After more than a year of begging and pleading on my part, Rachel finally finished painting a sign for our front door. I had commissioned Joshua to make me a wood-burnt version, but something went wrong and he subcontracted to his sister on the job. The project languished, partly because I had been so foolish as to pay in advance.
Now that we live in the suburbs, we get a steady stream of door-to-door vendors, peddling everything from steaks to oil changes. Some are clean-cut, well-dressed, while others appear a little less reputable. Most of them visit at dinner time, but we’ve had a few ring the bell after 9 pm. My least-favorite is the kind who play the ‘poor kid from the ghetto’ card, trying to persuade me to buy some worthless merchandise ‘to give a disadvantaged entrepreneur a chance’. I guess the implication is that if I don’t buy anything from the young man, he’ll be forced to embark on a life of crime and it will be all my fault. For some reason, this doesn’t bring out my compassionate side.
Will this protect me from door-to-door vendors? Only time will tell …
When Kathy and I were first married, we attended a church in Connecticut about 30 minutes away from our home, and soon became close with ten or twelve young couples from our Sunday School class. One day we got a call: “I’m a friend of Paul and Donna, and they gave me your name … ”
As it turned out, the caller was an insurance agent, and had somewhat overstated his relationship with Paul and Donna. He somehow wangled an evening invitation out of me and arrived later that week at the door of our cozy little apartment on the third floor. He stayed for more than two and a half hours, alternately flattering and shaming us, using every trick to separate us from our money. At first I was torn between my usual sales resistance and a desire to treat the insurance agent as a guest in my home. Eventually, I became angry enough to get rid of him, but not before he tried (and almost succeeded) to get a list of names from us, apparently as a condition of his departure.
From that day forward, we made a simple rule: no sales people in our home. If someone wants to sell us something, then they’ll just have to wait until we visit their storefront or website. If they don’t have a storefront (which raises an interesting question: Why don’t they have a fixed place of business?), then they will have to propose a meeting place, and persuade us that their product is worth the effort for us to join them there.
If the first one doesn’t work, I’ll fall back to this sign.
It was a great rule, and we even extended it to sales and fund-raising calls: “Sorry, we won’t pledge anything over the phone. Please feel free to mail me information about your worthy cause.” We found that the telemarketers, especially pledge-drive callers, were not typically paid for mail referrals, and would quickly lose interest.
When we moved out to the country, even the Schwan’s driver only came to our house every two weeks. Nestled in the forest at the bottom of a 1/4-mile gravel driveway, 45 minutes from the nearest supermarket, we didn’t get a lot of incidental traffic. But now that we live in the suburbs again, it is another story altogether.
A couple of weeks ago, a man came by, wanting to sell me coupons good for oil changes at a local service station. He was a very smooth talker, and I almost bought the coupons, which seemed to be a good deal at the time. The only problem was that: (a) he insisted on payment up-front, (b) he was not actually affiliated with the service station (apart from his desire to sell their services), and (c) the service station was not open at the time he was selling. I asked him, “What’s to stop you from selling these coupons un-beknownst to the mechanic, and then skipping town with the money?” He countered with a thick stack of customers on my street, many of whom (he claimed) had done business with the service station before and had been well-satisfied. I guess the logic was, if my neighbors are dumb, I should be dumb, too. Who am I to set myself higher than my neighbors?
Kathy took down the outside Christmas lights, but they didn’t quite make it inside …
I offered to pay the mechanic later, after I got my oil changed, but he wasn’t interested in that kind of an arrangement. I suggested he sell my name to the mechanic for some kind of referral bonus, but that didn’t seem to be what he was looking for, either. I must have argued with this very persuasive man for at least 15 minutes, standing on my porch. As I came back inside, I growled, “Where’s my No Soliciting sign, Rachel?” Now that the sign is finally affixed to the front of my house, I hope the stream of pedestrian vendors will dry up.
How ’bout you? Do you have trouble with sales people coming to the door? Or, as in Secondhand Lions, are they a source of entertainment for you?
The neighbor boy was puzzled: “Why don’t you want anyone to come to your house anymore?” he asked my son Daniel. I can see I’ll be spending a lot of time on my front porch explaining what the word ‘soliciting’ means, and how it relates to the words ‘No’ and ‘Please’.
Trivia question for the day: What do these items have in common?
Tim
Project 366, Day 17
1. The photo of the string of Christmas lights looked like barbed wire for solicitors at first glance.
2. I sold books and Bibles door-to-door for a summer in college, so I have a sensitive spot for these poor fellows. However, my sensitivitly usually only allows me to give them a moment of my time, not any of my money.
3. To answer your trivia question: I believe those are some items were about to discard, but now you will be mailing to me for guessing the answer to your trivia question.
I think your new problem is that many of these people do not understand the definition of “solicitor.” (Sad but true.)
You might check with your local government. Colorado Springs law required that solicitors have a city permit; of course no one did, and that was a good buffer, asking for their permit when they knocked.
When we moved from suburbia to the country, a mile down a one lane road, we were shocked to have someone knock on our door. It was a man politicking for his wife who was running for court clerk. We were almost giddy at the thought that this guy would actually come down OUR street, knocking on doors. I think we talked to him for 15 mins., lol.
Those items are what you’re packing to keep the kids busy while you drive out here to see us???
We don’t get any solicitors clear out here, but we do get our fair share of phonecalls.
We live in the ‘burbs too. The usual solicitors are: kids selling magazine subscriptions, and the local-yokel trying to promote his lawn care business. They’re annoying.
I run a business from our home, so I am VERY careful not to appear like a solicitor when networking for new clients. I try to establish a relationship first, to try to determine the client’s needs, before making a “sales pitch.” And I would NEVER go door-to-door to try to gain new business. It’s not profitable and a waste of my time.
Trivia: they are the items that will leave the house in the morning with Katherine- one to the po to be mailed, others to home schooling class with her.
Ha. I don’t know.
Good blog on solicitators. I fall for the neighbor boys selling Christmas wrapping paper and have loved the paper. But it’s much more costly than regular paper, so I resisted this year. Thel candy bar people win if they catch me hungry and if I recognize his name.
Love you Edgrens! Aunt Kate
The only uninvited people that come by our apartment are either Mormon missionaries (I live in seminary housing, but I don’t think they realize that) and neighbor’s kids offering to take a bag of trash for a quarter or two. I like it when they come by, I always have something to offer!
It always seems like the solicitors hit us during the boys’ nap time… and they RING THE DOORBELL. That’s a sure way to not get my business.
We need a No Soliciting sign as well… we are constantly being hit up by the window salesmen and home security salesmen.
I live in the boonies of Maine. If we get solicitors, it’s only because they are hoplessly lost & are trying to make sure they are still in the US & not in Canada at this point.
We live on a dirt road. You can’t see our house from the road – we have a 1/4 mile driveway. I hope your sign works!!!! 
I agree! Since my husband doesn’t get home until later in the evening and BOTH of my kids run to the door as soon as they hear someone, I get really nervous about opening my door to some suspicious looking character standing on my front porch. I hope the sign works for you!
The funny thing is that AFTER I wrote this blog, Kathy told me that a solicitor came to the door, offering to carpet-clean a room in hopes of selling some kind of vacuum or cleaner. “This is why my husband put up this sign,” Kathy told the woman. “Oh, I’m not a solicitor,” the woman fired back, confidently. I may have to go straight to the bio-hazard sign, which may have a chilling effect on Kathy’s social life.
I checked with our local government, and sure enough, solicitors are required to have an annual permit, which costs $75. That should be fun, asking to see their permit, next time they ignore the sign and come to the door. Thanks to Kristine for that tip.
Aunt Kate is almost entirely right — the items shown on the table were the things Kathy was taking to Co-op, for her various classes. I still don’t know why she needed cookie cutters.
Honorable mention goes to Cindy — that did look like the beginnings of a road trip.
Scott, I’m still working on a suitable contest which you can actually win, so I can come up with a prize to send to you — I feel deeply in your debt over the Scrabble Tile. Rest assured it will be a valuable prize.
We have a house rule . . . if my hubby isn’t home and it is a stranger at the door . . .we don’t open it
this may be of some interest to you people who have issues with solicitors.
At my old school we used to go door to door selling honey(a type of solicitation). however some of the students had the “grand†idea of going to a house with a no soliciting sign and wrecking the mailbox(ie writing the f word) and\or ringing the bell and running like hell. i haven’t gone to that school for a while now but i sometimes hear rumors that this ring and run thing is still in operation. to all those who want to stop those annoying ring and run tactics chop all trees and shrubs down and put in lawn or decorative rocks(to improve lines of sight. one kid got caught in the act because the owner happened to be at the front 2mins after the bell rang and saw him on the sidewalk. Busted!!! ) or get a survellance camera and install it at the front door. rumor has it that the #1 rule is that you are not supposed to bee seen when you pull off this type of stunt. these 2 tips will help stop some of the stupid pranks these junior salesmen are pulling off. btw i was never part of this
i think this is called disturbing the peace. but some students think it was is and will continue to be the best fun on the job ever. i dont think it was fun at all
one student reported that when he did this some guy came out 4 mins later and yelled “who the F did that†or so goes the rumor
no soliciting signs are what the so called honey vandals use to pick their targets