My family never had it done to them (I have two younger sibs) but I did it a few times, usually to ex-friends after our friend group imploded in spectacular fashion in multiple ways, during my senior year.
It is curious. What I’ve seen in the burbs these past few decades seems to be primarily HS and under sports team related, rather than more random - or Halloween-type - “pranking.” Sort of a sign of membership in some group.
As a kid I came up with the brilliant idea of waxing windows-- I had a big chunk of wax that had melted from a candle, sort of pointy on one end for easy writing. It looks just like soap on a window, but good luck trying to get it off by hosing and scrubbing it. Other than that and a few tomatoes we threw at houses once or twice, I wasn’t too bad. I don’t remember TPing any houses.
That’s interesting-- here in the greater Detroit area we called the night before Halloween ‘Devil’s Night’. Anybody else have their own regional nicknames for the mischievous doings on the night before Halloween?
Also, I always kind of wondered why the prank night happened the night before Halloween. Why not the night after? Then you could follow up on the ‘trick or treat’ threat for those who didn’t pass out treats.
Did that as well, they needed to use a razor blade to scrape off the wax.
I’m amazed that more of these incidents don’t end in violence by homeowners.
Now, I grew up thinking TPing was a Halloween-only thing. Just one of many tricks to play. But, since we were all poor and couldn’t afford to waste TP, it was mostly talk and usually didn’t happen anyway.
But there was this episode of Adam-12 where some school girl’s house was TPed, and everyone seemed to think it was some big honor. “Oh Daddy, don’t be a sqaure!” Made no sense to me, when the show was new, or even now.
And then the kids who TP’d the house stabbed and maybe killed the girl’s father. And the girl was angry at dad, not the juvenile delinquent future serial killers that stabbed him.The whole episode made no damn sense! The writers could have used some help.
At our school, too, it was often related to sports related. The older sister of a girl I dated was a cheerleader and her house got TPed a lot.
My friends and I TPed a few homes, because we were teenage boys. We TPed the house of the girl he liked and the one I liked (the one above).
What can I say, we were 16, had driver’s licenses and nothing else to do on Friday nights. I’m probably lucky I never did anything much worse.
It was a pretty common prank where / when I grew up too. Upper middle class SoCal with my HS years in the early 1970s. It helped that the weather was nice outside during the school year when most of this stuff went on.
As with so many folks upthread, the victims were generally the big men / women on campus. Sports, cheer, and band were the big three. A family across the street & down a couple had a son who was about 4 years older than me. He was the drum major for the marching band his senior year. He got a lot of TP. His father was a dour humorless sort and I’m sure he made his annoyance felt.
There was also the Friday night were most (all?) of the marching band quietly assembled in the street in front of his house around midnight then let loose with 76 Trombones at full blast. Like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody expects the HS Marching Band at midnight on your lawn.
I was the antithesis of social throughout HS, and although my younger bros weren’t that bad, they were not joiners either. So no giving or receiving of TP for us. Another youthful opportunity squandered.
One year we repeatedly TPed my aunt’s back and front yard.
I was driving her home from church one night and she sighed with relief as we turned the corner and she saw a pristine landscape.
What she did not know was that we had toilet papered the inside of her house that evening.
She took it all quite well and of course we cleaned it up.
Wow! If I ever needed additional evidence of the wackiness that is SoCal! All 3 of my kids were in HS band. Believe me when I say band geeks were the OPPOSITE of BM/WOCs! 
I really don’t get the logic of that; why would you do that to somebody you liked? It’s minor vandalism, something that’s normally a hostile act, after all. Like keying somebody’s car.
Seriously? The need to clean up a few rolls of TP is similar to repairing/permanency of a keyed car?
TPing is a showing of attention. Maybe more akin to pulling the pigtails of a girl you like…
Well, I wouldn’t do that either.
It happened to us once in the late 70’s. Fairly certain my older brother was the target. Dad was furious, but then he was usually furious about something. Everybody was a little freaked out about it because it was all in the tall pines. Then i thought of using the hose to squirt it down and after that it only took about an hour to fix it.
In HS my gang did it a few times, mostly to guys who were grabbing girls butts or pulling up their skirts in the hallways. It def was not seen as a sign that you were popular.
ETA: We probably also did it to people who didn’t give out Halloween candy at some point.
What band does do is create a big group of more-or-less friends used to doing group activities. Especially the marching band more than, say, the orchestra or jazz combo. And of course the marching band also has flag girls, baton twirlers, etc. as auxiliaries.
Lotta ways for that large an in-group to recruit a half-dozen people for some mischief on any given night. And provides a ready target set in all the other members of the same in-group.
You’re right that the jocks and the bandos (just remembered that term) were united only in their mutual disdain for the other. The only thing they looked down on harder than each other was the ordinary schmoes who were in neither group.
You did read that we were in high school, didn’t you?
Logic isn’t the strongest asset of that age kids.
Well, I certainly wouldn’t have vandalized the home of somebody I liked, even at that age.
Congratulations. I’m sure you were a great teenager.
More withdrawn and bullied.
I suspect there’s also a generational and SES aspect here
TPing was always something the comfortable suburbanites did. Kids for whom buying a couple cases of TP to waste was nothing. In an era when homeowners weren’t all paranoid that some kids might hurt them, so the modern idea of “shoot first and ask no questions” was beyond unthinkable; far beyond.