We Want to Scare the Kids on Halloween

We once helped build a scary walkway up to a friends house. They used black plastic over a wooden frame. It had a few lights shining through a few holes in the plastic, with cobwebs and plastic spider rings hanging down.. They also used a fan to blow cold air through it.
Then they dressed up and looked scary on the porch. The light over the door had a black light build, so it looked pretty good at night.

Some kids went in and some did not.

I scared the poo out of a friends mom one time. I had found the most amazingly horrible mask with hair.

While she was washing dishes, I popped up to the kitchen window and screamed her name..

She let out a shriek and screamed and soap bubbles flew and dishes crashed.. called out my name and told me to "start running cause she was gonna kick my A$$.."

Good times...

My brother used to run wires to the doorknob to shock people as they approached and touched it.

dont do that

I would rather you have a really scary door and entry way instead of your kids running around scaring others, so families can choose to partake or not. Some kids and parents may get truly frightened or upset.

I remember trick or treating at this one scary house, oh it was awesome! They even built like a little maze thing up to their door, draped in cobwebs and black gauze, shredded black garbage bags hanging down you had to walk through, fog machine, creepy music, black light, strobe light, Halloween decorations, they dressed like zombies or witches and stuff and sat in the back so you had to go through the little 'maze' to get the candy.

Another friend of ours did a haunted house in their garage, it was more geared towards the older kids.

We have a neighbor that decorates their front yard to look like a graveyard. Their children are teenagers who dress really spooky and come out of hiding to freak everyone out. They have the spooky music, lighting, fog machine, terrific scary costumes...the works. It's scary without being too much. What I love is they have one teenager dressed as a beautiful fairy. When they see little ones she "banishes" away the bad guys with glitter and brings the candy to the kids. It's nice to have the scare, but even nicer not to freak out my little one. Seems like a very happy medium to me.

ok I did this one year and it was a blast. I had a spider which was motion activated. the kids walk up on the porch and it would go off. which set off something else that was noise activated. at the door I had a mat which would scream at you if you stepped on it. which again set off the noise activated thing and the kids would jump which would set off the motion thing all at the same time. Iwas dressed as a witch sitting on the porch with the candy. I would sit real still and when all of this was over all the activations I would just say what do you want and scare them again. it was cruel but it was a blast. have fun this year doing things like this. this is the fun of halloween.

We were just talking about this today. My MIL was telling me about the time my FIL dressed up in a scary outfit. He wore a creepy mask, put on 'blood stained' clothes, and put some straw around any holes in the clothes so he looked like he was just a stuffed prop. He sat in a chair, holding a fake bloody hatchet (that looked real as heck). What he would do is shift just a little bit, something like cross his legs, put his arm on an armrest, turn his head when the kids were looking away. They would KNOW he was moving, but couldn't figure anything out. It creeped them out without outright scaring them. IF one of the kids paid special attention to him, like trying to figure out if he is real or poking him, then he would 'BOO' them. It helped that he didn't do it to everyone, so that people on their way up wouldn't be expecting it.

Hee hee hee. What would be REALLY fun is to have him hold a bowl of candy. Pin a note to his shirt that says 'Only take ____ amount of pieces.' ... and if a kid gets greedy, and tries to take MORE than their share, then he can scare THEM!

>:D Mua-ha-ha!

We love to scare the bigger kids and most everyone in our neighborhood participates.

There are a LOT of little kids in the neighborhood but most of the time, they go in pretty early and it is fair game for us old parents to scare the bejeebers out of the teens.

Last year my hubby made a coffin and had it propped up against the house. At the perfect time, it would open and someone would jump out!

I have gotten dressed up in the past and then opened the door! Kids were
surprised but not frightened.

Teacher of ours used to team up with a friend and make a very scary porch every year. However, their kids knew to leave the little kids alone and they stayed on their lawn so that kids could pass to other houses. I see no problem with a spooky house, just don't go out of your way to target kids who might not be ready for a fright, but want to just pass on. I took my sister up the stairs to get candy and the teachers had boiled spaghetti and peeled grapes for brains and eyeballs. My sister almost cried. When they realized she was terrified, they dropped the act and handed me her candy so I could lead her back down the stairs again.

You might save shenanigans for the later hours and be calm for the little guys that are usually done early.

Or just have cobwebs and stuff all over the porch and dress creepy to answer the door.

We lived on a cul de sac with many little kids before we moved a couple of months ago and one of our neighbors had older kids, all boys. They made their house a haunted house every year. My kids wouldn't even walk on that side of the street! LOL! But, it's their perogatve and it really didn't bother me. They didn't intentionally scare my kids (who are now 3 and 5) and the husband actually took his mask off to show my kids that it was him and not to be afraid (which they still were when he was wearing the mask, but at least he was sensitive to the fact that they were scared). I would be really ticked if someone jumped out of the bushes and scared the daylights out of my little ones, but a neighbor having a haunted house is okay by me....we just skip that one. Hope you have fun!

I think dressing up and scaring the kids at YOUR house is OK, but to roam around the neighborhood and scare them is too much, since you are an adult. I think it sounds fun, but I don't think it would sit too good with the other parents in the neighborhood. We have a house in our neighborhood, that has a haunted house in it at Halloween. You get to tour it when you trick or treat. It is in their garage and last year it was excellent!! It was a funeral parlor, they had their families in coffins and everything! Anyway, if you scared my kid in the neighborhood, and not at your house, I probably would not like it.

There is haunted house a few blocks away or so the signs says. My SIL and I kinda laugh about it because its in the neighborhood and they posted a sign "free Haunted house" We joke about it saying kids only! I wouldn't let my kids go...but it does get a lot of traffic on the weekends when its open.

I would never allow my kids in a haunted house, but I think scaring the older ones would be neat!

When I was little there this house that did that. This guy would pretend to be fake on the porch and had a bowl of candy out then as you went to grab it he would awake and scare us like crazy!

My first grade teacher always dressed up as a witch. When she opened the door, she had a big, black cualdron with dry ice so it looked like it was smoking. She would cackle, reach into my pot, see what I got. It was semi scary when I was young, but so fun, and we made sure to go.there every year.

As a parent who would likely chaperone younger children on a Trick or Treat outing, I personally would not like it if my child were chased by a random or costumed adult (or kids) on the street with the intent to scare them. And I KNOW my children wouldn't like it if a stranger did this them randomly on the street versus if we went through a haunted house with the expectation of seeing something scary.

Despite it being Halloween and all, there is just know way of knowing if you were a crazy person or a neighbor just having fun. And often people trick or treat in neighborhoods that aren't their own, so there is a good chance anyone you would scare on the street, probably won't know who you are. And that means when it comes to how they deal with it, or you, it's anything goes. You might get assaulted by an over protective parent or cause a frightened child to run off into traffic or get hurt if they over-react.

I don't think having a haunted graveyard in your backyard for kids and families to walk through or a haunted house in your garage would be bad. People where I live do stuff like that all the time...and free of charge. They'll have people walk through and give away candy at the end. Never heard of any problems and it seems everyone who chooses to participate enjoys it...but I think it helps when the trick or treaters can choose for themselves if they want to take a chance on being scared.

As for springing it on people on the sidewalks or out and about, I'd say probably not a good idea. Also don't have people come and go into your actual home if you do a haunted house. You could get cased and robbed, and I as a parent would never let my child go into a home we didn't know. A garage with people streaming in and out of it is about it...and I'd want to be able to go through with them.

When my husband and I were dating, he and his friends would put a scarecrow or some other ghoul in the front yard and stuff it with hay. Then on Halloween night, one of them would take the same clothes and mask and put it on and stand up in the yard where the original "thing" was. When the kids (older ones of course) would come up, he would either walk up slowly behind it or just take off running after them. The other friends would come out of fake "graves" and from behind bushes dressed up as hideous monsters. It was hysterical. One year a grown man who came with his teenage daughter about wet his pants he was caught so off guard. It was awesomely funny. :)

I wouldn't roam but at your house.....go for it!

We were talking as well that the kids now days miss that stuff. We used to have scary houses all over our neighborhood. If one looked too scary we didn't go up there and of course parents of little ones would go as well if they thought it would scare them too much. Now people just sit on the driveway with fire pits out there and hand out candy, kids hardly even have to walk up to the door anymore. Halloween is supposed to be the fun of the costumes etc, not just candy.

Do it and enjoy!

When I was about 6 or 7, I was scared to the point of tears at one neighbor's house.

They had set up their front yard like a graveyar with "coffins" and headstones out. The dad was watching by the window as kids came up the drive and would pull a long string attached to the top of a coffin close to the sidewalk that led up to their front door. As he pulled the string (and as you walked past) the lid on the coffin would raise and whatever they had attached inside would "rise up" out of the coffin.

I wasn't expecting it as I walked by so I started running as the coffin was being raised and was crying by the time I got to the front door. They showed me how it worked so I would calm down.

every year my son hides in the leaves and scares the kids as they walk up. Or jump out from the side of the door or house. They kids expect it now and love it! Obviously he doens't do it to the litter kids. But we always have our porch done up scary with scary music and who knows who or what is going to answer the door!

Have fun with it! My kids like going to the ones where they get scared also.

My neighbor decorates the front of his house and has dry ice making it very spooky. They also decorate their living room real spooky and the kids that want to go through the spooky room get the scare and the little ones that come for the candy do not.

I do not care much for the Halloween back ground but I love seeing the kids so I stand outside in my Christmas getup that I wore for the kids at the elementary school when I worked there. I love seeing their faces and hearing the little ones laugh saying I dressed for the wrong holiday.
I tell them that someone must have had the wrong month showing on the calendar that I could have sworn it was Christmas time. They laugh even harder at me.

maybe older kids....but my 5 year old is pretty timid and scares easily (there were houses last year he wouldn't go to, especially decorated with cobwebs etc, i think he really has bad arachnophobia!) so i would say i really really hope mine wouldn't see you :( lol...