On Halloween, some neighbourhoods are sweeter than others. The astute young ghost, witch or Harry Potter character will factor in a few things when determining how to best fill their pillow case: density of houses, how much the neighbourhood gets in to the spirit of the night, and, if they are truly discerning, the atmosphere of the place.

Cabbagetown rates high in all those areas. With its gothic Victorian architecture it looks as if it was built by a Hollywood crew to be the perfect Halloween neighbourhood.

Photos: Halloween in Cabbagetown

Many Cabbagetowners get into just that spirit, staging near-theatrical productions in their tiny front yards and porches, some quite elaborate, with coffins, zombified arms coming out of the ground, and extensive spider-webbing.

At 112 Spruce, Marcel Larouche and Will Barrie have been turning their home into a shadow theatre since 2004. A lawyer and accountant respectively, the couple pour their creative energies into wrapping their porch in white sheets, backlighting it, turning on a fog machine, and pantomiming scary scenes to a soundtrack of scary sounds.

“We don't have kids of our own, so we do it for the neighbourhood,” says Larouche. “It's a community experience. We take turns doing it and sometimes older kids will come over and help out.”

Larouche and Barrie have most of the props from previous years, but still spend around $150 on supplies. Cabbagetown’s candy output is legendarily high, and residents will compare how many pieces they gave out, and when they ran out.

Though there are children in neighbourhood, many residents here are parents of grown children or are childless, but the adjacent neighbourhoods have lots of children living in apartment buildings who converge on Cabbagetown as the most convenient — and accommodating — to score candy.

“Huge numbers of kids, often with parents either in tow or standing discreetly nearby, descend on our area,” says longtime resident Sally Gibson.

“Because we are between St. Jamestown and Regent Park, and also because we seem to have developed a reputation for being a great place to go trick-or-treating.” In the past Gibson says she's given away as many as 700 pieces of candy, but now limits herself to about 120.

Larouche says he’s met parents who bring their kids in from the suburbs, as well as new Canadians from nearby. “It's often their first Halloween,” he says of the latter. “They’re shy and don't talk much, but the kids get into it.”

On Sackville Street, architect Christopher McCormack has sometimes rigged up a pulley system from an upper window on his Victorian home to the front gate so a ghost can slide along, or simply has had his son Callum sit by the front tree, unmoving, until the appropriate unexpected moment of surprise.

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“I'd say we have been faithful every Halloween for 15 years to the demand, doling out candy to at least 900 or more each year, and tricking out the front garden to welcome them," says McCormack.

Shawn Micallef writes every Friday about where and how we live in the GTA. Wander the streets with him on Twitter @shawnmicallef

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