Same thing when I lived in the 'burbs of Cleveland. East Cleveland (“don’t slow down in East Cleveland or you’ll die” - that East Cleveland) was about a mile and a half away from my safe, middle class, inner ring suburban neighborhood. You could easily tell the neighborhood kids, who were out alone or in very small groups with their parents, from the East Cleveland kids, who were in groups of 10 or more, often with several adult chaperones. The East Cleveland kids were also absolutely terrified of my dogs, while the locals thought they were adorable.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it for trick or treating.
I do have an issue with teenagers who just go door to door asking for candy without any attempt to dress up.
I’m OK with it but like everything else in this world, it should be in moderation. We have people coming in from other neighborhoods to trick or treat through ours and I’m fine with it. They’re kids, give 'em some candy.
Wait, the students living in college dorms were giving out candy? That surprises me. I was in a dorm three years out of four and never once heard of kids (presumably local residents or townies, although we called them Troylets) trick-or-treating on campus. Maybe that happened in the married student housing buildings but those were basically families in an apartment building.
Where I grew up, the houses were on at least an acre each so the density was low, and therefore you weren’t going to get that much candy in a couple of hours.
A friend of mine lives in a upper middle class neighborhood that is next to a neighborhood of mostly immigrants from Mexico. Families from the other neighborhood pile into his in droves which is fine. What’s not fine is that they are unclear on the concept. He’ll get three generations of a family, none of them in costume, standing at their door with open sacks. Not even a “trick or treat”.
$80? I spent like $3 on bag of 50 pieces. (I don’t get very many kids). How in the world do you spend $80?
We give out about 800 pieces of candy each year, many to kids who get driven to my neighborhood. It’s a reminder to me that I live a good and privileged life. I like to share. It is a blast.
To hijaro: I spend about $100 at Costco every year just for candy. You can buy it in bags of 150 pieces each. I carted about 30 lbs of chocolate into the house 2 days ago. Now it’s gone…
I take candy to a different neighborhood to give it out. As it happens I take it to a neighborhood that is a popular destination for parents to drive their kids to. It’s row homes, with several very decorated houses. Not many families with kids live there. No one seems to mind that carloads of kids are coming from other neighborhoods.
When my son was young (3-5 years old) we lived in a suburban neighborhood that was on the rural end of the suburban spectrum. Houses were far apart, no sidewalks, no street lights. We’d drive about 8 miles to my aunt and uncle’s house and start from there. Now, he was little enough that up one block and back down the other side provided enough candy and enough cool yard decor for him.
Well damn…
I live in Trick or Treat heaven. In the years I do the hand out candy thing, I have to buy at least 800 pieces. You can’t park within 5 blocks of my house after 6PM because every space is taken. But the kids LOVE it, and I’m happy for them. Everyone has a wonderful time.
As for the 16-year-olds who show up at 9PM with no costume looking for a hand-out? Bug off!
For the first 7 years on my own in Florida I bought candy and left my light on but had a total of 1 group. In the next 7 years I’ve not bought candy and turned my light off and I’ve also had a total of 1 group, who were teenagers so I gave them Mountain Dew which they liked.
After work, I ran to avoid having to be at home, by the time I got back it was getting dark. Here in Florida there are still some hours of daylight after school so a lot of the trick or treating seems to be in the late afternoon/early evening. Thankfully still no knockers.
We tried to trick or treat in our own neighborhood the first year we lived here. Poor kidlets got exactly one mini Snickers each! (Plus, I got myself introduced to the crazy lady down the street, who then proceeded to treat me like her personal chauffeur for awhile, based on a vague “let me know if you need help getting groceries…”) Fortunately, I had a crapton of candy at home, since no one came calling. If we didn’t take the girls to another neighborhood, they just wouldn’t get to enjoy this particular experience. (In my defense, we only go two subdivisions over, limit the door knocks to six or eight houses, and everyone is in costume and says thank you. Even Michelle, at twenty months old, managed to be polite last night, saying “dank oo” to everyone. Except at the scary house where the decor freaked her out.)
But I do sometimes think it’s a little presumptuous of us to hit up people who aren’t my neighbors…
I get that there are rural or low income neighborhoods where trick-or-treating is less safe or feasible, and I’m sympathetic to that. But in this case, they were welcome to go to the dorms, yet stepdad turned his nose up at the quality of candy. I just feel that takes some gall when they are not even contributing to the “candy pool” by handing any out themselves.
This is a fine thing to do.
Man, we used to cover miles of territory when I was a kid (without parents). I remember going home to dump out my grocery bag when it got too heavy and heading out again to fill 'er up a second time.
In recent years, we have gone trick-or-treating to my sister’s neighborhood in the next town. She lives in a well-off area, and my daughter and niece always got a lot of candy. One year, in one of the McMansions, some adult women (possibly sisters) handed out candy while dressed as Disney princesses, and one man was there as Prince Charming. The girls loved it. 
This year, my daughter had some teenage friends over. Since they are all cosplayers, they just brought some of their costumes along - some were actually pretty scary and well-done; one girl spent hours on her skeleton makeup. We went around my neighborhood and got a lot of compliments, as well as a pretty good candy haul. One house, where the people were apparently getting tired of giving out candy, gave each of them a large bag of cinnamon candies and all the Dum Dum pops they had on their table, before closing the door and turning out their porch light.
I’d happily spend $80 in candy to get droves of kids coming to my door. I love Halloween. Love seeing the little kids in their silly little costumes. This year, I bought 300 pieces of the good stuff (Reese Cups, M&Ms, Almond Joy)… and had exactly 3 Trick-or-Treaters. Three.
I’d have gladly welcomed some kids from neighboring communities.
Bring it on!
I think most people would prefer a happy medium. Three is boring, but nonstop throngs for hours is nerve-fraying.
Well, I tell you what. Next year, pop on down to my house. Tot officially starts at 6, but there’ll be a handful of kids out by 4:30. By 5:30 they’ll be hammering on the door if you’re not out with the bucket yet. (Seriously, we have a galvanized 15" diameter bucket meant for drinks that we put the candy in.) By 6:30 you won’t have time to even look at the costumes, because you’ll be too busy shoveling candy into a never-ending stream of bags to even look up. We only buy for about 350 kids, though, so you’ll be done by 7 and can wander around and look at the costumes then. Text us when you get done, and we’ll meet you at the next stop on our soup, wine, and cookies tour of the neighborhood.
I’ll warn you though, be prepared for a lot of middle school kids in their regular school clothes. I’ve mostly trained them out of running across our lawn and shoving little kids out of their way, but once in a while some of them still need a stern reprimand and a stale roll of Necco wafers. Be prepared for about half the kids to slump up to you in silence with their bags held out, look from their bags to you in disbelief when you give them one fun-sized bar or a couple of Twizzlers, and slump away in silence. There will also be a fair number of adults toting tiny infants who, when you root around looking for something gummable, will inform you that the three-month-old in their arms likes Snickers bars. Oh, and DO NOT engage with the children who argue with you about how much candy you’re giving them, or the ones who don’t like what you gave them. That way lies madness.
We live in one of the very few walkable neighborhoods in three counties, so I have no issue with people bringing their kids here. I do, however, have serious issues with said kids being entitled little jerks.
My neighborhood has few to no little kids in it. But I still got quite a few door-knockers.
I’m not the type of person to get “in the spirit”, even though out of all the holidays, except for Thanksgiving, Halloween is my favorite. I left my candy out on the porch for the crumb.-snatchers to take. That way, I could feel a part of the festivities without having to continually open and close my door.
In my town, a nearby neighborhood closes a street off and holds a ginormous block party to which everyone is invited. Houses outdo themselves with front-yard haunted houses and decorations. I think this is a really cool idea.
This year, my mom, my uncle and I all went out to my sister’s house in the suburbs, specifically to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters. Why did we do this? Because it’s fun. We couldn’t tell the locals from the outsiders, and it didn’t matter, because they were all contributing to the fun.