My sis and her hubby live in a nice neighborhood with lots of Trick or Treaters and since it falls on a Monday and all of my parties will be the weekend before, so for my entertainment I am planning to get her hubby and myself to dress up in sheets or something to scare the kids.
When I was a kid there was a house that always scared the kids and we loved it so much and anticipated it all year…
So share your stories of scaring the crap out of lil ankle biters or ideas on how I can!
Several years ago a friend told me something one of his neighbors did one year. He rented an ape costume and sat on the front porch totally motionless with a bowl of candy on his lap. All the house lights were turned off and there was a note on the candy bowl that said, “Not home. Please take one.”
As the kids came up and started to take a piece of candy, he waved his arms and growled at them. I think several kids had to go home and change their pants.
The best prank I ever saw was perpetrated by a young couple who’d just moved into our neighborhood when I was about ten. I lived in a very safe, self-contained neighborhood, and virtually nobody over the age of eight was chaperoned on Halloween.
This couple made it look as if nobody was home at their house. On the front porch was a scarecrow with a pumpkin head sitting in a lawn chair, holding a big bowl of candy with a sign that said “Please take ONE.”
If some greedy kid took two or three, the guy in the scarecrow costume jumped up and started yelling. My friend ran off their lawn so fast, I thought she was going to run all the way home. Still makes me giggle just thinking about it.
And upon preview, I see this one’s popular. Hell, I know I’m going to do it when I have a house. 
I must have been a smart kid, cause I always spotted those guys…I mean, come on, he’s in an ape costume holding the candy! It’s so obvious!
However, my dad often did a more subtle, but similar, scare.
As soon as he put up the halloween decorations, he put a scarecrow, full of leaves or whatever, on the front porch. Everyone saw it, notice it was a scarecrow, etc…
When Halloween night came, he would remove it, dress himself up in all the clothes (he always had it positioned so that you never could see the head, a large hat hung down) and go sit back in the chair it was in. He would let them go up, ring the bell, my mom would give them the candy, and he wouldn’t jump up until after they were walking down the front steps, after thery thought everythnig was safe. Classic. 
That is so awesome. I dont want to damage any kids permanently, so I dont know how I am going to balance terror and appropriateness.
I guess age could be a factor in how or if I jump out.
We are thinking of getting a strobe light and such…
Ahhh…Much respect for your father, the master.
We used to have a large maple tree in our front yard that all the little tykes had to walk under to get to our front porch. I had a very old Gorilla suit that I had worn in college, that I could barely fit into that I’d don and climb up the tree. I’d wait for the kids to be all nice and unafraid as they walked up to our front steps. My wife would come out in her little mini-mouse gard and all the kids would think everything was nice and cushy. Then as they walked away, I’d swing down from my treetop perch and scare the bejeezus out of them. This worked great until the 6’6" uncle of an unsuspecting trick or treater grabbed me unaware out of the tree before I could scare the kiddies. Bastard! That hurt.
The ol’ “drop a spider or bat from the ceiling” is a good one, especially if your front door has any kind of overhang above it.
Screw a hook into the eave or porch ceiling (or what-have-you). Run some fishing line through it, and connect a large plastic spider/bat/scary thing to one end, and run the other end through a window or into the front door. Drop the spider onto or in front of a kid at your discretion. Good times!
Beadlin I do like that idea…maybe a little safer when there are 6’6 Uncles roaming around too.
I did something a lot like this while still a starving student living in a multi-family in Somerville, MA. I put on a shirt and a pair of old trousers a couple sizes too large, and filled the extra space with fallen leaves, some hanging out the cuffs for effect. Then I stuck a plastic pumpkin on my head and slouched uncomfortably next to the front door. I was a fairly convincing-looking Halloween prop in the relative darnkess.
So, obviously, right after my roomies answered the door and the kids yelled “Trick or treat!”, I’d spring to life with a “BWAAAAAAAH!”, and they’d scream bloody murder. The prank typically ended with fits of giggles and a good time all around. On a couple attempts, the kids sussed me out during their approach before I could surprise them, but they still thought it was fun to have a guy on the porch dressed up like a leaf dummy.
Well, the last time I tried it, a forty-something woman with girl maybe 7 years old rang the doorbell. I had a bit of a hard time seeing the people I was about to pounce on, my head being stuck in a big plastic pumpkin with pinholes for eyes and all, so I really didn’t know quite what I was getting into until the prank was fully executed. Both the woman and the girl shrieked and convulsed like they’d been tasered, and the girl burst into wailing tears. The woman screamed something like “Jesus fucking Christ!”, and then tore me a gaping new asshole as I yanked off my mask and tried to explain it was all a funny, funny joke, Hah hah! She said I was sick, an idiot, a pervert, among some other unmentionable things, and stormed off, claiming she was going to call the police and report me. I never heard from the police, but needless to say the porch ambush stunt ended immediately.
It seems much of the world no longer has a sense of humor. sigh Loopydude, you’ve got a message board full of people who still think it’s funny.
I’ve always thought it would be cool to rake up the leaves and save them. Then put some sort of thin tarp over a large section of the lawn with a r/c car under the tarp. Put the leaves over the tarp and drive the car. It should look like ‘something’ is moving under the leaves.
An easier one would be to write some sort of little play for your trick or treaters to hear through your front door. You could write different ones for different ages. But something like
[ding dong]
(from the back of the house a woman screams)
AHHHHHHHhh stop stop sto…
Man answers door covered in blood holding a bloody knife.
Or open the door holding treats saying nothing. Then fall foward revealing spear in your back.
Yeah, well, just letting people know that if you really do scare the crap out of the kiddies, you may get some unamused parents on your case.
And it ain’t fun. That woman gave me the worst tongue-lashing I’d had in years. So shames was I, I could only stammer “um…I…sorry…uh…yes ma’am…”
What happens when you scare little kids: Halloween goes horribly wrong.
It might be safer to go to a Halloween party instead.
My parents used to do this all the time. I remember one year when my father made a coffin, put it near the door but behind the porch, and rewired the door bell to a light inside the coffin. So when the kids would ring the bell he would know about it, wait a few seconds and open the coffin and scare them. He had a buzzer on the coffin at first but found that it didn’t work like he wanted.
Ivylad used to deliver pizzas for Domino’s way back when. He loves Halloween, and went all out that night, with a horrid demon mask and a black cape.
Most people got a huge kick out of it, until one little girl opened the door for the pizza and fled screaming back into the far reaches of the house. Ivylad felt so bad about that and apologized profusely, but her father gave him a nice tip and said he’d been trying to teach his daughter not to open the door without him in the room.
This is the first year my husband and I own our house, we aren’t in an apartment, and we have the ability to decorate and scare kids for Halloween.
I called him all excited over a few of the ideas in this thread, DYING to use them. I love Halloween - and I can’t wait to have little ones of my own to take out trick-or-treating. In the meantime, I get to scare the neighborhood kids. What’s better?
Imagine my dismay when he told me “Oh, sorry. Our town does trick-or-treating on a weekend day, from 3-5 in the afternoon so the kids won’t get scared. It won’t be dark enough out for that.”.
DAMN. :smack:
E.
Anybody wanna sell me one of those old gorilla suits?
I’ve been looking for a used one for years!
Wow, I see the ‘sit on the porch motionless and scare the poo out of the little kids’ schtick isn’t so rare after all.
I’m coming at it from another angle–I was one of the little kids, way back in the late '60s/early '70s. I still remember it even though I think I was no more than 6 at the time. We went to the neighbor’s house and there was this ghost-looking thing sitting motionless on the porch. I don’t remember if my dad encouraged me or if I just got the idea on my own, but I hurried over and climbed up in its lap, thinking it was a big mannequin or something (as did my dad). When it raised up and growled at me (or maybe went ‘Boo!’–that part I don’t remember) I freaked out so bad that we had to call off the rest of the evening’s trick-or-treating and try it again next year.
I never forgave the neighbor for that, but I still love Halloween so I guess it wasn’t too terrible.
MagicEyes, Thanks so much for the link! That had me laughing at my desk!
And Elza B, That stinks!
I am sure some of the brains on here can invent some ideas that include daylight scares though!