think everyone wanted to do something very normal. It hasn't died down and I notice that the kids around here still go out even through high school. I'm Wiccan and truly enjoy the holiday. Since it's on a weekend day, we've all picked out our favorite scarey movie to watch at my house.
The menu will include cubes of sirloin on "stakes" and skewered shrimp basted with garlic butter done on the grill. At least we'll be protected from vampires.

We only had about 20 or so......

Like the Jets, we got shut out yesterday!

We had 3 kids who all came before 6pm, 7 was our towns cut off. My street is over 2 blocks long with only 2 street lights so it's pretty dark plus the sidewalk is on the other side of the street from me so I guess kids were told not to cross but I only saw about a dozen come through on the sidewalk side. It was actually a pretty nice night weather wise.

Every year we get more and more trick or treaters. My neighborhood is coming around. I did't set up shop until 7pm (because I was out taking ym two year old trick-or-treating on Cap Hill - which was a mob scene. Even the Obama girls were out trick-or-treating on Cap Hill). But even after 7pm, I nearly ran out of candy. Not as many groups as last year, but the groups were bigger - like 6-10 kids per group. But, I probably missed the younger kids. My neighbors all said attendence was up again. 5 years ago, when I was new to the 'hood, I got 11 kids.  I like that our neighborhood is getting more families.
 

We had over a hundred kids (and adults) , all in costumes,at out front door last night - one halloween about 5 years ago, when a family down the street ran a "haunted house", we had over 200 kids begging for candy. Here in New Paltz, halloween is a big deal, and, I must say, the kids are pretty good - no damage, no soaped up windows, no dirty tricks - the worst they do is throw eggs at each other, throw rolls of toilet paper in the trees, and spray each other with Barbasol.
 
Cheers, John 

We had 33 kids, though I might have missed a few since I didn't open until about 6.  I stayed open until 8, but we didn't have the "big" kids that usually come at the later times. (Maybe it was a little cold for them.  It got down in the 30's.)  My real pumpkin this year weighed 50 lbs. 

Since the immediate neighborhood kids have grown up we haven't had a trick or treater in years. We are located 300 feet off the street in a heavy woods. That seems to deter them. No lights.

Last year we ran out of candy, this year the doorbell rang twice with a total of 4 'Weeners. I brought 2 bags of candy to work.

I buy candy every year for the kids, but there's not been a single one ringing my doorbell in the past several years. I figured that this year, with at least four little kids living on my road, I'd get some candy action, but it never happened.
 
When I was a kid we didn't have trick or treat where I lived. At least none of us kids had ever heard of it. We started ringing doorbells and running in September and kept it up through Halloween. On Halloween itself we'd dodastardly things. One of my favorites was to fill a paper bag with dog leavings, place it on a front porch, set the bag on fire and rig the bell and run like hell. When the guy would open the door he;d see the burning bag and stomp on it, thus coating his shoe and pants leg with what was inside the bag.
 
It was always the night that I ended up picking rock salt out of my butt.

Michael Hoffman


I buy candy every year for the kids, but there's not been a single one ringing my doorbell in the past several years. I figured that this year, with at least four little kids living on my road, I'd get some candy action, but it never happened.

When I was a kid we didn't have trick or treat where I lived. At least none of us kids had ever heard of it. We started ringing doorbells and running in September and kept it up through Halloween. On Halloween itself we'd dodastardly things. One of my favorites was to fill a paper bag with dog leavings, place it on a front porch, set the bag on fire and rig the bell and run like hell. When the guy would open the door he;d see the burning bag and stomp on it, thus coating his shoe and pants leg with what was inside the bag.

It was always the night that I ended up picking rock salt out of my butt.

I'm not sure if they had Trick Or treat in the late 1800's but I bet you had fun with the Witch hunts. You really weren't that far from Salem Mass...................This should start the week off with a bang

It was in the 1940s, and the only witch near us then was Eddy Vandermark's mother.

Michael, that was good, I'm sure Eddy is going to love you for that one. We used to come home with pillow cases 1/2 full with candy in the 50's. People used to invite use in for apple cider and donuts. We would always try to get the candy and get out, we had a busy night ahead of us.................

We bought 3 bags of candy, and turned off the lights when we ran out.

BillyB


Michael, that was good, I'm sure Eddy is going to love you for that one.

Eddy was almost as big a jerk as his mother. We called her The Witch because she'd come running out swinging her broom whenever she saw a kid walking on the (public) sidewalk in front of their house.

During the 50s trick or treating was kind of a tedious process. On our block just about every home had kids and the moms were stay at homes. So there was no treat until they could guess who you were. Nowadays kids just run up, collect the candy and go.
 
My older brother and his friends used to go out the night before Halloween and trick or treat a few blocks away. They surprisingly collected a lot of candy that way.
 
We used to stick car horns back in the days when there was a chrome ring inside the steering wheel for the horn. All it took was a wood slat wedged in with the car seat to hold the ring down. That and an open unlocked car. That was a dangerous game because some adults liked to set traps to catch you. That was done in the suburb of Speedway. When I lived in the inner city of Indianapolis I would not dare to try it.

In the 30s the streets in our neighborhood were torn up for years as the WPA installed sewers and water mains - tipping over the WPA wooden outhouses was a standard part of Halloween. We didn't soap up windows - we used parafin wax -much harder to clean off. Setting fire to leaves piled along the curb was also a pretty common stunt. And Hoffman's  ****-in-a-bag trick was not unknown to some of the most perverse  of us ( I swear, I never did that one). Begging for candy was mostly done in our own neighborhood and in some of the richer streets, but the nasty tricks were reserved for neighborhoods across town where we didn't know anybody. 
 
I remember one particular time we were invited in for hot cider and donuts by some very nice people who kept urging us to stay a little longer. It turned out that they were just holding us 'till the cops arrived to closely question us and, as it turned out, called our parents - something we found out painfully when we arrived home later that halloween night. 
 
The relationship  between cops and the community was much closer and personal in those ancient days. The cops rarely took a kid in for anything - they just called his parents to do the correcting.
 
Cheers, John  

My son got about 6lbs of mixed candy out begging so yes there are some neighborhoods in my area that pass out for beggars night.
 
There is a neighborhood in the area that lines the street and has many halloween parties along the street (Brandon made out great there)
 
Last year we only had 21 visitors and we had the whole place decked out with carved pumpkins and fog machines and strobe lights.  This year we went out the whole night instead.

We had well over 45 kids. We ran out of candy about 7:30. The wife gave out quarters after that. My plea to give out penny's fell on deaf ears.

We had 90 kids last night (2010) - weather was cool & clear.
 
We had 74 kids last year (2009) - weather was cool & cloudy.
 
We had 98 kids in 2008 - weather was warm & clear.
 
The weather does seem to have an effect.