When did Halloween get like this?

[SoEasyToFall]

When I was younger Halloween was just about a school disco, and then when I was at uni it was a night out clubbing in fancy dress (or a flat party). It was never a huge thing.

Tonight while walking home from work there was masses of teens shouting abuse at everyone, smashing bottles and just being shits. More teens on the bus shouting abuse at everyone who wasn’t dressed up. I got called a miserable fat cunt because I wasn’t in a costume.

When did this happen? When did society get like this? I only left uni five years ago and it feels like it’s changed massively since then

I’ve just got abuse from about 12 teens mixed girls and boys because they were stood in the road refusing to move when I was driving to get home from work! I asked them to get out of the road before they get run over, it’s dark and they were all in dark clothing! They told me to fuck off and fucking shut up as it was ‘Halloween’… It was the boys that were the worst! Terrible. I wouldn’t have dared spoke to anyone like that at their age!

That's really sad.
Our village has been wonderful. My two are young adults now, but we still got sweets and put a pumpkin out and got masses of kids round, all polite and very sweet. Even the older kids/teens were great and very respectful. No snatching or greed. There seemed to be a lot of adult supervision so I'm sure that helped.

I’ve seen sights in town tonight that were definitely horrors! I didn’t realise so many adults went out dressed up for Halloween! Although by adults I’d say mostly teens and early 20’s.

My 25 year old niece said that recently - she prefers Halloween to Christmas. I was very surprised but it seems she is not the only one.

Not all, but many, teenagers these days are vile. I would say it’s the lack of parenting but I do think that was worse when we were younger (I’m nearly 40), so maybe it’s the style of parenting? Or maybe it’s social media? I don’t know but they’re mostly horrible.

All the dispersal zones in Merseyside to tackle bad behaviour on Halloween - Liverpool Echo

Not in my experience.

Same here! Haven't seen/heard anything antisocial and we live in quite a rough area.

This thread has reminded me to stay away from all the Spar shops this next week due to all the skangers trying to extort money under the guise of “Penny for the Guy” 😡

I greeted everyone at the door with an ( obviously fake) axe sticking out of my head. I think I scared the kids. I heard one mum saying "it's ok it's only pretend" Felt a bit bad. Gave them heaps of lollies though. 13 yo DS went out in a different area with friends and came back loaded with lollies . It's just fun here. Although last year some idiot teens ( caught on cctv) drove around our huge estate and knicked everything they could - toy pumpkins, bowls full of lollies etc. So this year we went with balloons out the front only. Had to knock on the door to get a treat.

Not where we live OP. All well behaved (I hope it stay like that 🤞). Sorry you were verbally abused.

I love Halloween, we had lots of polite children knocking for trick and treats and I’ve been out with friends for cocktails.

I love autumn and all the festivals.

I live in a city and it's been great - admittedly just stayed in my neighbourhood. Polite kids of all ages trick or treating, and going to town decorating their houses.

Good fun round ours. Kids trick and treating. Knock on doors with lit pumpkins. Sometimes people leaving treats in bowls. All good fun and people listening to children’s jokes, riddles etc.

I am in Croydon and had a lovely night- everyone very polite, sweet kids, well behaved and lots of people taking part to make it special for the kids. Honestly each halloween just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy for my community. Some neighbours even set up apple bobbing. I'm sorry it's been such a bad experience for you. I don't think what you've experienced is normal but I doubt that's much comfort to you.

We live in quite a nice area but even some some ‘out of area’ youths came along the our road and egged a lot of garages - the fuckers. I don’t mind little ones out with their parents but teenagers can be an absolute menace. Thank god is started to bucket it down by 7pm.

@SoEasyToFall That's not Halloween, that's teenagers being shit. Your post should be titled 'When did teenagers get like this?" to which I can only wholeheartedly respond with YANBU.

You are not alone!

It’s not like that where I live. So more the environment I guess. Here in an admittedly affluent area, it was full of kids dressed up with groups of parents enjoying a social evening out. Everyone seemed to be enjoying it until the rain!

I hate all the decorations in the shop months in advance. Its the same for Christmas I know, but it just seems to drag on and on for 1 day. Shops full of plastic tat.

I left work tonight (large city) and saw large groups of blokes pissed and shouting and pissing up walls on main streets in a corporate area.

Grim. I feel like its changed too.

These are the teens that live near me. They ride bikes three wide preventing me to overtake to go down the road towards my parents’ house.

When dark, ride bikes with no lights, wearing dark clothing.

They ran inside my old work swearing, making random stupid noises and dropping breakables on purpose. We asked them to leave only to come back 10 mins later.

Makes me glad I live in London and not some shit town - from threads on here they’ve really gone to the dogs.

It was wonderful round here - the whole community out enjoying themselves and no bad behaviour whatsoever

Mumsnet Bingo!

That does sound properly grim .