Ballard second best ‘hood for trick-or-treating

Geeky Swedes Ballard

Ballard is the second best neighborhood in Seattle for trick-or-treating, according to the online real estate site Zillow.

File photo of Market Street trick-or-treating

Zillow looked at several factors when determining the top neighborhoods for kids to get Halloween loot. They looked at walkability, population density, the Zillow Home Value Index and local crime data from Relocation Essentials. Here are the top five ‘hoods:

1. Wallingford
2. Ballard
3. Queen Anne
4. Roosevelt
5. Ravenna

Here is what Zillow says about the Trick-or-Treat-ability of Ballard

Ballard certainly knows how to pull out all the stops for Halloween. Downtown businesses pass out candy to hoards of little ghosts and goblins, and the community center hosts a Halloween carnival with a fright-fest of games and activities. Also, Ballard ranked high on our list for low crime and a high Walk Score.

Geeky Swedes

The founders of My Ballard

49 thoughts to “Ballard second best ‘hood for trick-or-treating”

  2. I feel the need to correct this. Ballard is not a good trick or treating neighborhood. A small segment of Market street is a good place to trick or treat.

    Every year I buy candy, and every year I never get a single trick or treater. Halloween is dead. Paranoid parents who exercise no thought and react to every single media scare about poisoned apples and razor blades and satanic rituals killed it. Halloween used to be a community activity. Now it’s just another consumerist ritual where children dress up in pre-made mass-manufactured store bought costumes, visit business districts and malls, and collect overpriced candy manufactured by multinational corporations looking to profit from the event.

  3. In general I agree with BB, but there are still neighborhoods/blocks with engaged residents who do trick or treat. Typically, these will be single-family-house areas, which central Ballard has “evolved beyond”.

  4. I LOVE this event. I don’t have kids but I love to dress up the dogs and take them downtown. Parents always crack up when their 2-year-old, who’s dressed up as a bumblebee, runs into my mostly black German Shepherd, who’s also dressed up as a bumblebee. My husky usually goes as something that requires the wearing of wings. I have no idea what to do about the giant Malamute puppy yet.

    FYI, because Halloween falls on a Sunday this year, Ballard’s Trick-or-Treating event on Market Street and Ballard Avenue will be held from 3-5 PM (not the usual 4-6 pm) to correspond with store business hours.

  7. Maybe they just don’t like your place, you sound like a typical over-opinionated Seattle, ***hole. You’re supposed to scare the kids not bore than with your ‘kids today aren’t the same as when I was a kid, everything is so corporate’ schtick.

    My neighborhood in Ballard crawls with kids. We can’t keep up with the candy and fun. If kids wear off-the-rack costumes, so what? Unlike you, they’re having fun.

    I bet Christmas is a real joy at your place too….

  8. “Paranoid parents who exercise no thought and react to every single media scare about poisoned apples and razor blades and satanic rituals killed it”

    Funny, I don’t know a single parent like that. I think it’s you so-called ‘enlightened’ people who just ASSUME people are like this when most are not. It makes you feel smug and superior and ohhhh sooooo much smarter than the sheeple you look down on….

    Well, enjoy the bag of dog sh*t my kids leave on your door step. It’s what you need.

  9. When I brought my european raised children to the states they couldn’t believe Halloween. People giving you candy was the best. Mind you, in our household candy was a treat on special occasions. The next year, 1982, Halloween was just a few weeks after the first tainted Tylenol scare and death in Chicago, and that was the death of Halloween as we knew it. (even when I was a kid the “razor blades in apples” urban myth was prevalent. I figure it was a ruse to not accept any homemade popcorn balls and go for the real stuff) After that, community partys in Rec and Community centers started up, but everyone missed that door to door excitement, the walking around in your costume especially once it got dark. Kudos to the shops that participate. Boo to Daylight Savings ending the 1st Sunday in November instead of the last in October; little kids are missing the thrill of walking around (supervised, of course) in the dark.

  12. Last year I took The Naughtiest Dog in Ballard down to All the Best Petcare for the Halloween contest, and walked around Ballard visiting all of our favorite dog-friendly-cookie-giving stores, and ran into all the little Trick-or-Treaters, it was a gas! The dogs loved it, the kids loved the dog.
    Hey, I can lend you a tiny dog witch hat for the Fatty Monster.

  13. I quit buying the Jumbo Sized Bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups when it became apparent that I was enjoying them solo….and the year I DID, I got a handful of kids. Gave them all quarters. It was that, or jars of almond-stuffed olives or something else peculiar.
    My mom lives only a few blocks from me on Sunset Hill, and she gets a ton of kids. I lived on 75th and 25th, got probably 25-30, ditto on 61st. Of course, I had a lit pumpkin on the porch.

    Last year I was at a friend’s house (also in Sunset Hill)…she got 4 or so…we actually heard kids on the cross-street, but short of luring them to her front door or getting a Super-Shooter with candy loaded, we couldn’t entice them to her door. NOTE: if you have a steep set of stairs, you’re going to get less kids.

  15. 32nd and 69th, we get squat. My wife and I have pumpkins and candles, clear our driveway, leave the door open, and leave lights on. Our record in the past 5 years is four costumed kids, and a handful of teenagers with no costumes.

  16. And I suppose I’ll reply twice too. Are you feeling guilty Andy? You’re denying this with such anger and malice; you’re so animated! I never suggested that you were one of those paranoid parents who exercises no thought. Methinks he doth protest too much…

    Good job with assuming what I assume. Now that’s a bastion of intellect and enlightenment if I’ve ever seen one.

    At least now I know something concrete about you now. You’re the kind of parent who gets worked up over nothing, and will teach his kids to engage in morally repugnant, criminal behaviors just to show somebody he doesn’t like their opinion. I see a Parent of the Year award in somebody’s future!

  19. That tiny witch hat will likely get eaten. I’m trying to figure what the Fatty Monster could possibly wear that won’t be crushed when he does the inevitable throwing of himself to the ground so that small humans can obligingly rub his very massive, furry belly.

  20. We’re at 32nd and 63rd and usually get about 30 kids. We have a giant ghoul that hangs from the wall and a GIANT spider that looks like it’s climbing the wall toward the garage to eat our cat when it’s sitting in the window, so maybe that helps. Who knows.

  23. For those of you who don’t get any trick or treaters… would you care to come answer doors for us in our neighborhood? 200+ kids per year. The record was a warm Friday evening, I stopped counting at 367 because we’d given away the candy, the emergency candy, the second run to the store for more candy, the change, the juice boxes, the dollar bills, the change in the kid’s piggy bank, the candy the kid brought home with him, the fruit leather, the apples, the microwave bags of popcorn, the fruit cups, the happy meal toys, the small boxes of cereal, and almost a cat.

  24. oooo – I’m in! 85th and 26th and never any kids. So – last coupla year, I didn’t buy any candy either. Would love to help out!

  25. I saw at Petco a yellow VW Bus costume, it went all around the dog and was kept on with velcro straps under the belly. Didn’t look uncomfortable, or that it would come off easily. I considered getting it for the nephew’s Golden puppy. Would something like that work for Fatty Monster?

  27. “will teach his kids to engage in morally repugnant, criminal behaviors”

    Is it t morally repugnant behaviour on Halloween? I thought that was the purpose of Halloween? Do you shake your fists at the kiddies dressed up as thievin’ pirates too? Tell them that rape and pillaging’ is not proper behavior for 5 year olds?

    Hey, if you think it’s criminal, call the cops! Tell them about my criminal kids and be sure to get a good description: one will be dressed as the Hamburgler (you know, a corporate ‘stooge’) the other as a serial killer with a hockey mask.

  28. “another consumerist ritual where children dress up in pre-made mass-manufactured store bought costumes, visit business districts and malls, and collect overpriced candy manufactured by multinational corporations looking to profit from the event.”

    Maybe you should get that printed on a t-shirt.

  30. “waiting for the kids who will never come.”

    We must have had 100 last year….do you or your wife have a communicable disease or something? Warts? Does Mrs. Blueben fly on a broomstick ALL year long?

  33. 70th and 32nd use to be a thriving corner when the two families when all out. popcorn cart, donations for the food bank, decorated the yards to the hilt…..and then they moved. that was a sad day!

  40. And when I point out these forum posts, and the cops come visit your kids, you won’t feel just the smallest bit guilty about traumatizing them?

  43. Yep, we had at least 350, and gave away over 25 pounds of candy. We did have to make a second candy run. There was even a poster stapled to a tree in the parking circle announcing an address and free full-size candy bars. It was crazy. I wonder how many vampires we will have this year?

  45. Hey Blueben, if I come to your door dressed as a Pirate, with a dog in costume, will you give me a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup? Shall I bring you a jar of olives? We used to get like 75 kids every year!

    Of course, in the hood (35th) in the steep hills area, the bonanza as trick-or-treaters was the bottom of 68th- they got no one, we got all their candy. We literally only covered a two block area, and got enough candy to send a busload of kids into a diabetic coma.

  46. Well, in my case it was “incidentail” trick or treating, as we were at the Pet Halloween constest at All the Best Pet Care, and just stopped to shop at some of our favorite stores, that coincidentally give out dog treats on a regular basis. Sadly, I scored zero Reeses Peanut Butter Cups.

  48. Maybe the nit wits that tampered with Halloween goodies in the first place are to blame, and not the paranoid parents. I miss the good’ol days of Halloween too, but to blame the parents for being thoughtless is, well, thoughtless.

  49. There never were any nit-wits. That’s the point. With rare few exceptions, every single case of poisoned or adulterated candy has turned out to be a hoax or media scare since these stupid rumors began back in the 50s.

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