Halloween safety tips for your trick-or-treaters & your home:
- If you’re driving during trick-or-treat hours, keep your eyes on the road and stay distraction free. Avoid using cell phones and other electronic devices.
- Continually scan crosswalks and intersections. Streets don’t empty out just because kids are outside in droves. Please yield to traffic and make sure kids don’t run into the middle of the street – at least, without looking first.
- Before kids descend on sweets like a cloud of locusts, have them act like locusts in one way: Travel in swarms rather than one by one. That provides safety in numbers, and the littlest ones may find a hand to hold.
- Remind younger children not to talk to strangers. While this may seem obvious, kids get excited when it’s time to trick-or-treat.
- Only go to homes with a porch light on an NEVER enter a home or car for a treat.
- If you have older children and you’re not going with them, find out what route they plan to travel and check up on them periodically via a call or text message.
- If your local community’s trick-or treat hours are after daylight, make sure your children have a flashlight, glow stick, or reflective material attached to their costumes. Reflective tape, stickers, glow sticks, and other affordable items help trick-or-treaters to be seen in the dark, especially by drivers.
- If kids wear masks or wigs, the accessories should have eye holes big enough to allow unlocked vision. It’s hard enough jostling for goodies in the dark. Limited vision can be dangerous for a trick-or-treater, even ones pretending to be a superhero with x-ray vision.
- Flouncy costume skirts, dresses, and trouser can get in the way, too, forcing kids to lose their footing.
- Toy swords? Sticks? Toy guns? NO.
- Always examine candy for defects in the manufacturers’ packaging. Encourage your kids not to eat homemade goodies.
Clear your sidewalk and walkway. Trick-or-treaters are too busy counting candy to pay close attention to where they’re walking, so it’s critical to survey your yard for potential trip and slip hazards. Be sure your yard is free of tripping hazards like hoses and sprinklers, clear walkways of loose gravel, and be sure to clean moss off steps. If your home has an irrigation system, turn the system off well in advance of the big night so your lawn and walkways have a chance to dry.- Avoid using candles. A glowing jack-o’-lantern makes your home warm and welcoming to candy seekers, but using a candle to illuminate a pumpkin can be dangerous. Costumes, paper decorations and ornamental straw can easily catch on fire. Instead of a traditional candle, use one powered by batteries.
- A dimly lit entryway helps set the spooky mood of Halloween, but it also increases the chance of an accident. Make sure the exterior lights of your home are working, and consider turning on flood lights to illuminate the darkest areas of your yard. Even if you’re not going to be home, leave on lights for safety reasons or make sure your motion sensor lights are active to dissuade unsavory characters from vandalizing your home. And, if you won’t be there, make sure you set your security system, just to be safe.
- Barking dogs not only scare trick-or-treaters of every age away, they also present a danger. A dog that breaks away from your home might not bite, but he could knock down a toddler or scare a teen right into the street, causing even more danger. Keep all pets securely confined inside your home until the hustle and bustle of the night has passed.
- Maybe you won’t be home on Halloween or perhaps it’s difficult for you to answer the door, so you’ve put out a bowl of candy for kids to help themselves. While this seems like the right thing to do, someone could taint the candy. It’s probably unlikely, but it’s definitely not worth taking the chance.
- If you’re staying home, clean out the garage and store your car securely in it. When you consider potential vehicle vandalism and theft, your car is best kept in the garage on Halloween.
- While nearly all trick-or-treaters are innocent kids out to collect as much candy as they can possibly carry, you must still be cautious of whom you open the door for. If you have an uneasy feeling about the person approaching your door, don’t open it. And as the barrage of trick-or-treaters fades to just a few here and there, it’s a good idea to stop opening the door for the night.