I hide under the bedspread...
Nah, round my way about the maximum age of the trick or treaters is about 10-12, and most of them are from the street, or the next street over and tend to go as a group, so we don't mind them
The rule round here tends to be that the kids only knock on doors where there are decorations out, and it's basically primary school kids usually in a group with a parent or two (partly to minimise the number of times people get knocked). We rarely see any older kids (I think the oldest last year might have been 14, taking their siblings out), and haven't had any trouble for years.
I've made up a few dozen bags with a mix of swizzles matlow sweaties, chocolate coins and snack size milky ways etc*, I've also got a little cauldron with a fogger to go out by the front door (complete with floating eyeballs and light up spiders "crawling" over it), and plan on having a skeleton (well the arms and skull) sticking out of the wheelie bin
, which reminds me I need to find more hot glue sticks in the garage.
Part of the reason I make the effort is that it was something my mum always used to enjoy doing, as she always loved seeing the kids in costumes, even when she was quite ill, and many of the local kids knew her from the school she helped at (or in some cases their parents did
), and I remember the halloween parties she used to organise with some neighbours ("brain jelly", "eyeballs" floating in the punch etc).
*Somehow I always manage to over order for the sweets, who knew a
3kg bag of chews was quite that large and it seems my "better too many" snack size chocolates tends to result enough snacks for my niece for weeks (not to mention computer snacks for myself).