Serious question, I have no idea. Is there an established tradition, sequence of events, rule?
I just asked some kids, and they said they’d come later and secretly do some trick on me, but they didn’t seem too sure about it either.
This in Europe btw.
So what’s the ritual? You come to the house, say trick or treat, I’m guessing the adult never answers “trick” but rather fuck off or no treat. What then? Do the kids immediately start wrecking?
No. My experience growing up in Appalachia in the 80’s was the kids (who were older 15-20) were not trick or treating. They were just going out to cause mayhem. Houses where I lived were far enough apart (miles) that you trick or treated by auto. I remember several Halloweens that were disrupted because someone had cut a tree down across the road blocking it. One memorable Halloween someone piled old tires under an overpass and set them on fire preventing anyone from proceeding further.
No one says eff off to the kids. If you’re not participating you turn your porch/outside lights off and kids know not to visit your house. They just move on. 99% of the stories are mischief makers or someone who has a problem with you prior to Halloween. (Like you are a teacher or something.)
Posted the full story above, but one time back in the late 90s, we hit a house in retaliation for them being dicks to our younger siblings. In our town it was fair game not to participate, especially since its a seasonal town, so more than half the houses are empty by October anyway.
But these guys opened the door, said they were out of candy, but that the kids costumes were shitty so they didnt deserve any anyway, and made my friends sister cry mocking the fairy costume she’d put together herself. Pretty sure they were drunk.
So we came back a couple hours later when the lights were out, covered their 2nd story wood shingles in eggs to maximize the difficulty of cleaning up, then bailed on out way to the party.