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.
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.
I just got back from taking one of my kids trick or treating with his friends. It was great. My wife and I got to walk and chat with the other parents while all of our kids knocked on doors and shouted "trick or treat!". Lots of friendly, generous, nice people. And lots of shouted reminders from us for the kids to not walk on people's front lawns, to say thank you, to be careful crossing the quiet roads. There were so many other kids out too. It was pretty crazy, but in a good way. About half of the houses were giving out candy in some way or other, with only about a quarter having an un-monitored bowl.
Then on the way home we drove past a church that was having a 'trunk or treat' in their parking lot. That just looked sad. There was no excitement for going up to the really cool houses that were decked out in amazing props and decorations. There was no need to hone analytical skills to determine which houses were giving out candy and which ones probably weren't. Just going very short distances from one car to the next getting candy. My kid asked why they do that. I said it's probably because they are a closed community who don't really want to associate with 'outsiders'. Give me the conventional experience over that all day every day!