We did not get any trick-or-treaters and that doesn't surprise me since there are only a couple of families with kids on our street -- I think only two in fact. The neighborhood is mostly older retired people, with a smattering of singles, some straight people living in sin (haha), a few gay households, and then a few young married people with no kids.
Trick or treating in general in the greater metro L.A. is not as big as it is in the suburbs. I guess mainly because of the fear of poisoned food or kids running into gangbangers. I would not go anywhere near Hollywood Blvd. on Halloween because it literally becomes an open-air gang fest. You see some of that on the "big" Halloween event, Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood, but there are SO many people attending that that people coming to make trouble tend to quickly get discouraged and leave.
My poor parents in Virginia -- they get besieged every year. A lot of the kids aren't even from the area but are bussed into neighborhoods by church groups. One year, Mom and Dad lost count at 400. By the time the last group came, they really had to scrape the barrel for treats.
As a kid, most of the places we lived were rural, so trick or treating was not an option. One place we lived, every year an older couple in the house "next door" (a quarter-mile down the road!) would have me and my siblings go over there for trick-or-treating, and, oh, what a spread they would have laid out for us! all home-made goodies -- cookies, popcorn balls, homemade caramels, brownies, cakes, and fruits, and even jars of preserves, fruits and vegetables to take home to Mama and Daddy that the lady had "put up" herself. (Anyone out there ever had pickled peaches? Mmmmmmmmmmmm, so good!!!)
The best place we lived for trick-or-treating was when we lived on Gwynns Island in Virginia. It was a fairly rural area but houses were close enough together that we could go trick-or-treating. But the custom there was a little different. What you would do is bang on the door and yell "TRICK OR TREAT" and then the people would have you come inside to admire your costumes, try to guess who you were, and then have you over to their dining room to help yourself to treats. And again, most of the time you got home-made goodies. These people would have no Snickers bars or packs of chewing gum --- it nearly always was home-made stuff, sometimes hot apple cider or punch.
WOE to the people who were not home or did not answer ... soaping the windows and TP'ing the trees were the least of the pranks we'd pull! One of my older brother's favorite tricks was to get a paper bag, go outside to Daddy's dog kennel in the back of the house, fill the bag full of dog poop, then when we came to a house where people were clearly home but would not answer, he'd light the bag on fire and toss it on the porch, then bang loudly on the door and run.
The stingy old geezer would come to the door, see the flaming bag on his porch, and start stomping on it to put out the fire! This was particularly funny when he was barefooted! To the extreme delight of the wicked children hiding in the bushes trying with all their might to muffle their giggles of evil glee!
They'd also wrap saran wrap around people's porches, then again, ring the bell and run - when the mean old lady would come charging out to holler, she'd run smack dab into a sheet of saran wrap!! OH my, "takes me back to days of yore." Halloween truly was fun back then.
