I'm the Halloween Grinch - do you follow the pumpkin rule?.

[Pancakeflipper]

I live on a small lovely street. Nice mix of ages.
The rule for Halloween on our street has been "pumpkin outside - knock here for sweets" . Allowing those not wanting spooky ghouls at their door to have a quietish evening.

Is this the rule near you?

In recent years our street is named on Facebook posts as the place to be.... (fucking stop it - we dont want everyone here) It's crazy on our street. Its no longer the local streets nearby - but driving miles for a fucking Chewit.

The pumpkin rule is ignored.
Guess its not a known rule..?

And that really pisses me off. There's lots of reasons why people don't want hoards of groups ringing their doorbell for the evening.

I salute my neighbour who diligently eats her Ferarocho chocolates, saves the wrappers, pops in cherry tomatoes and hands the box round.

This is what I’m going with. I hate it. Even though we’ll just go to people I know. But I was never allowed to do it as a child and my mother never welcomed others so it’s not something I’m used to. For the last few years we’ve gone with friends but I’ve heard nothing from them this year and I suspect their older children have been invited elsewhere. So I’m going to where we used to go but will just go to decorated houses. I suspect there won’t be so many as there aren’t as many children here now. But I’ll do my best.

I have lived in my street for six years now - I don’t have kids but everyone decorated and their children went round the houses.

This year mine is the only house decorated, the kids are now teens. I have had a few kids from other streets at the door. But I am shocked at how many people have given up because their children have outgrown it. Feels a bit miserable.

It is the rule here - everyone seems to stick to it

Thanks @Pancakeflipper ....have had a really shit, sad day.....you made me laugh out loud! X
(& yeah we follow the no pumpkin no knocking rule).....

Ps, can't work out if your neighbour is a genius or very mean!!!

It seems to be the rule on our street. I am also a Halloween grinch and have the house as dark as possible because I cba with the dog going bonkers. No decorations either.

I think it’s a rule by us. Years ago pre-DC every house would get visited, but somewhere during the time of us doing the Halloween thing ourselves, the rule seems to have come in and it’s been a while since anyone has knocked on our non-decorated door.

Pumpkin/decoration rule here too. I'll do 2 hour stint with the cute little ones, but after 8 I bring the lights in and anyone at the door gets ignored.
Before we had DC I regularly forgot Halloween and anyone at my non decorated house got whatever was in the fruit bowl. They didn't come back!

Yes it seems to apply in our road. But where we lived before (just half a mile away) it wasn’t the case and so I was confused when the first year we were here we didn’t get anyone! My kids are appalled at the kids who take handfuls of sweets and not just one. How much must they have at the end of the night??!

We've had 3 families.
The first one I was upstairs so called to dh to answer the door. He told them we had no sweets. The sweets (in a large box with sweets on) were sitting so close to the door where I had put them, he must have had to move them to answer the door 🙄
I doubt we'll get more now as they're at the event on the green.

Yeah, I’ve had to tell a few neighbours in recent years that the reason they had no visitors is because their house wasn’t decorated.

Kids here only chap if the house is decorated.

My estate is halloween'ville, people from all over town bring their kids up here, its impossible to enter/leave the estate for abandoned cars (hubby had to go out nice and early to get our takeaway curry tonight 😂).

There is a genuine halloween grinch out and about on the estate tonight - a parking warden up to ticket the cars 🙈😂 God help the poor sod who drew that short straw!

Of course. No pumpkin = no attention.

Yep the pumpkin rule is known here.
Our street used to be one of the go to areas but newer builds and estates have popped up over the last few years and with younger families they have become more popular. Our estate has been pretty quiet so far as a lot of the families here have kids that have all grown up so more people aren't doing it than are.

Annoyingly I bought a ton of sweets to give out (and would have bought better stuff if I knew we would be left eating it).

I think you mean England rather than UK.

Maybe . But I am by nature someone who dislikes all things Halloween. I wouldn’t have been mean to my own child not letting them join with what their friends were doing but that doesn’t mean I want to continue with it now my DC has left home. There was a stage when I would buy some sweets just in case of callers but I’m not going to stick ghosts and spiders in front of my house to make strangers happy. I do like the autumn decs that some people have.

I stopped doing it a quite a few years ago when DD was at primary school. She got really upset one year, and I realised I was handing out sweets to the kids from our village primary who were making her life miserable at school. And they were also being little bullying bastards by calling round to show her they were all out trick or treating and hadn't invited her. I immediately shut up shop, and haven't participated since.

We have a lovely evening, with candles lit, lights out, a spooky film and nice things to eat.

YANBU I'm so thankful that we've got a locked gate. I've kind of tried to avoid people labelling us miserable gits by putting a pumpkin each side and hanging a box of sweets on the gate. If the first past nick the lot that's not my problem.

Yeah, pumpkin rule works here. I used to offer a basket of sweets and let kids help themselves. They'd take a couple of chews plus a lollipop and that was fine/as intended. When they started grabbing handfuls I was gobsmacked. Now I hand out to each child individually.

Apparently not anymore. My kids are teens now so don't go out but they never went to a house without decorations. This is the first year I've not put up decorations. I'm just back from holiday and ive had a horrendous week at work. I've had 12 rings and knocks in 30 mins. Kids all had parents with them too!

I am a Halloween grinch. I hate everything about it.

We live on a very popular street for trick and treating, my DC are now late 20s and left home years ago, I still participated up to last year when I decided to stop as I felt I done my bit for the community.

In general people follow the rule of only knocking on houses with pumpkins/decorations.

As it’s a Saturday I reminded DH that he would need to shut the front blinds and turn off the lights at 5pm, so far we have not had anyone knock even though the street is busy.

It's a known rule in our area and there are always notices in local newsletters and on the FB pages. We don't put one out and we've never had anyone knock so it seems to work just fine.
It's a pity there isn't a similar rule for Xmas carols and the like.

Yes, the rule here is decorated houses are happy to participate. We also live in a Halloween street, just 40 houses but the first and middle house both do an amazing display so our little reel of zombie tape around the porch and a lit pumpkin meant we handed out 62 packs of sweets/biscuits in less than an hour 😱

Normal in our street. I can hear families walking past trying to spot the pumpkins.

I do obey the pumpkin rule but plenty don’t. And that’s fine. If you live in an area where lots knock, get some sweets in. There is no point in being irritated by constant knocking. Either embrace it or pull the curtains and accept your idea of a peaceful night is not to be. Answering the door and telling them off is both miserable and doesn’t give you your peaceful evening.