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.
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.
Yeah, there's always an oddly large amount of houses in my neighborhood who don't hand out candy. They'll have all the signals of participation: decorations, porch light on, interior light on and nothing. Especially on bad weather nights, the kids only really hit up the visibly active houses.
We usually go to the other side of the neighborhood too, where there's greater participation (our immediate area doesn't have a lot of kids, so not a lot of houses either). Folks probably resent us when we choose to drive due to weather, park and unleash trick or treaters. We're not from out of neighborhood though (just don't want to walk the extra blocks in freezing rain) and even if we were, why does it matter? I put out/hand out candy every year and don't care who takes it. I bought it for the purpose of giving it away after all 🤷♀️. Last few years I've been driving to random street corners that look busy, and hand out while sitting on the trunk of my car, lol.