Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the pumpkin carving and costume making, the spooky food and the dark nights when I looked after kids, but hated getting home. Then followed an evening of getting up every five minutes for the doorbell only to find a bunch of spotty teenagers standing there wearing masks they probably nicked from Tesco’s and expecting all your cash and the TV from the sitting room. I always thought that there were rules such as putting out a carved pumpkin, that indicated you were prepared to dole out the sweets. So, in slightly bah-humbuggy fashion, I have nicked this from last week’s Times…and added a few of my own.
HOW TO DEAL WITH TRICK-OR-TREATERS
Give out tangerines. Little kids won’t mind, their parents will be relieved – and teenagers won’t come back.
Give out tangerines. Little kids won’t mind, their parents will be relieved – and teenagers won’t come back.
Try apples. Word gets around. After three years nobody bothers us any more.
I left a bowl of sweets outside and stuck a sign up saying: ‘New baby asleep. Knock and I’ll flay you alive… but help yourself to a sweetie.’ No one knocked.
My broomstick at the door and a sign saying ‘sacrifice volunteers, please ring bell’ normally does the trick.
Put out a basket with a sign on it saying: ‘We’ve gone out, but do help yourselves to these’ – but leave the basket empty.
A kid turned up not dressed as anything, so we told him to at least put his jumper over his head and pretend to be a headless ghost. That’s when he ran away.
Shut the curtains, turn off the lights, sit in the dark and pretend you’re out.
Move to an area with an average age of 70.
When the doorbell rings, squirt instant cream around dog’s mouth and open the door shouting ‘RABID DOG, RABID DOG!’ Clears devils, bats and witches in seconds.
If you have a plug-in doorbell, unplug it!!!
Give out chocolate coated brussel sprouts…an effort to make but high in satisfaction.
Get some of that police tape and cordon off your house as a ‘Crime scene’ or ‘health hazard’
Every time the doorbell rings, play a cd of vicious-sounding snarly dogs.
Give out mini tubes of toothpaste.
Go out.
