To not want to give any loot to people who can't be bothered to get dressed up for trick or treating.

[losingtrust]

We have decorated the house and sweets at the ready and three kids came round with their bags at the ready and no outfits. I am a grump I know but please make a bit of an effort.

It is MN we must try to work out a lovely reason this could be the case. Maybe they are allergic to polyester, maybe their parents have no time/money to sort costumes. Or, they can't be arsed and your house will get egged.

they only want a sweet, not a sack of jewels!

sometimes though when they come round and say trick or treat we say trick, and they look utterly dumbfounded!

YANBU. Even wearing all black or something would earn some sweets for me, and I'm too much of a wimp to EVER not give sweets, but in my mind, I seethe.

YANBU, I hate 'maybe-ing' about every little thing too lol! yes maybe this maybe that but I managed to make a costume out of bin bags and an old sheet once when I was a kid, they also sell halloween bits in poundland. There is NO excuse for not dressing up and getting into it, if you are too shy or embarrassed to dress up you are either too shy or too old to be trick or treating.

They need to do a party piece too!

I say "no costume, no sweets". Even a bit of ingenuity if their parents won't spring for a bit of fake blood can go a long way. A couple of years ago we had two lads- one with his jacket zipped up over his head, the other with his head under the first lad's arm. Not bad!

I just had some teenagers like this. I said "where is your costume?", they said "we are chavs", I laughed and said "you are not" and they headed off up the path.

Strangely though, I had been GIVEN some a large pack of strange looking crisps by previous trick-or-treaters, so I cried out "here you go chavs, catch!" and threw those after them which they were rather pleased with. :-)

I have a bucket of cold spaghetti with a top on. Any changers get to put their hand in their first. I might as well make them suffer a little bit for their sweets. We also scared the last lot quite a lot with our Halloween horns when we open the door. I know...I am a big kid.

Sorry chancers not changers. That would be really surreal.

last year, forgetting it was halloween, i answered the door to 3 teens. they just stood there.
i said "erm, yes??"

one of them mumbled "it's halloween"

I think I just looked blankly at them before shutting the door. I mean wtf?

YANBU. We had a teenage girl turn up on our doorstep once in December saying "I'm carol singing" and holding her hand out (we did vaguely know her and she was a bit of a...erm... character ) DH made her struggle through a whole verse of 'We wish you a merry Christmas' before handing over 50p!

Can't be arsed with all this Halloween bollocks but I feel the same about carol singers that don't really sing and put some welly into it.
A half droned chorus of something doesn't cut it with me.
I expect shedloads of good cheer before I hand over the loot.

YANBU. You have to at least make a small effort, else you are just begging at peoples doors.

I'm going to take the role of 'oh, but they might not be able to dress up because' tonight.

DS is 3 and has ASD. We couldn't get him into a costume tonight, despite letting him pick out a vampire cape, a witches hat and, um, monster feet slippers. I managed to get him into a t-shirt he normally wears that happened to have a monster on it, with a thin jumper over the top that also had a monster on it. He saw my face make-up and smeared some green on himself and that was pretty much all he was prepared to do!

DP and I made up for it by dressing up ourselves.

But, I'm guessing that's not what the OP meant when they talked about kids not making an effort. I'm going with a YANBU.

weve just had a group of lads in their late teens with deeper voices than frank Bruno!
I told them to stroll on.
my rule is if their taller than me with facial hair they get nixie.

I have 2 different types or sweets normally, ones which have been left because they weren't nice (left but wrapped, still fine but just unwanted) for old ones (last year some pulled up in a CAR, no little kids, just teens!) and lovely ones for lovely kids!

User. I really meant the teens who decide to just go out and get some sweets.

My cousin has just made me laugh on FB. 'I am standing her in the window with my axe dripping in fake blood - and still not one trick or treater!'

For me anyone that comes after 8 is generally too old and therefore door not opened.

I completely agree. Can't be doing with laziness. We had a couple of teens earlier who just said "gis some sweets then" (we declined)

And I make Carol Singers sing a full chorus before I hand anything over!

No excuse
how hard is it to make a bin bag witch costume

YANBU. What i also dont understand is why people knock on doors of houses that are not decorated or even worse, who dont have any lights on. Do they really think that if a house is in darkness that people are going to answer the door.

We had trick or treaters starting early this week - on Monday. They had no costumes and looked about 30. I told them to make some effort and come back on the right day fgs. They never did! In fact, we've had nobody knocking this year. That means we have a shit load of haribo to get through now :)

You're forgetting the trick part of trick or treat.