So,...I learned from my neighbors last night that most of them are going to black out their homes on
Halloween. They're pissed that the past couple of years there was an influx of kids from other areas. Our neighborhood is comprised of a series of cul-de-sacs. Last year and the year prior a caravan of passenger vans from apartment complexes, community centers, and churches drove from one street to the next dropping off then picking up trick or treaters. Last year I gave out more than six pounds of candy in less than two hours. What to do now? I have nearly ten pounds of treats but not sure that I want to be the only house on the block with my lights on. A few years ago when both my wife and I were ill with the flu I put the candy in a plastic bucket with a note on it to please take one. The bucket and its contents went missing in less than ten minutes. 
= new reply since forum marked as read
retired on fixed incomes. Oddly enough, the families with kids are among those who are blacking out. They're taking their kids to a party.
of anti-wrinkle cream. PM me for my address. 
sorry...too late!
In an unexpected turn of events, a local nursing home sent a bunch of residents around in a bus.
I was nearly stampeded to death by a group of purple-haired ladies
and that was the year it stopped being fun. 
A lot of evangelical, pentacostal, charismatic, "spirit-filled", etc, etc, churches (all the ways they have of saying 'we are and you aren't!) are having "Harvest Festivals" in place of Halloween. I find this amusing, since the objective seems to be to avoid the 'pagan' overtones of Halloween, which is a Christian holiday instituted as a replacement for the real pagan festival of Samhain. To my ear, nothing sounds more pagan than 'harvest festival'. But most of these churches would seem to be irony-challenged...
although I basically live on a acre on a dead end street. Plus my driveway is 120 feet long and very steep and treacherous.
I value my privacy
when our kids were young we hauled them to the nearest "town" (hamlet) that has maybe 50 homes
we would sit by the truck and pass out our treats to the 15 or 20 kids that lived there and our kids would make the rounds.
when they got older we went to the town where they went to school and did the same thing, though people there were a little more leery of the costumed hicks and their beat up truck trying to pass out treats on the street.
when I was a kid nobody came to our block because it was a strange dirt road cul-de-sac off a dead end main road and kind of hard to get too. the houses were not all lined up like the surrounding neighborhoods either (which is where we went, of course)
always wanted to do a haunted ranch out here - our road in is so shitty that would be the main thrill - but we have a crumbled old adobe house on the way in and two rickety wooden bridges that could be such great props/stations for some kind of haunted trail or wagon ride or something. too freaking lazy to ever make it happen though.
There are bags left over and I sure don't need it. We never know. One year when I was here by myself I ran out, so I shut off the light and raced over to my mother's because it was closer than the store. She always buys so much she has it for the rest of the year..
on the block with lights on. No vans at all this year. Now, what to do with four bags of candy?
... if the scanner doesn't identify them as "friendlies", boot them off the porch.
Or, you can just hand out candy to everyone until it's gone (or until you're down to your own personal stash).
I'd go with plan B.