Thread: Helpful Halloween Neighbors?

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How far are you willing to go to get your neighbors to decorate with you? Are they already doing it on their own, or do you loan some of your decorations to them? Do you even trust your neighbors or do they shiver at the mere mention of Oct when it comes to you? Any war stories?



In my case, we have the musical foreclosure with our neighbors. They are there one year and skipping out the next. One home is a rent and wasn't dealing with TOTer's last year. One home just places a chair with a bowl of candy out near the street due to working. One is up for rent..... Please note that renters are not good holiday people, nor do they take care of their yard..... And the other house is foreclosed and just sitting there. Don't know if it'll be sold or turned into another empty lot.

I'm willing to loan out inflatables, lights and lots of those plastic pumpkins. On the condition that they are going to pass out for Halloween. Never had a chance to offer yet.... Bummer.

aww that's too bad. I have neighbors on all sides of me but they're older and don't decorate much. The one on the left of me looks like a grandma and grandpa and they just put out some white rope lights along their path. The ones across from me put out a bunch of really happy looking scarecrows. The ones to the right of me don't decorate at all because the mom doesn't like Halloween that much apparently. And the rest of the street maybe one out of 20 actually puts anything out at all. I trust the ones around me and I would totally loan some things to them but I don't think they're as enthusiastic about Halloween as I am so I don't think they would want to put anything else out.lol. I'm surrounded by a lot of Christians and they're not too excited about the holiday really and I can tell they see it as a bad holiday that they just deal with cause their kids like it but I'm a Christian and I love the darker side of things so I don't really get it.lol. Doesn't mean you love Satan or anything.lol. It's all for fun anyways.:P

My neighborhood we like to help each other out w/ anything. They know Halloween I go balls out and are always bringing me different things to build with or use. I love them! couldnt ask for a better neighborhood!

Originally Posted by bl00d

They know Halloween I go balls out and are always bringing me different things......

Well I hope one of them is bringing you some pants

Lesseee....

Step out my door:

To the right, the HOA doesn't allow more than "fall decor" and pumpkins.

Across the street: They leave for ToT since numbers started being over 200. Used to call the cops and whatnot, but actually donated some yard refuse to my cause last year.

To the left: Frat boys provide security against any vandals and come trick or beer.

Further down the block to the left, 4 houses decorate, 2 of them pretty impressive graveyards, 1 blowup house, 1 those vintage blown mold house. We generally help if requested and/or see the weather has damaged their display. Loaned/given items to both graveyards over the years. (lacking anything for the other two)

Around the block, lots of houses with 1-2 items, 2 major decorators. 1 does a walk-through but won't speak to me (beyond telling me how much my yard sucked a few years ago). The other chats with us throughout the year.

Hey Sidnami, not all renter are " not good holiday people, nor do they take care of their yard" I am a renter and I am really to decorating for every holiday and I take care of my yard. Not all renters are like that.

We started doing a "Neighborhood Scarecrow Contest" about 12 years ago, in conjunction with our Annual Boo Bash. We get a $25 gift card and award that as the prize. All entries are photographed and voted on at our party. We never let ourselves win. It really encourages participation by most of the neighbors in the "hood." Winners need not be present at the party. Hey, getting the neighborhood decorated for a mere $25 out of our pocket is money well spent, plus the families have fun trying to out do each other.

Eric

Originally Posted by Wolfbeard

We started doing a "Neighborhood Scarecrow Contest" about 12 years ago, in conjunction with our Annual Boo Bash. We get a $25 gift card and award that as the prize. All entries are photographed and voted on at our party. We never let ourselves win. It really encourages participation by most of the neighbors in the "hood." Winners need not be present at the party. Hey, getting the neighborhood decorated for a mere $25 out of our pocket is money well spent, plus the families have fun trying to out do each other.

Eric

I thought about doing that, but I'm not sure the HOA some of the neighbors are in would go for it. (it's a pretty militant one...)

So, we've started having everyone over to carve pumpkins at our place. It worked quite well last year...

We've had the same neighbors to each side for 10+ years. On one side is a retired couple that we thought hated our haunt until a couple years ago when they complimented the graveyard and last year asked if we were going to decorate when we were late putting it up. On the other side is a younger, childless couple about our age (mid-30s) and they let me decorate their front yard. One year, the wife dressed up and came over to our haunt to help pass out candy. However, most years they work on Halloween.

Across the street, the neighbors hand out candy, but don't decorate. They're all amused by us, however.

We live in a nice, flat neighborhood that is Halloween friendly, but the first couple of years did little more than put out a fake pumpkin and hand out candy. Some friends, who live in an area that gets very little traffic, asked if they could decorate our yard and help us hand out candy. The decorating was from scratch and cobbled together in just a weekend. I used an old amplifier and a computer to enhance the sounds for the night. Several of the homes nearby go all out with their yard haunts. I had a good time, and thought it was going to be a one time event. We really weren't feeling well the following Halloween, so we put out the foam pumpkin again and handed out candy at the door. That was when I learned just how much the kids loved what we had done. Obviously, it wasn't just the candy, because we were being equally generous. At least HALF of the comments were like, "Gee Mister, not very scary this year." or "What happened this year? Are you guys ok? We loved what you did last year!" Well, that was all it took for me. The next day, we went discount shopping and I started building graveyard props. I decided to use a theme of reported ghosts from around New England. I put out "historic marker" signs that explain who a few of the departed souls are and their legend of afterlife activity. Our friends have come back to help us every year and dressed in costume to enhance the whole thing. One year, the garage was really too cluttered to hide the computer and sound equipment, so I decided to use a theme of ghost hunting and set everything up in plain sight. We parked a van on the lawn with a ghost hunting society sign on it and a few of our actors pretended to be hunting down the other actors as though we were conducting a paranormal investigation. Other years we have leaned towards different witches and traditional Halloween themes. Despite the changes, the graveyard display gets bigger and better each year. Many more neighbors have joined into the fun since we got involved. A couple of years ago we had over 400 tots visit.