Neighborhood Website Helps Keep Tulsa Trick-Or-Treaters Safe

Halloween's going high-tech. On Friday night, parents will be able to track their trick-or-treaters and the neighborhood homes that are handing out candy.

It's all because of a free, members-only website that's growing in popularity across Green Country.

?The neighborhood website, nextdoor.com lets you see which neighbors will be handing out candy on Halloween and which ones will not.?

It could be the future of trick-or-treating.

Every house in a neighborhood near 61st and Sheridan that is handing out candy is marked with a piece of candy corn, so you can see how many houses on each street and which streets have the most, to better plan your route and if kids are old enough to go alone, to know where they'll be.

"There are houses I would've assumed are giving out candy that aren't and I'll know to bypass those," said neighborhood resident, James Deming.

Deming is the president of his neighborhood association and he and his wife plan to use the candy map at nextdoor.com to take their four-year-old son Griffin trick-or-treating Friday night.

He found a cluster of houses together, which will make it easier. The map also shows who's having a fun house or haunted house too.

Dozens of Deming's neighbors have joined nextdoor.com, where they can share information about all kinds of topics: crime, lost pets, items for sale and more.

"The site is very secure. The information is only available to fellow neighbors. Anybody outside that neighborhood cannot see this map,” he said.

Deming said the idea is to recapture those times when neighbors knew each other and watched out for each other, which makes for a better place to live.

"We've gotten to the point where everybody comes inside and turns on the T.V. or computer and this is a way to get those people back in the neighborhood, back to talking to one another," he said.

The idea of getting to know your neighbors virtually as a first step to getting to know them in person is catching on.

Tulsa now has nearly 100 neighborhoods who've joined the website, as well as 41 neighborhoods in Owasso and 44 in Broken Arrow.

8/27/2014 Related Story: Security Website Keeps Tulsa Neighbors Informed

The concept is, no matter what you talk about - who's handing out candy or crime - the more you talk, the better the neighborhood.