We are in Rockville. There are certain streets/areas in our neighborhood that are very popular with TOTers, but go one block over and it is dead.

Our street was always a semi-popular spot. This year was much more quiet - we probably didn't get our first group until 6:30 or so whereas in previous years they started around 6. We also didn't get too many of the younger kids (preschool set). I'd say we received more teenagers than little kids this year.

The teenagers were extremely polite. Glad they still were able to enjoy it.

Interesting to read this thread - I was thinking that maybe out street is turning into one of the ignored TOT streets in my neighborhood. I still do think that but interesting that other people experienced a quiet evening too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live on Davis (well known Alexandria ToT street) and our funny retiree at the end of the block used a costco-type counter. It was bedlum starting at around 5:15 until we all turned the lights out at 9. Final count? 1,134.

😳

Hmm we were on Davis last night and saw a lot fewer kids than we did last year. We Must have missed the busiest wave .

We were cleaned out of candy by 8:30 last night. I'm sad we don't have any leftovers.

There must be a lot of people with leftover candy if they had few visitors. I went to three stores yesterday and the shelves were cleaned out. We didn't have any trick or treaters.

City of alexandria had a tiny amount of it's usual ToT's. The high crime is keeping people home these days.

I think trick or treating has changed over the years. Each year seems quieter.

IDK if it's the popularity of Trunk and treat, Halloween parties, sports leagues doing their own Halloween dress ups. Or simply that people start these events 1-2 weeks in advance so by Oct 31, the kids are sort of done with it.

Or maybe there has been a shift away from wanting your kids to go up to other houses and ring the door bell. I feel like it used to be normal to go all over your neighborhood and maybe even the neighborhoods adjacent to yours. Now maybe people are sticking to their own street/couple streets where people recognize them/their kids?

All it takes is one crazy with a gun who is convinced that this biracial kid couldn't POSSIBLY live in HIS neighborhood, when in fact he does live on the other end of the development. Maybe that causes people to go to fewer houses + skip the streets that look quiet, even in nice areas. You don't know what house is a nice normal person wanting kids to stop by and who is some gun nut with a vendetta.