[CaliforniaMelanie]

Through the past few years I've noticed people who have said their ToTer numbers were dwindling, but one thing I don't think I've seen as much of - but which I was really surprised to note this year - was that in my neighborhood, we had more ToTers (probably because it was a Saturday), but WAY fewer "haunted" houses.

A noticeable amount of people who used to decorate in my neighborhood didn't do it at all yesterday, even though most of them had a porch light on and were giving out candy.

I do notice that a lot of people in my area don't decorate until the "night of," but did note ahead of time that the homes that decorated earlier didn't seem to have anything up - noticed this because my kids and I often do "drive-arounds" before H'ween to see decor, and we just weren't seeing any. I thought: Okay, maybe they're taking the trend of most of the 'hood (not me though, LOL) of waiting until almost the ToT hour.

But nope. Just so fewer haunters!

I don't know if I'm disappointed. I def. get my H'ween fix around here and as I said, I'm not slowing down any, and I'm right on a visible corner of a busy cross-street so a lot of people can get joy out of seeing decor, if that's their thing.

But it's kind of weird...I wonder why that happened. It's not that they weren't going to be home or anything; as I said, lots of porch lights on, just no scary decor.

 

[keithcorcoran]

In my neighborhood of about 4-5 square blocks I only counted 3-4 houses that I would consider 'decorated.'

I don't count the christmas lights or an inflatable in the yard... of which there were only a handful. There definitely did seem overall, even outside of our neighborhood, much less serious decoration happening.

Oh well, their loss!

365 days until next Halloween!

 

[LairMistress]

On our street, there are 4 houses decorated. It's a long street, divided into north and south, depending on which side of the larger historical district that you live on.

Then there is one house on a cross street two streets down, and three on the next. Up towards, and including the historical district, there are also three.

That's it, for nearby, and some aren't within walking distance!

We drove around looking for decorations, and found very few on the 29th.

 

[ichasiris]

I always feel like there are never enough people decorating. I did mine at boyfriend's house last minute and quite minimal, but I know it helps the kids know we have candy!!

 

[Kingofpain86]

That's weird. I thought there were a great number of decorated houses compared to last year in my area.

 

[Ghost of Spookie]

Our area had a decent amount of decorations out ahead of time. We set up halloween day so and are then at the house all night so not sure how many others do the same. And by the state of Target, Spirit Halloween and my local pharmacies and hardware stores, someone certainly was buying up props and lighting.

 

[LadyMage]

On the minus side, there was one house that I really admired around the corner last year that didn't decorate, but it was fairly obvious why. There's a for sale sign on the front lawn with a sign advertising an open house for sunday, so obviously they didn't decorate because they were busy making the house show ready. I get it.

On the plus side, my side of this block is not only not decorated (save for me, of course) but completely dark most years. This year 2 of my neighbors not only had porch lights on, but one even put out a jack o lantern. Perhaps I'm rubbing off on my neighbors?

 

[Bruzilla]

I'm wondering if some of us aren't the cause of this. When you have one person in any group who is just heads and shoulders above everyone else, there can be an intimidation factor that makes people think there's no point in competing because they can't win. We're just glad to see other people decorating, but they're thinking "I don't want to decorate because my house will look like crap next to theirs."

 

[Tconahaunter]

I think that there is three thing at play that may influence people's will to decorate.

1-Vandalism. Over the past 5 years of "all out" decorating. The value of our entire set-up probably exceeds 5k. We live an a safe neighborhood, but I still wouldn't leave all our stuff outside and risk vandals destroying or stealing it. We would put out a few thing to wet the appetite of passers by, but our main display would go out on the am of the 31st. We now have a large garage, and do a haunted walk through which we lock up at night.

2-Weather. The vast majority of people buy their decorations from discount or big box stores. Their construction (props and things) are made so light that unless properly reinforced, most tend to be damaged or blown away by the wind. As well, most animated props from the stores are not made to be outside in the elements, and are easily damaged by the rain.

3- Demographics. When my wife and I built our last house, it was in the older end of our area. Until we started decorating the house we would get less then 10 TOT. We built up our numbers through decorating alone (last year 2014 was 135). It was an older area with an average age of 50+, thus few young kids around. This year we moved into a new development with a younger demographic and WAY more kids. This was our first Halloween in the new house and had 200+ TOT.

So although there may be less people decorating in your area. They may be an increase somewhere else in town...Just my thoughts.

 

[Madame Leota]

There were a few decorated houses in my neighborhood, nothing too elaborate, but decorated none the less. You would think that they'd be handing out treats on Halloween night if the yard was decorated, right? Nope. Apparently they decorate for themselves or their party but not for trick or treaters. Seems odd to me but whatever.
I don't really blame people for finding new activities on Halloween night besides trick or treating. Way too much trouble to walk an entire neighborhood for three or four houses that welcome them.

 

[Skeletoncrew]

No one ever decorates in my neighborhood In a way our house looks so out of place, it's kind of funny. But people love it, we have people that drive their kids by every *single* day to see the decorations.