We had a great Halloween season this year with one little low point- coming home from trick-or-treating to find our candy bowl had been stolen. Since we put out the candy and leave, we expect some greedy jerk will eventually dump the whole bowl in their bag, but actually taking our Halloween décor is a bit too much. They took a neat handmade spider bowl that we’d had for about 15 years, and thanks to the Ring doorbell cam, I got the whole thing on video.

Smile for the Camera!

We weren’t even going to put out candy this year, because we knew from previous years that it would just be dumped. Last year it was a couple of young kids in masks, also caught on video. But we happened to end up with a couple of extra bags of candy from an event and figured it would be better to have some kids take it than be stuck with it. Plus, we have a lot of Halloween decorations so people kind of expect us to be handing out candy. So I put out the bowl and thought I was being pretty smart by adding a sign that said, “Smile for the Ring doorbell cam!” to deter the usual candy thieves.

I watched the videos of the night, and the sign was working quite well. Many people stopped to look for the camera and then said “Hi” or “Thank you” before running off. Everybody except the one last girl, who wasn’t even in costume, who just walked up, grabbed the bowl and ran. The bowl she took is the one in the center of our trunk-or-treat display. The thing with big eyes. You can see it’s old and kind of beat-up and not the sort of thing you’d expect people to want to run off with!

A Lesson Learned

If there’s one good thing to come of this, it’s that it taught our son a lesson about stealing and how it affects other people. He was sad that our bowl was stolen, and a little scared that the girl may come back again to steal more things. Getting something stolen is a pretty big deal for a 6-year-old and it seems to have stuck with him a bit. He couldn’t understand why someone would do such a mean thing. Hopefully he will grow up and not be the kind of kid who steals things from others, even if it’s just a bowl of candy.

So what is your opinion?

When I posted the video on Facebook, I got a few responses from people saying I was “inviting trouble” by leaving out candy and that not only should I expect things to be stolen, but it’s OK because it’s Halloween. Some people couldn’t understand why I’d leave out candy in the first place. I live in a nice neighborhood where normally people don’t go around stealing things, so I didn’t think anything of it. Some asked why one of us wouldn’t stay home to hand out candy, and that’s because we both want to enjoy going around with our son and seeing all our friends and neighbors out too.

We only have a few more years until our son outgrows us escorting him around on Halloween, and after that we’ll be happy to stay home and hand out candy. But until that time comes, starting next year our porch will be dark on the 31st.