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!

having just been out with the DCs in a very generous T&T area, I have never seen this.Wow people must spend a lot of money.

Wow, that's wild! Lovely if you were rural with 5 houses, but so much stuff if you're in a town!

It's already so many treats just from a single item bucket, do you just get to hand them all back out the next year?

We travel further up the road. On our street we're the only ones who decorate (never get any kids round either), and between us and the estate we visit there's only one house who does trick or treat. The estate we go to has some very big displays, and they collect money for charity, so it does make it a destination around here

Yep from the early 80s we went trick or treating, with plastic pumpkins that Thorntons sold to put our treats in (and they also sold loads of good Halloween chocolates then)

You need to lighten up, some children could live in really unsafe/ rough areas so prefer to travel to trick or treat in the areas where the houses are nicely decorated. I don’t see the issue. And to think you you assume you know that everyone who knocks on your door is local or not. What a snob

There is a specific road in my area which is very well known to go all out at Halloween - the decorations are amazing and the residents all dress up as well to add to the effect ....

As it's a fairly close community they know the kids who live there and their friends and they will ask if children live on their road - they tend to give extra to the kids that live on the road (goody bags / cones) and get the generic tins out for everyone else. Unfortunately a very few non local kids who come from outside the road can ruin it for others by being greedy and taking more than they need

We get this. Cars parked all over the places. Swarms of people spilling out onto the street including both mum and dad. So who is at their house handing out treats?
I don’t participate, my DCs are grown up. I have a ring door bell and security cameras and I don’t open the door to strangers. Neither do I sit in darkness, I’m quite happy for children to know they are being ignored because they are rude. I think it’s very rude to knock on strangers doors encouraging your children to beg for chocolate and sweets.
I understand people travelling to look at heavily decorated houses. I used to take my dcs to look at decorated houses at Christmas. The difference being we only viewed houses we could walk to, so not leaving cars strewn all over, and we did not knock or bother the residents in any way. Neither did I encourage my DCs to go banging on the doors of undecorated houses, annoying the neighbours.

It's definitely cheeky to travel outwith your own area, but folk are becoming increasingly entitled so I'm not surprised.

Ridiculous! Why is it cheeky? I live in a popular area, we love putting nice decorations out, i gave out around 200 sweets and all the kids were lovely and polite. And I saw so many beautiful costumes. I have no idea anyway where the kids are from, so they shouldn’t be allowed to get a sweet and enjoy decorations because they live in a shit part of town?! How miserable

Well I dress my house up and get sweet in, I really enjoy doing it.
Not many houses on my road do it so I try and make it more fun. My dc do our road then walk to other roads.
This year was great we had a steady trickle, some years it's v quiet.
Do I mind if they have come out from other places??????
Of course not!!

It's such a fun one off evening. Lighten up.

Treat or treating was never a thing where I grew up. I remember the first time children came to my house trick or treating. It wasn’t my first house, but was the first place I’d ever lived where it happened. I’d just got in from work, and was starting to cook my dinner. Some children knocked on my door and shouted trick or treat, I didn’t really know what to do. I think they even had to say to me ‘You either give us a treat or we play a trick on you,’ Ok I’ll do the treat I said. So I hunted around the kitchen but I didn’t have any sweets or chocolates, I was nice and slim then so didn’t buy crap! I ended up looking in the fruit bowl and giving them all an orange! They looked at the oranges in horror. Then went on their way. The next lot came and I thought ‘Oh what the hell can I give these children?’ I knew the fruit hadn’t gone down too well so I routed about in my purse and gave them all some money! This was met with a slightly more positive response but I remember getting the distinct impression that this wasn’t the done thing either.
Soon I’d run out of cash to hand out.
The following year I was well prepared, think I bought in several tubs of sweets.

If people trim up to a fabulous level, they expect people to come, surely?

Why does it bother you? Everyone who wants to take part does. Everyone who doesn't, doesn't.

Exactly

I think it's cheeky and rather one-sided, especially people who travel and don't give sweets back. Parents in our road organise (and supervise) visits to all houses that have pre-agreed to take part. But we occasionally get bunches of, usually older, kids who don't live here and get quite abusive when you don't answer the door or don't offer them sweets. If you're organised enough to get a group together to travel, then you're organised enough to make something happen in your own local area.