Halloween - Is it just me or does anyone else object to trick or treating?

[Stripymouse]

I must admit that while I know halloween parties can be great fun (and have held/been to a few corkers over the years) I loathe Halloween. Every year that night comes round and I know what will happen. Early on you get a few cute younger children all excited and dressed up with parent in tow eager to collect a sweet or two. Then, after a gap of an hour or so you start to get big groups of teenagers in no costume other than horrific mask shouting and banging on the door demanding "cash or food". Ignore them and you get your home attacked, open the door and you get nothing but arrogance or cheek. Last year one group of boys were not impressed that I refused to give out money and only had a few fun bars left in the bag so floured and egged our car anyway. No point phoning police as they are being inundated with people phoning with much worse. Stupid thing is that we live in a lovely quiet village! I really feel for my elderly neighbours who are terrified so go to bed early, don?t sleep a wink and rush down in the morning to worry over any damage or clearing up that needs doing.
Why do we all allow kids to do this? I won?t allow my girls to go trick or treating as I believe it amounts to nothing more than blackmail and extortion and causes real misery. Am I alone in this or am I a "party pooper" and should "lighten up" about the whole thing as my sister suggests?

Mischief night was(is) a Yorkshire habit - you went out and played tricks on the night that 'the mischief was done' - i.e. 4th Nov, when Guy and his friends put the gunpowder under parliament.
Im my youth (60's and 70's) the tricks involved knocking on people's doors and running away, or hiding their dustbins. And we'd never have done it to someone we didn't know - where would the fun have been if we were seen but not recognized?
The kids were also the ones who ended up looking for missing dustbins in the morning.....

Nowadays it seems to have got out of hand - a colleague of my husband got fireworks through their letterbox! Eggs and flour are common.....

I don't mind halloween, in fact go to an adult halloween party this year that should be a laugh. But my husband woorks in the evenings and I never know wether to answer the door or not. I paranoid at the best of times but don't want horrible things happening to me cause they know Im in but not answering.

Just reviving this to say did anyone else see the Guardian on Friday (oct 29), the lead article in G2 was a piece about Halloween whose main quotes were from this thread!!
Now maybe the writer has subbed up a research fee to Mumsnet and checked with the posters he quoted that it's OK to use their thoughts...or maybe not.
I realise that the internet is a public space as it were, but as a journo myself I would never dream of just using Mumsnet as free views to quote at will (no phone calls, no hassle).
Apologies if the writer did go through the MN hierarchy first, but even then, he should really have started a media request thread and been honest. What does anyone else think?