Travelling to other areas for trick or treating

[MidnightPatrol]

I’d always assumed that everyone just trick or treated on their own / surrounding streets.

But our town’s parents group (mainly nursery and primary school chat) has people suggesting travelling to a handful of specific streets…

This does explain why there were quite so many trick or treaters last year (at least 100 - we eventually tuned the lights off and brought the pumpkins inside by about 7pm).

I thought it was just the local kids pottering round, not that their parents had driven them here.

Is this normal? Seems like CF behaviour to me!

It never occurred to me that people would do this until we moved to such an area.

You are giving sweets to strangers. I think its odd you want to "approve" it's only for the local kids. Personally anybody can have sweets wheather you live on my street or not. It's not my concern.

I don't think it's cheeky at all. What difference does it make? I have bought sweets to give out; when they're gone, I'll take the pumpkin back inside. It's never occurred to me to worry about which children they're going to

I assure you that it was. Your family may not have participated, but if you grew up in the UK or US in the past 100 years, it was a thing.

Our street loves it and people come from around the area. Last year I had to take my pumpkins in at about 6.30 as I'd given away over two hundred sweets, this year I've brought more. It's also the first year my daughter will be going out and a few of her classmates are coming round to enjoy our street and I don't think that's cheeky.

We get a lot of Halloween tourists. There is a school here so I don't mind the kids from the school who live on the country roads coming in. It's a small school and I would know most of the faces. However we get cars arriving up, parking and knocking on our doors. I think it is very cheeky to be honest. I guess its the price we pay for living in a nice estste. For now I'm rolling with it but soon when my DC are a bit older I'm going to lock up and let someone else do it. I spend a lot of money on it too every year and I hate when we run out. We could have 150 children.

That definitely happens here (new build estate near to other housing estates). I’ve seen them getting dropped off in car fulls outside.
It means we often get well over 100-150 kids and I have to say it’s started making me not enjoy Halloween a bit. It’s too much.
Our DC go to decorated houses on our estate only.

It is absolutely cf behaviour and this year I am one of those cfs because I refuse to let my wee boy be disappointed on Halloween because our street is full of older people who don't do Halloween. I am going to a few doors with him in my friends' street

Oh wow, is this a thing now? That you only go to the houses that you know? Since when?

Surely if you've gone to an effort, you would appreciate people coming to see.

We live in a quiet area so I drive the kids to estates to trick or treat. They love it.

We go wild with our Halloween decs, but I do find it annoying when loads of kids from other villages come to ours. The show we put on is intended for the kids in our village. I always run out of sweets really early (despite buying 100s) because of the insane footfall. Even worse is when you overhear the mums saying 'just this road, then we'll head to Village X' as though they're hitting all of them. The ones from the other villages also tend to turn up in massive groups and it can be a bit intimidating actually.

Yeh, the next street or whatever, sure, but driving from village to village?!

Exactly this. And I WISH we only had 150 kids coming!

But the classmates are coming WITH your daughter, I presume? Not just random people driving round the area looking for the best haul of sweets!

There are some streets in our city where it just wouldn't be safe for kids to go house to house (even with parents). I don't think there's a problem with them choosing to come to a safer area with more sweets

Today people travel to more posh streets if they get more sweets. Quite normal. In the end people withdraw because of greed.

I definitely think it's cheeky. We moved to a new area, about 7 years ago and even though ive always hated Halloween, I thought, nice community I'll give it a go, know the neighbors kids and all that. We had over 100 trick or treaters in about 40 minutes, it's absolutely insane. The whole town has decided our area is the place to go and there would be probably at least 400 every year, driven from other parts of town that are just as walkable and safe as ours. Hardly anyone actually does it now because it's just too much.

My estate has progressively got worse and worse over the last few years. Last year was an absolutely horrendous experience - so many people were travelling in from out of the area that the roads were gridlocked with cars, people double parking dangerously all over the place, blocking people’s driveways etc, and hoards of children everywhere. It was so busy I felt constantly on edge about losing my child and we went out at 6pm by which time over half the houses we knocked on had already run out of sweets as they’d been inundated. In our own house we ran out within 20 minutes.

This year we’re going elsewhere with a friend! We’ve been driven out of our own estate by the Halloween tourists 😁

Our street goes mad for it, never seen anything like it other than on US TV shows. Feels like half the town turns up.

Last year one of our neighbours counted 1500 people visited her display.

Wow, have you never heard this? That was what my mum made us do when we were kids - only houses where we knew who lived there AND had some sort of decoration.

Since moving here, I don't know everyone, but we just stick to our estate and just the decorated houses on it. I'd feel mega cheeky driving to another area to get sweets for my kids!

We do travel to a few well decorated streets where the kids don't have to walk far. However, i take bags of sweets to compensate the houses and I also have sweets available at our house for other trick or treaters.

I live in the country. So I bring my kids to their cousins and they go with them.

Our kids (adults now) stuck to our neighbourhood, but we live on a street where the houses are all on hills. 25 steps up to our front door, across the street houses are below street level. Our kids would sometimes go over to the next street where it was all flat and easier to get to the houses.

We get an average of about 25-30 kids, but the next street would get around 100. I make up for it by giving a handful of sweets to the kids with enough energy to make it up our stairs!

I live near a village thats full of Americans as well as locals. Halloween is huge there. The decorations have been up since end of September. Few years ago i heard of people from nearby cities, towns and villages driving there just for trick or treating and it gets recomendedas the place to go on local fb groups. Some houses last year reported giving out nearly 500 sweet in just a few hours. Its insane! But sadly its overshadowed it for the locals with young kids as many people run out of sweets and its really overwhelming. It's also a health and safety nightmare as they drift all over the roads. Last few years they actually had volunteer crossing guards for peak areas. Some locals had crazy dreams of shutting roads for it.

I love that this village embraces it. But i do think its a little bit cheeky.

I was upset last year as I heard someone kicking my bowl down the street.

I'm widowed and live alone in my bungalow, I did have my beloved dog who went barking mad at the front door but he died in October 2022. I've always put my pumpkin out along with the bowl of sweets. I also do a bucket of dog biscuits, I'm on a dog walking route. If it happens again this year I'll not do it again.

I admit we’ll be travelling to our BIL/SIL street tomorrow to trick or treat. We live on a semi-rural road where the average age is about 70. No one puts pumpkins or decorations out so we presume they’re not going to answer/appreciate us knocking so we’ll nip over to SIL/BIL street/estate where loads of houses will be decorated and accepting trick or treaters and do a couple of houses there instead so that my kids get to experience it.

When we bought this house we didn’t consider our children not being able to go trick or treating!!!