How to Plan a Route for Trick or Treaters

Series Summary

Razor blades in carmel apples? Rat poison in candy bars? Cyanide in Pixie Sticks? Every Halloween, stories of candy tampering seem to loom over any discussion of trick or treating. These tales are told by kids to scare each other or parents concerned about the safety of their children. Either way, the thought of an evil neighbor intentionally harming kids is enough to strike fear in all of us. And this is also why horror movies like Halloween play on these fears. But how real is the threat of candy tampering?

Back in the 1980s, this Halloween hysteria reached its peak, with popular advice columnists Dear Abby and Ann Landers writing columns to warn against candy tampering. Shock rockers The Dead Kennedys wrote a song from the perspective of a malicious killer who gave out poison candy. An ABC New poll conducted in 1984 revealed that more than half of American parents were concerned that their children would be injured by their trick-or-treat goodies.

Almost all of the candy tampering reports have turned out to be hoaxes. A Houston boy did die from cyanide mixed with the sugar powder in a Pixie Stick, but police investigators discovered that the poison was planted by his own father. Yet this incident happened way back in 1974. In the more than 30 years since, tamperings have existed principally as urban myths. But that is no reason not to remain vigilant…

In this series of free child safety videos, our Halloween expert tells you how to keep your kids safe while they are trick-or-treating. Monster Makeup Artist Matt Cail covers the basics of costume safety, such as making sure that his latex mask allows your little Jason to breathe properly and that your Little Princess won’t trip over her dress. Our expert also discusses how to plan your kids trick or treat route and how to stay in touch, either by cell phone or even better, by staying right beside them all night. And once your kids get home, make sure to inspect candy!

Video Transcript

"Hello, my name is Matt Cail on behalf of expertvillage.com, I'm here today to talk about trick or treating safety. There are several things you are going to want to do to make sure you have a very safe Halloween before you even leave the door. The first thing you're going to do is to make sure and plan your route out in advance. It's not a good idea just to wonder out without any clear endpoints for trick or treating. You're going to have a very excitable child with you, they're not going to want to stop even when it gets past midnight. So an easy way to do this is to walk around in your neighborhood in advance and come up with a map. Have a map where you have a starting point and an endpoint and roughly how much time it's going to take. This should include what streets you feel comfortable walking with your child on and any areas you may want to avoid, being industrial areas, areas that may not have a lot of lighting, etc. It's important if you can, it's even better to walk this route during the day, at least once before hand. Hopefully you're already walking in your neighborhood and you already have a route in mind and you won't have to go through this exercise or it'll be less important. But it is a good idea to keep your geography straight before you head out with the little ones trick or treating."