Leave a bowl out with a sign that says "if the bowl is empty, please knock." You don't even have to fill the bowl with anything.

LOL put a ginormous bowl on your porch with a sign in it that says RING BELL FOR CANDY

Is it only me who is surprised that they have a scout to optimise the process?

I think you're looking at it wrong. It's likely not that kids are too lazy to knock but that your neighbors are too lazy to answer the door. The kids see everyone on the street leaving bowls out and assume that if someone on the street doesn't have a bowl, then they're not doing Halloween like everyone else is.

It’s a holdover from Covid. It isn’t some glaring indictment of “kids these days”. The social contract changed with Covid and will take time to go back or maybe never does.

The kids on my street do come and knock, but they don’t know what to do then. The just stand there waiting - I’m like “what do you say???”, and they go “uhh, thank you???”

C’mon kids!

In our neighborhood a lot of families set up a fire pit in the driveway and hang out passing out candy. It's something we hadn't seen before moving into our neighborhood and we love it.

Do you live in a sketchy area? That hasn't been my experience at all. We had 90 kids in total knock on our door yesterday for trick or treat!

It is because all you had was those weird black and orange taffies. No-one can eat those.

I live at the end of a cul de sac with a bunch of killjoys who never give out candy, so kids wouldn't visit my house.

So I take my bucket of candy and go walking around and deliver it to the kids. Plus this means everybody sees my costume.

Maybe meet them half way and sit on the porch and hand out candy? I used to go to my parent's house to help them hand out candy and I noticed it took a bit of effort for the smaller kids climb the stairs. There's no railing and knowing how dangerously slick their steps got if they were damp, i started sitting at the bottom to hand out candy.

It seems trick or treating isn't as popular with the kids as it used to be. Ironically, it seems more popular than ever with adults. Some houses I've seen look like they must rent a storage unit to keep all the decorations they put up. We used to fill a set of dad's old clothes with leaves, splap a plastic punkin on top for a head and call it a day

You gotta be outside chilling shooting the shit with neighbors at the end of your driveway these days. My door would fall off the hinges if I had to open it for every kid

When people have moved to leaving candy out, perhaps kids thought that not having them out means you're not participating. Also, when many houses have left them out, for efficiency, it makes sense to only go to those houses.

I'm glad to hear that the sign helped. Shows that some kids aren't just about getting as much candy as possible but also having a bit of fun.

even trick or treating isnt the same anymore with these gen alphas

what ours changed to is we'd sit on the porch. we live in a nice warm climate so it doesn't make much difference if we sit in or outside, but the older kids know if your porch light is on, you can knock. If it's off, go away.

I live in an apartment building on the ground floor, I always tape a sign to my decorated window to inform people where to ring for trick or treating. It works quite well for me, and groups know immediately who is willing to give out candy

Most of our neighborhood sits outside with the candy and to hang out and see everyone's costumes. They make it very obvious they're handing out candy so when it's knock houses, we're less likely to go

I took my kids last night and every house had people sitting on the porch with a bowl. None of the houses they knocked on opened the door. There were hundreds of kids around us and I didn’t hear anyone say trick or treat.

I saw quite a few people sitting outside their houses with their candy ready for the kids. Some even organized them on tables so the kids could come up, pick one, be handed it and go.

I used to live in a townhouse and no one would bother going along the row. Finally we got together with other residents and set up a table in the parking lot next to the street. That was a lot of fun hanging out with the neighbors all evening, handing out candy

Pre-COViD we used to take out the screen in our storm door (and after put in glass for winter). It really freaked some people out when we reached through to hand out candy! Even better when someone didn’t keep a good hold on the dog and he leaped through! Of course today I have a pit bull instead of mini poodle so that wouldn’t go over as well

I’ve done Halloween for the first time in the uk with my 2 year old, and we passed a few lightly decorated doors (apartment block). Most other flats had a bowl of candy outside and is this one not having it, we were not sure if we could knock or not. I found myself thinking that they were out or didn’t want to be bothered. It has become very unclear. I think next year even if I’m at home (before we go trick or treating) I will put a sign on the door if I want them to knock, so I make it clear to all.