Did you have trick or treaters? (sort of a rant)

[Arnwyn]

We had a few children this year, though not that many. We really need to stop overbuying candy.

(I'm a bit surprised at the apartment dwellers in this thread being surprised that there were few/no children... back in my university days, apartments pretty much had a universal "no door-to-door in apartment" policy for Halloween [for anything, really]. Has it been different in previous years at your apartments?)

 

[Brennin Magalus]

I live in a condo on a quiet street and no children came to my door, which was good, as I was not expecting any. Even though I celebrated Halloween as a child, I am not too keen on celebrating it as an adult, and I am glad I was not put into the awkward situation of pretending not to be home or telling kids that I do not have anything for them.

 

[Angcuru]

We had some kids come by our house trick or treating. Considering that Halloween is my birthday, and since I'm not a hobbit, I don't take kindly to people coming to MY house asking ME for stuff on MY birthday. But I was willing to give it a chance. The first ring of the doorbell, I looked out the door and saw a group of kids whom I know for a fact to be complete idiots, none of whom were wearing costumes. So I decide to have some fun. I open the door, and say "What?" They say "Candy." I say "You're a day late, it's November." They leave. Morons.

Then we fill a bowl with candy, put it on the front steps, and go out to dinner. If anyone here lives in the northern New Jersey area or goes by there every now and then, you have GOT to try King Chef on Route 1 South near Woodbridge Mall. Great Chinese & Japanese cuisine.

Then we get back and I take a spot on the couch. I hear some rustling outside, look, and see some big dumb jock emptying the entire bowl into a sweat-stained pillow sack, and then he rings to doorbell. I open it, he says the bowl was empty. I tell him to wait there. I go into the kitchen and get a n S.O.S. steel wool pad, still in the plastic wrapper, clearly labelled, and drop it in his sack. He goes "Awesome!" I hope his dentist charges him a lot if he's dumb enough to try and eat it. Dumb idiot.

 

[Krieg]

Sunday night from 6 to 8 (yeah, was actually dark out!). We had easily more than 150+ this year. We live in a condo on a private road w/mostly young families. Prime trick or treat territory.

(I'm a bit surprised at the apartment dwellers in this thread being surprised that there were few/no children...

That's exactly what I was thinking!

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

We had a few children this year, though not that many. We really need to stop overbuying candy.

(I'm a bit surprised at the apartment dwellers in this thread being surprised that there were few/no children... back in my university days, apartments pretty much had a universal "no door-to-door in apartment" policy for Halloween [for anything, really]. Has it been different in previous years at your apartments?)

In my apartment complex back home in South Dakota, the apartments were one of the first places you went. They are always illuminated and--possibly most importantly--close together.

But, then again, when I'm from it's generally cold by the time Halloween rolls around... and so, the closer together things are, the better... means you get to jump in whatever parent's car that happens to be dragging you and your friends around to warm up before hitting the next section of houses and/or apartments.

It was just a good way to pack a lot of candy into a small amount of space and time... I'm very surprised at the no door-to-door policies that you people speak of... but, I suppose, small-town South Dakota is really a different world.

 

[Algolei]

55 kids, 27 adults. I kept an exact record, like I do every year. (No, the adults didn't come to the door, they were escorting the kids!)

For the past three years, we've been getting 51-57 kids and 23-29 adults. But man, back in The Days, we'd get almost 200. I'm talkin' line-ups. It was non-stop. These days, I can watch TV while I'm waiting for the next batch.

 

[diaglo]

lazy tikes don't want to walk down my hill.

numbers over the last 8 years have ranged from 0 to 12 kids.

this year we had 10 kids in one large group.

 

[Bagpuss]

None whatsoever.

 

[Desdichado]

We had a pretty decent turnout -- mostly neighborhood kids. My own kids said they recognized most of them from school, or the school bus, etc.

What we didn't get, though, was the busloads of kids from other areas. I guess we're not quite an obviously prosperous enough neighborhood from that kind of action, although my in-laws and my parents both used to get huge vans full of kids from downtown.

 

[Krieg]

...I'm very surprised at the no door-to-door policies that you people speak of...

For the record I am not really familiar with a no door to door policy at apart complexes (except for the usual no soliciting stuff that I don't think really covers trick or treating), I've just never found apartments to draw a lot of trick or treaters. Some of that may just be my small town midwestern background although I never saw many when I lived in Cali either.