Page 10 | To worry about sweets from trick or treating…

Hobnobswantshernameback · 30/10/2024 09:29

Well colour me shocked the OP never came back

Superworm24 · 30/10/2024 09:29

All the comments about begging! 😂

On our estate, it's a big community event. Most houses have children. Most houses are decorated. Those who don't want to take part don't decorate and turn their front lights off. We go through a lot of sweets and chocolate, and between 5pm and 8pm, we are almost constantly at the door. I love seeing all the kids dressed up and it's a lovely way to get to know your neighbours.

Bibi12 · 30/10/2024 09:34

Drinkdrinkduuurink · 30/10/2024 02:13

The decorations thing is not compulsory (unless that's a new thing).

The lights being on at the door is the more general sign for kids that they are welcome. Lights out means no-one is handing out anything.

In the century plus that this has been a Scottish/Irish custom it was the kids carrying the lanterns (initially made out of turnip, more recently pumpkin) to the door of homeowners.

This describing guisers in Scotland from 1895:

"I had mind it was Halloween . . . the wee callans (boys) were at it already, rinning aboot wi’ their fause-faces (false faces) on and their bits o’ turnip lanthrons (lanterns) in their haun (hand)."

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You're right, decorations are not compulsory. In my area we have a rule that lit pumpkins have to be left outside. Because even people who want to participate might want to do it during certain time frame or might have run out of sweets, putting kids to bed etc. If the house is decorated, there are other lights lit up purposely and it looks obviously inviting then it usually means green light but I would say most people just leave lit pumpkins and kids respect the rules.

hamsterchump · 30/10/2024 13:12

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

That's so funny as I think the exact same of you!

mindutopia · 30/10/2024 13:25

This is so 80s. I grew up in the states and there was a paranoia about people putting razor blades in Halloween chocolates. There was actually a friendly service run by the police where you could bring your kids’ sweets and have them checked by the police. Lord knows that the police in 80s America had a hell of a lot of violent crime they should have actually been out fighting. To my knowledge, none of my friends ever got a dodgy one. It’s fine.

MagpiePi · 30/10/2024 13:32

I went trick or treating with some friends back in the early 80s, we were maybe 12 or 13. One house we knocked on was a student house and they seemed a bit embarassed that they didn't have any sweets. In the end they gave us each a swig from a bottle of whisky. It seemed perfectly OK back then and I don't think we even told our parents about it. They and our parents would probably be up on child abuse charges or something these days.

MaloryJones · 30/10/2024 14:43

AlisonWonderbra · 29/10/2024 23:14

Why would anyone want to give their drugs away?

Ikr

Its like the posts where people felt, or believed, that drug dealers added stronger drugs to marijuana, to addict you more
Say what ? I do not see them wasting an expensive drug in this way personally

Mine are grown up now but we used to Trick or Treat. Decorated houses only.
I do buy sweets in as its very busy some years but its the little ones so ends around 7.00ish anyway. I buy mini haribo type bags and wrapped sweets or lollipops etc.

ItGhoul · 30/10/2024 14:49

Do you know how expensive drugs are? Trust me, nobody's giving away their stash with Haribo for a laugh.

PointsSouth · 30/10/2024 16:34

mammaCh · 30/10/2024 08:28

I don't get why anyone would let their kids eat something a stranger could have potentially done anything to.
Crushed up glass was put into chocolate of someone I know.
Don't go begging, just buy your kids some sweets.

Thanks for this, @mammaCh !

Now when all those terrible parents say that they'll allow their kids to eat Halloween sweets, I can tell them that I know someone on Mumsnet who knows someone who found crushed glass in their Wispa!

Can't get much more open-and-shut than that, can you? Perhaps they'll all be a bit more careful!

78Summer · 30/10/2024 16:38

I think drugs are sold rather than given away.

wiesowarum · 30/10/2024 16:39

Backtoblack87 · 29/10/2024 22:38

Just had a horrible thought… when we go trick or treating, what if we are given dodgy sweets? I mean I know it isn’t likely but unless you know everyone you go to, how can you guarantee they aren’t giving your kid drugs?! Does this worry anyone else?!

Don't take them trick or treating then.

SlugLettuce · 30/10/2024 16:40

No, it’s honestly never crossed my mind. I’ve been to the supermarket today and spent a tenner on sweets to hand out to my neighbours’ children and have no intentions of putting drugs in them for balance.

Breadcat24 · 30/10/2024 17:17

i only give out wrapped sweets

CrowleyKitten · 30/10/2024 19:11

Drinkdrinkduuurink · 30/10/2024 01:44

From The Irish News:

"A practice called 'guising' was in full swing in Scotland and Ireland. Short for 'disguising', children would go out from door to door dressed in costume and rather than pledging to pray, they would tell a joke, sing a song or perform another sort of "trick" in exchange for food or money."

The trick is from the child, the treat is what they receive (this transaction is the origin of where the phrase now commonly used comes from)

Should add, I went around the houses at Halloween in the 1980s before the phrase "trick or treat" started to be used here in Ireland. We used various interjections at the door. Per the same Irish News source in 2014:

"The expression trick or treat has only been used at front doors for the last 10 to 15 years. Before that "Help the Halloween Party" seems to have been the most popular phrase to holler."

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no, it's definitely older than that in the UK. I can remember it at a house I moved out of by the time I was 12. got pics of my 12th birthday at the next house, see. and I'M 44.

VioletCrawleyForever · 30/10/2024 19:15

No I've never worried about this. And don't plan to start.

Original poster

Backtoblack87 · 30/10/2024 20:03

Oblomov24 · 30/10/2024 02:37

"Does this worry anyone else?"

No.

You sound absolutely neurotic. Get your anxiety in check.

I think I maybe reworded this incorrectly given all the responses from people thinking I’m a lunatic!! I said drugs but really meant I’ve never really thought how weird it is that we take sweets from strangers and let our kids eat them when usually we tell kids not to do this! I mean I am sure it’s very unlikely anyone would give anything horrible, but it was in the local news a year or so back that some odd sweets were handed out and not to let kids eat them.

I don’t generally worry about stuff and tbh would only go to doors of local neighbours (I mean I don’t know all of them that well) but would like to hope the majority of people are innocent!

OP posts:

Maria1979 · 30/10/2024 20:07

I worry more about hygiene and my children only eat wrapped up sweets. Not that it would kill them eating sweets not wrapped up but it just grosses me out...

XenoBitch · 30/10/2024 20:09

No one is wasting their drugs on kids, so don't worry.

If you are that concerned, just let your kids accept wrapped sweets... which I assume would be 99% of the sweets on offer anyway.

shuggles · 30/10/2024 22:32

@CrowleyKitten that's different though. spiking someones drink is to make them vulnerable in the near future. it's not like they're drugging local children in the hope they'll find them at some point in a compromised situation over the next few days as they work their way through their haul

Not necessarily. Some people spike drinks "just because." I thought this was common knowledge.

I've never left a drink unattended to avoid spiking, but I know that no one in a million years would ever want to drug me for sexual purposes. But I do know that people would definitely try to put something in my drink just because they think it's funny, or because they want to be assholes, hence why I don't leave drinks unattended.

People do stuff like this and I'm not sure why mumsnetters are having a hard time believing it. The news is full of stories of people doing the most horrendous things that have absolutely no benefit or no payoff for the offender. So why is it hard to believe?

user2848502016 · 30/10/2024 22:34

I do discreetly remove anything home made from DCs trick or treating stash, unless it's come from someone I know. Mainly for hygiene reasons but also potential contamination

WiddlinDiddlin · 30/10/2024 22:34

Have you SEEN the price of drugs lately?

Dear lord no ones giving those away to kids, it doesn't even work as a lost leader as the kids have no idea whose mini mars bars are laced with cannabis oil and whose aren't so they can't get hooked then come back for more.

Yes, people could tamper with sweets. Don't go to houses where you don't know the resident then.

CrowleyKitten · 31/10/2024 02:50

WiddlinDiddlin · 30/10/2024 22:34

Have you SEEN the price of drugs lately?

Dear lord no ones giving those away to kids, it doesn't even work as a lost leader as the kids have no idea whose mini mars bars are laced with cannabis oil and whose aren't so they can't get hooked then come back for more.

Yes, people could tamper with sweets. Don't go to houses where you don't know the resident then.

we literally had a probable drug dealer in our cul de sac (husband has an exercise bike in the front bedroom, and said people were always stopping off, having brief doorstep transactions, then going again.
he was a nice bloke. had a few kids. went all out for halloween. I still had NO thoughts that he might be giving children free drugs

Porcuine20 · 31/10/2024 07:38

If it helps to know, the thought has crossed my mind too.. that someone might get kick out of messing with Halloween sweets. There was a guy down our street who gave the kids unwrapped sweets from a bag and I didn’t let them eat those ones. I think recognisable, wrapped packets are fine, anything that looks fake/unrecognisable or is unwrapped/homemade I’d avoid.

distinctpossibility · 31/10/2024 08:09

😂

To worry about sweets from trick or treating…

NerrSnerr · 31/10/2024 08:13

30percent · 29/10/2024 22:56

Some harsh replies here, I've heard a few stories of things like this happening so it's easy to see how someone already anxious would get worked up by it.
However it's extremely unlikely to happen.
I'm a miserable old female dog kinda like willy Wonka's dentist dad vibes more apprehensive about the inhalation of a huge pot of sweets then anything else

Have you heard first hand of something like this happening or seen random Facebook posts that people make up for shares?