The UK supermarkets are full of candies in multi-packs to distribute for trick or treat. Alongside are soft toys with pumpkins and skeleton motifs.
Tricks
Scary faces
Update, from November 3-5th 2026:
Trick or treat? Let's look at who is for it, and who is against it.
Treats
Halloween display at Tesco Express in London, England, UK. Photo by Angela Lansbury.
Who Is For Trick Or Treat?
Many families with children. A way to call on your neighbours. A chance to decorate houses and dress up the adults and children. The treat could be a donation from a pile of sweets.
What is against it?. Buying treats costs money. Making treats costs money and time. If you are inundated with callers, you run out, then you are at the mercy of tricks.
Unwelcome Tricks
Why would anybody want a trick? Tricks include throwing eggs over the window, which you have to clean off. Daubing paint. Damage to property. People with skulls jumping out or making a noise. Frightening the elderly who are prone to heart attacks.
How It Was Done In Singapore?
When I lived in Singapore, when I first arrived in the 1990s, I was told that it was illegal to knock on people's doors, whether for Trick or Treat, to ask for donations for money, whether for charity, or begging or to offer services, and to try to convert people to another religion. So the Mormons would be banned from knocking on doors. Was that in the old days when Christian missionaries had tried to convert the local people to Christianity? Then the locals were mainly Chinese with areas of Muslims and Hindu Indians.
The main objections, I was told, came from the Chinese, because in their religion the eldest son (who is the oldest and most likely to be working and earning money) was responsible for organizing the funeral of the parents, according to their religious ritual, which would help them in the afterlife. When the eldest son was converted to Christianity or another religion, he no longer was willing to perform the rights, depriving the parents of their respect and safe passage into the afterlife and eternity. A law was therefore passed to forbid this.
Now, having heard this, I could understand why you needed to convert the entire family to avoid conflict, not just because parents might not like the clothes, routines, food of a son or daughter in law, but because their own funeral, burial and afterlife would be affected.
Therefore, I was told, the law was brought in banning people knocking on doors. Also, many families had a maid who answered the door. She was a young person, with a busy work schedule, looking after a baby, with little or no money, used to obeying order, vulnerable to deceit. Knocking on a door to collect for charity or offer a service was an easy excuse or cover for somebody trying to case the joint, see if anybody was in, deceive the servant or young person answering the door and gain access to the property for theft.
I later learned something different about the cause of laws and customs in Singapore, which you will see in the next post. However, this is what I was told at that time.
As a result, of this belief, I was told that children at the nearby expat school, probably the American school, had issued posters for the parents to display. This had the school name and symbols, the phone number to ring if there was a problem (for either called or those called on) a and a message saying that the school's own pupils were welcome to trick or treat.
Unaccompanied Children Ban
The next thing which caught my attention was parents telling me that unaccompanied children were not allowed to go trick or treating. They might not have the sense to know that what they were doing was dangerous or scary for the householder or themselves. They were not legally liable for damage or pranks gone wrong. Their testimony in a court of law might not be considered reliable.
When I lived in the USA, one year I read that some areas of some cities had banned trick or treat, because children had come home with sweets which were bad tasting, poisoned, or contained damaging metal.
USA memories
In that era, the 1990s, I read of cases of children in the USA invited into homes by householders offering treats. The children were assaulted. Or disappeared.
Posters In London
Now in 2026 in London, the police have issued downloadable posters which have texts asking people not to call for trick or treat. there are several reasons why people might decline.
Firstly religious. Secondly financial. You might not be able to afford to buy treats, and not want the embarrassment of admitting to others that you were hard up, or that you were poor, or you might not want the financial drain, or it could cause family rows if one person wanted to join in, or thought it was necessary to avoid trouble, whilst another objected to their money being spent that way. It could cause illwill between neighbours and local people.
Some people say you should not need a poster. Etiquette says you only call at houses with Halloween decorations. But why should people who put up decorations for their own visitors or children for a party be constantly disturbed by others knocking on the door demanding free sweets?
The elderly might have trouble reaching the door, with sticks, wheelchairs, or deaf people. They might be in fear of people playing tricks if you did not give treats.
Other might not want to open doors on principle.
Some people instead leave out a bowl of sweets. But the first comer, or a greedy adult, might take the lot. You would have to be alert all day and evening, maybe all weekend, to give out just enough sweets for a group of callers.
But what if five, ten or twenty people call wanting sweets? Then another group?
If I am watching TV, working from home, or just reading the news and face timing or zoom calling with my family, I don't want to have to get up to answer the door to callers. The same applies to Christmas carollers asking for money.
Some people have a blanket sign on a poster. No callers please.
People in my street had such a sign. The wife had muscular dystrophy and difficulty walking to the door. But to callers and neighbours it looked like the householders were bad tempered and unfriendly.
The same applied during Covid, before, and after. Some people, if they were cautious, or had vulnerable health, did not want callers, even touching their doorbell and knocker and door or gate.
If you put up a poster, you have to pay the cost of the printer and ink and time to print it and fix it. If the government prints so called 'free' posters, it means the poster is free to the recipient but somebody else is paying for the printing. In effect, everybody's local taxes are spent on printing the posters.
In conclusion, I think the Singapore system is the best. Neither home owner, renters, guests, or police, or local or national governments should have to print signs saying Trick or treaters, and carol singers, are not welcome. nor should only call at houses where signs say that callers are welcome. Instead, the onus should be on people to arrange in advance that schools and other organizations should plan a route around welcoming homes or buildings. To avoid confusion as to homes, buildings and numbers, callers should only stop at houses which have signs welcoming people from a particular school, or organization, or all comers.
In London parents in a street Whatsapp group asked who would welcome trick or treaters. A few people replied that they would welcome them. A couple more said, no thank you.
Now that Halloween is over, similar questions arise over carol singers calling to collect for charity.
Useful Websites About No Trick Or Treat, Carol Singers, Charity Collectors
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trick-Treats-Thank-You-Halloween/dp/B00OE5FHIM
No trick or treat sign
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/363112132268?
Kent Police Sign About Trick Or Treat
Message to Parents & Carers On Trick Or Treat
No junk mail sign, solid plaque
https://www.amazon.co.uk/County-Engraving-Engraved-CHARITY-LEAFLETS/dp/B07Q3Y4VN6
Dangerous Candies
-ends-
See next post.
