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 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. 🤷
I got a knock last night. I had to apologize and say there's no candy - I don't live in the US. We have our own similar traditions on St. Martin's day and St. Catherine's day. The article for the latter even describes it: Wiki, though for either day you can click on the Estonian Wikipedia article to get a more complete description.
I suppose in the coming years I'll have to start stocking candy for Halloween too because I don't really want to disappoint a bunch of kids. Though to be fair, I don't think they did much trick or treating anyway, they mostly just opened their bag and asked for candy - so it felt kinda lazy. When I was a kid, I remember groups of kids would come knock on our door for either Mardipäev or Kadripäev and they'd usually have something like a song or dance prepared, or at least told us riddles.
In the US all you are supposed to do is Knock and say "Trick or Treat".
If I were you, just turn the porch light off. Its the universal sign for "Not home/No candy"
Thanks for that. I ended up in a wiki journey.
I moved to this place 2 years ago starting a lease on November 1st. Got here a day early, so third Halloween. Bought candy both of the first 2 years, and never got a knock on the door. Figured they just don't do it in this area, all going to local Halloween events or such. So I didn't buy candy this year, and poof sudden knocks on the door and I felt like absolute poop telling the kids sorry. Waited till they got down the drive and turned off the entry light so no one knocked after. I'm guessing since it rained all night (including when they came) some of the Halloween events may have been canceled, which made the kids finally come trick or treating.. leaving me tricked and the kids without treats.
That's funny, in my subdivision I had to put a sign up on my door that said "no candy" and I still got multiple knocks!
(I'm a Halloween Scrooge don't judge me)