Halloween Is on a Saturday This Year, So Lock Down Your Louisville Home and Car

Last updated October 15, 2026 by the Louisville Car Key & Lockout editors. How we research.

Halloween 2026

Saturday, October 31

Burglaries that night

Nearly double a normal October night

Biggest risk

After midnight, after the candy

Halloween is on a Saturday this year, and the risk is not where most people think. We counted three years of LMPD reports. On Halloween night, Louisville burglaries ran nearly double a normal October night, and thefts from cars fell by more than half. Two thirds of those burglaries are listed after midnight, when the porch lights are off and everyone is asleep. Lock the house like you mean it, then deal with the car.

• The house is the target. 27 burglaries on the last three Halloween nights, against about 15 on three normal October nights.
• The late hours matter most. 18 of those 27 are listed between midnight and 6 a.m.
• Lock the back before you open the front. You will be at the front door all evening. Nobody is watching the back door, the garage or the side gate.
• The car still needs a lock and an empty seat. Thefts from cars dropped on Halloween, but LMPD says about half of them involve an unlocked car.
• The clock gives thieves an extra hour. Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. on Sunday, November 1. Saturday night is one hour longer and darker.

Most Halloween safety pages say the same nine things. Leave a light on. Lock the doors. Ask a neighbor to watch. The page that ranks near the top of Google for this search is about 450 words, gives no numbers, says nothing about cars and has no idea where you live (EMC Security). That advice is not wrong. It is just not about Louisville, and it does not tell you which part of the night to worry about. So we went to the police data.

What Three Years of LMPD Data Say About Halloween Night

LMPD posts every reported crime to Louisville Metro's open data site, one table per year (LMPD Crime Data 2025). On October 15, 2026, we pulled every burglary, theft from a car, car theft and vandalism report for October 31 in 2023, 2024 and 2025. We counted the ones LMPD lists as happening between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. Then we compared each Halloween night with the average of the October 1 to 30 nights of the same year.

Here is what came out.

• Burglaries went up. There were 11 on Halloween night 2023, 11 in 2024 and 5 in 2025. That is 27 in all. A normal October night in those years averaged 4.6, 5.6 and 4.4, or about 15 across three nights. Halloween ran close to double.
• Thefts from cars went down. Just 4 each year, 12 in all. A normal October night averaged 8.5, 7.5 and 10.1, or about 26 across three nights. Halloween ran less than half.
• Car thefts and vandalism were about normal. 30 cars stolen on the three Halloween nights against about 34 expected. 32 vandalism reports against 32 expected.

Look at where the burglaries happened. Of the 27, there were 17 at a house, an apartment, or a detached garage or shed. Four hit storage units. Six hit businesses. And 18 of the 27 are listed after midnight, long after trick-or-treat ended.

Two honest notes. These are small numbers, three nights, so treat them as a pattern to plan around and not a law of nature. And a burglary time is often a best guess, because many people find the damage in the morning. Even so, all three years point the same way. Busy streets full of kids and parents seem to keep car prowlers away in the evening. The homes are what get hit, and mostly late.

Want the bigger picture? Our Louisville car theft data page tracks car thefts and break-ins by month and ZIP code from the same LMPD tables.

Why Saturday, October 31, 2026 Is Different

Three things stack up this year.

It is a Saturday night. Police told WLKY in July that many Louisville car break-ins happen late Saturday night into the early hours of Sunday (WLKY, July 22, 2026). Last year Halloween fell on a Friday, and the two years before on weekdays. This is the first Saturday Halloween in our three year window, so the car numbers may not stay as low.

The night is an hour longer. Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of November, which is November 1, 2026, and clocks fall back to 1 a.m. (NIST). The 1 a.m. hour happens twice. That is the exact stretch when most Halloween burglaries are listed.

There is no single trick-or-treat time. WAVE reported last year that times inside Louisville Metro vary by neighborhood (WAVE, October 28, 2025). So people are on the move across town all evening, and plenty of parties run late on a Saturday. More empty houses, for longer.

Lock the Back of the House Before Trick-or-Treat

Here is the easy mistake. People lock the front door because that is the one they think about. Then they spend three hours opening and closing it, while the back slider, the garage entry door and the side gate sit unlocked and unwatched. Fix the back first.

1. Lock every door you will not use. Back door, patio slider, the door from the garage into the house. Throw the deadbolt, not just the knob lock. A knob lock alone is easy to slip.
2. Put a bar in the slider track. A wood dowel or a bar cut to fit stops the door from sliding even if the latch is weak.
3. Close the garage door. An open garage on a busy night is an open shelf of bikes, tools and coolers. If you hand out candy from the driveway, close it the moment you go in.
4. Lock the side gate and the shed. Sheds and detached garages showed up in our Halloween burglary count. Use a real padlock, not a zip tie.
5. Check the windows on the ground floor. Especially the one you cracked open for the jack-o-lantern smell.
6. Pull the spare key. The fake rock and the top of the door frame are the first places anyone checks. Give the spare to a neighbor or use a lock box. Our guide to spare keys has better options.

The Front Door During Trick-or-Treat

You want to be friendly. You also want to know who is at the door before it swings wide. Both are easy.

• Hand out candy outside if you can. Sit on the porch or the driveway with the bowl. The door stays shut and locked behind you, and you can see the street.
• If you stay inside, use the peephole or a door camera first. Most visits are kids with pillowcases. A grown adult in a mask with no kids and no bag is worth a second look.
• Do not prop the door open. A propped door means anyone can walk in while you are in the kitchen grabbing more candy.
• Keep the house lights on in a few rooms. A lit, lived-in house is a worse target than a dark one with a lit porch.
• Set a stop time. When you are done, turn off the porch light, bring the bowl in, and lock the deadbolt behind you.

One more thing about the door. A swing bar or chain guard is not a lock. It lets you crack the door a few inches to see who is there. A firm shove can tear a cheap one right out of the frame. Talk through the gap if you like, but the deadbolt is what keeps people out.

If You Go Out for Parties or Late Nights

An empty house on a Saturday night is the real target. If you are heading out with the kids or to a party, run this list before you leave.

Can't open your gun safe because the batteries died or you forgot the code? Sort that out before the weekend. Our guide to a gun safe you cannot open walks through it.

The Car Has Lower Risk on Halloween, But Not Zero

Thefts from cars fell on Halloween night in all three years we checked. Do not read that as permission. This is a Saturday, and police say late Saturday into Sunday is a hot spot for break-ins (WLKY). If you park on a crowded street near a party, or near a big draw like Halloween on Hillcrest off Frankfort Avenue or the Jack O'Lantern Trail at Iroquois Park (Let's Go Louisville), you are leaving your car among strangers for hours.

LMPD's own list covers it (LMPD).

• Lock it. LMPD says about half of reported thefts from cars involve an unlocked vehicle.
• Take valuables with you or lock them in the trunk. A window alone will not stop a thief.
• Hide chargers and mounts. They tell a thief a phone or GPS is probably nearby.
• Take the garage opener inside. Your car parked at home with the opener on the visor is a key to your house.
• Never leave it running. Not for a quick stop to grab the kids.

Truck owners, take the gun inside. That was the biggest Louisville break-in story of 2026. Our answer on stopping car break-ins in Louisville has the full LMPD numbers and the trucks thieves pick.

What to Check on Sunday Morning

Most burglaries are found in the morning, so take two minutes on Sunday.

• Walk around the house. Look at the back door, the slider, the garage entry door and the shed. Pry marks near the latch, a bent strike plate, or a lock that turns funny all mean someone tried.
• Check the car. Glovebox and console open? Something was taken, even if the window is fine.
• Was a key, fob or garage opener taken? Treat it as stolen. Clear the opener remotes the same day, and get a lost car fob erased from the car so it cannot start it. See car key replacement.
• House keys gone with your address? Rekey the locks. Our rekey or replace guide explains the difference and the cost.
• Report it. File with LMPD and save any door camera video. Police have asked residents to share home video that catches a break-in (WLKY).

Locked out on Halloween night because the kids grabbed the wrong keys? Start with the free options on our lockout page.

The Short Version for Saturday Night

Lock the back of the house before the first doorbell. Hand out candy with the front door shut behind you. Keep the deadbolt thrown, not just the chain. If you go out, leave lights on, take the garage opener inside and be home or have a neighbor look by 1 a.m. Lock the car and leave the seats empty. That covers the parts of Halloween night our data says actually get hit.