Every neighborhood has one—that one house on Halloween that gives out full-sized Butterfingers, or has a Starbucks gift card somewhere in the giveaway pot. Then there are the no-go houses: handing out Sun-Maid Raisins, Bit-O-Honey, Tootsie Roll mixes, or loathed rolls of pennies.
Since there’s a tool for just about everything else, this October, Target has launched one for trick-or-treating. The website (accessible for desktop and mobile users) is called Treatster, and it’s a user-generated map of the best trick-or-treating spots in your area.
Want people to stop by your haunted house? Stick yourself on the map. Dig the jack-o-lanterns at the end of the cul-de-sac? Upvote that house for your neighbors to see. Top trick-or-treating houses are marked on the map by pumpkins, and the more upvotes a house gets, the larger the pumpkin marker grows.
The National Retail Federation estimates that Americans spent something like $7.4 billion on Halloween last year—so it’s no surprise that Target, the monster retailer, is going all out this October.
And while it seems unlikely that Treatster will gain the critical mass of users needed for the map to be a useful guide, if worse comes to worse, you could always resort to actually talking to your neighbors for trick-or-treating tips.
