Okay residents, if us sad-sack parents are in the rain on Halloween, let’s not waste time on houses with no candy. If you go to a house with no candy, put their mailbox flag up. If you’re reading this and aren’t planning on handing out candy, put your flag up around 5-6pm tomorrow. As an added bonus, your doorbell won’t get rung as much.
What about just good old fashioned porch lights being off? Sure that works… AT DARK! Keep in mind many of us parents are setting out in the daylight and coming back around dark. Porch lights on or off aren’t a clear sign of intention anyway. Plus these kids run in thoughtless herds. A simple visual queue, combined with our yelling, “LOOK, FLAG UP!!! GO TO THE NEXT HOUSE!”, works.
What if you’ve got candy AND outgoing mail…. Put it down for 3 hours. I think the mailman can figure it out the next day if you forget to put it back up again.