Parent from Rich Neighborhood Wants to Know If They’re the Jerk For Wanting To Keep Out Other Trick-or-Treaters

Every kid looks forward to trick-or-treating on Halloween—especially once you get to learn certain neighborhoods. You know—how you keep track of the houses that give the king-sized candy bars.

Well, one woman used to be the person behind those massive Hershey bars. And at the time, she loved it. She lives in what’s considered to be a “rich” neighborhood in her town, so it quickly became one of the most popular places for kids to make their candy rounds on the holiday. Sometimes, the neighborhood, which has about 90 houses, gets between 700 and 1,000 kids.

“I’ve always loved getting trick or treaters because my kids are teens now and don’t trick or treat anymore,” the woman wrote in a recent Reddit post. “But in the last four years, it’s gotten ridiculous. There’s thousands of kids and their parents flooding the streets, people with hay in their rigs carrying kids around, trampling yards, littering candy wrappers everywhere, and the amount of small children walking around by themselves is APPALLING.”

The reason it gets so crazy is because people from the neighboring town of 30,000 people bring their kids to this exact neighborhood, since it was one of the best places for trick-or-treating.

This woman would get more annoyed each year as the madhouse continued, but it wasn’t until two years ago when her daughter tripped and broke her arm that she had to do something about it. When they tried to leave, they couldn’t get out.

“There were cars everywhere, lining the streets, parked in people’s yards, it was horrible,” she said. “We had to wait until everyone left (about 1 am) to go to the hospital. My daughter had to wait in pain for HOURS.”

That’s when she decided she was done. She contacted the neighborhood community about it, who then began to monitor how many people were able to be let into her neighborhood. “It was great, there were only about 300 kids in the neighborhood and after there was barely any trash,” she said.

However, when she told her sister what she did, she got super angry. She reminded her that when they were kids, they lived in a trailer park and loved trick or treating in other neighborhoods. “She told me I was a horrible person for ruining thousands of kids Halloween,” she said.

The thing is, she doesn’t feel too badly about it. “It was a hazard, if there was a fire or an emergency, no one would be able to get in to help,” she explained.

The story was posed on Reddit’s “Am I the a-hole?” forum, and people disagreed with the poster’s sister; the unanimous consensus was that she was NOT the jerk.

“People still need to behave. The kids can still have fun. Parents just have to actually parent them now because someone else is watching,” someone wrote.

“That many children in one area sounds like a recipe for disaster, another said. “If I were in your shoes I would have been upset too.”

How many kids trick or treat in your neighborhood on Halloween? What would you have done in this woman’s situation?