Knock Knock - Trick or Treat! What do you do?

Associate
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I don't know if it's just me, maybe I am a bore... but when trick or treaters knock on the door, I treat them the same was as a Jehovas Witness. That is to say, I make sure I stay completely still, make sure no shadows cast on the blinds and live in fear that they might catch me being alive.. in my own house.


What do you do? Is it purely an American thing? Am I being awkward? Does having kids factor into the fun. Hell, as I have no kids, is it creepy to get involved?

I am tres conflicted.
 
Associate
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Every other time of the year a stranger offers you sweets, its a no, no!

Halloween, knock on strangers doors and ask for sweets!

Seems stupid to me tbh. Especially these days with parents seemingly more cautious, and overprotective than ever.
 
Associate
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I’m out in the middle of nowhere so never have to deal with it

I thought that kids are taught to not knock on doors that don’t have a pumpkin outside?
 
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Considering I am from a **** poor family, I was never really touted out for Halloween as a form of sustenance. I have no idea what the rules are. No pumpkin? Assume they spent the money on sweets?
 
Man of Honour
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I’m out in the middle of nowhere so never have to deal with it

I thought that kids are taught to not knock on doors that don’t have a pumpkin outside?

That’s in the U.S., I’ve spent many Halloweens in rented vacation homes there, lights on, including porch or verandah lights, but no pumpkins or ghoulish stuff, kids give you a miss.
Over here, everyone is considered fair game, I always move my wife’s car from the drive, into the garage, in case the disappointed trainee chavs get the zig when they get no answer, and take it out on her car.
 
Soldato
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Given where I live currently I don't get any trick-or-treaters knocking at my door thankfully.

In my last home I just made sure the rooms visible from the front door had their lights turned off, the main rooms in that house were at the back anyway so it wasn't a problem. The odd time someone did knock I'd just ignore it unless I was specifically expecting company.
 
Commissario
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Panting like a fiend
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 :p, 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 :eek: ), 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).
 
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Commissario
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Panting like a fiend
Every other time of the year a stranger offers you sweets, its a no, no!

Halloween, knock on strangers doors and ask for sweets!

Seems stupid to me tbh. Especially these days with parents seemingly more cautious, and overprotective than ever.
Depends where you are, and how organised it is.

Round our way the parents basically work together to organise it so that people who want to be involved can be, whilst those who don't just get ignored, and the kids are knocking mainly at friends houses/friends of their parents.
 
Soldato
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We probably have 100-200 kids come around, maybe more. People travel from nearby towns as we live in quite a big neighbourhood in the middle of nowhere. It’s not unusual to see pickups with kids packed in the bed or quad bikes pulling trailers full of kids. Everyone usually sits outside their house giving out sweets or leave a bucket with sweets in for people to help themselves.

if you want to be a miserable sod you turn your porch light off and no one comes to your house.
 
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