ShortList is supported by you, our amazing readers. When you click through the links on our site and make a purchase we may earn a commission. Learn more

Every ungrateful Trick or Treater who will darken your door this Halloween

All the charming young vandals who will demand sweets in return for not destroying your property

Every ungrateful Trick or Treater who will darken your door this Halloween
31 October 2017

Halloween is here. Get the mouldy pumpkin out, flip on your carefully curated ‘Scare-o-thon’, and spend the whole of October cautiously peering out through your keyhole. 

If you’re lucky enough to not have children while also owning a front door, make sure you’ve got three bags of sweets and a smile ready to greet a carousel of strangers demanding your stuff with menace. Here is an exhaustive list of every entitled asshole that will ruin your 31 October - unless you’re planning on turning all your lights off and pretending not to be at home, in which case you better stock up on cleaning products as there’ll be a run on egg-removing materials come 1 November. 

  1. 1.Kids that are too old to be trick or treating

    A group of 15-year-olds with bad attitudes and immature sweet teeth. Their ‘costume’ extends to a single Scream mask shared between all five of them, or maybe a cursory cat-ear headband if you’ve got some real method actors on the go. They will mumble “trick or treat” at you and very likely egg your house, regardless of whether you give them a pack of strawberry bootlaces or not.

  2. 2.Eggers

    Like the last lot, except these vandals often don’t even bother to knock on your door in the first place. They are merely using the evening’s festivities as a paper-thin excuse to mask their true purpose: egging. Anyone is fair game, as far as they’re concerned. One of my earliest memories is our house being egged by a group of white kids who didn’t like having a Muslim family in the neighbourhood, and I imagine Halloween is a perfect time to air those grievances! 

  3. 3.Halloween carol-singers

    Halloween, does not, I think, have any official songs. Apart from this obviously, but it would be pretty weird if a bunch of kids turned up on your doorstep singing it. Nonetheless, every Halloween (if you’re lucky) you will open your door at least once to a group of 3-10 children in super-cute George from Asda outfits holding out a little Pumpkin-shaped bucket and beaming up expectantly at you whilst belting out a ‘spooky’ chorus. Don’t you dare not have sweets for these little angels!

  4. 4.Terrified screaming baby toddlers

    I know it’s controversial, but some children are fucking wimps. Scared of everything and everyone, for these little losers, Halloween is a night to be spent screaming themselves blue at the sight of skeletons/pumpkins/anything that looks like their favourite cartoon come to life. If you’re lucky they might take one look at your last-minute poundshop skeleton decorations and piss themselves on your doorstep in fright. 

  5. 5.Complainers

    “Do you have any other sweets? I don’t like those ones”. Tough luck kid.

  6. 6.Early Birds

    You’re sitting at home on 29 October, watching Netflix with a hot water bottle and a glass of red. “Isn’t this a nice Autumn evening,” you’re thinking to yourself. Suddenly there’s a knock at the door. You’re not expecting anyone, not even an UberEats delivery. You get out of bed and open the door to find two teenage boys. “Trick or Treat”. It”s not even the eve of All Hallow’s Eve yet mate, fuck off.

  7. 7.Overzealous parents

    These are probably American, and keen to keep their homeland’s most important holiday after Thanksgiving alive in this new grey country. “Trick or Treat!” they screech, holding on to a wholly disinterested two-year-old who looks like she would rather be at home with her iPad. You’re doing this for yourself and fooling no-one, Kristen. 

  8. 8.Vegan parents

    “I’m sorry but is that chocolate animal-cruelty free? Also Esme is gluten-intolerant”. Esme is two years old and already sick of your shit.