Uhhh did you not see the ‘no soliciting’ sign, dingus?

[soxfan]

Imagine thinking the best business model is going to door to door to scare the shit out of people? My town has a ton of solicitors. We have a nest doorbell and if they don't leave after I tell them not interested, my husband will say "Get the F*** off my steps" over the speaker WHILE he is at work. Really freaks them out.

This can't hurt either.

 

[the_mother_thing]

@soxfan LOVE IT!

If we didn’t have young children in the house/neighborhood ...

 

[Karl_K]

In many areas the area signs are not legally enforceable as the laws require a notice near the door.
Snap a picture if you dont have a security camera, call the non-emergency police number and ask them to send an officer out if possible.
Print off the picture of the person and hand it to the responding officer if one comes out.

 

[Lisa Loves Shiny]

We rarely get solicitors but when we do I just don't open the door. The dogs tend to let them know we don't take kindly to uninvited visitors.

 

[Calliecake]

We get solicitors often. I just don’t open the door.

 

[stracci2000]

I don't open the door either.
We have a fan shaped window in the front door, but I am too short to look through it. So I had DH install a peephole.
It's perfect! I can see the doorbell ringer, but they can't see me. I only open the door for people I know.

 

[rocks]

How strict is your HOA? We live in a coop and honestly they rarely enforce rules like this. We aren't supposed to have place mats out in front of our doors but many do. Little things like that they may not really care about but if they are "net nannies" like that I guess it's a real pain in your you know what. Soliciting is a quality of life issue and I would just push the envelope and see how much you can get away with...

Our building is very strict. If someone solicits door to door they are banned from the building. That includes putting menus under the doors. We have no problems....phone calls....another story.

 

[missy]

Our building is very strict. If someone solicits door to door they are banned from the building. That includes putting menus under the doors. We have no problems....phone calls....another story.

Menus. There was talk of not letting delivery people up and that would mean shareholders would have to come down and pick up their food deliveries. That did not go over well and so every now and then we get menus under the door. Not a big deal to me but I get why it’s annoying. We never even do takeout lol.

We have never experienced (never have in the 30 plus years we have lived there) any solicitors in our building. We have a full service building with a 24 hour doorman. No one gets by them.

And come to think of it we also have never had any solicitation at our beach house. Interesting.

 

[lyra]

I have a No Soliciting sign on my front door. I've only had to deliver one speech at the door about what that means. We now have a Ring video doorbell. Honestly, it makes people not want to bother. I've watched as people walk up the drive, see it, and turn around. Haha. Plus obviously, no scammers when they know they're being recorded.

 

[missy]

I have a No Soliciting sign on my front door. I've only had to deliver one speech at the door about what that means. We now have a Ring video doorbell. Honestly, it makes people not want to bother. I've watched as people walk up the drive, see it, and turn around. Haha. Plus obviously, no scammers when they know they're being recorded.

That’s a great point Lyra. I wonder if our security cameras are a deterrent. They might be since we have never experienced any solicitors ringing our doorbell at our beach house. I didn’t even think of that as one of the benefits.

 

[the_mother_thing]

I rarely open the door for people as well because I’m usually on a conference call during the day. If I’m just in listen-mode, I motion through the sidelight or window that I’m not interested and point at my headset. But I don’t want them coming onto our property at all. Part of it is the interruptions during work, making my dogs bark unnecessarily, etc., but the other part of it is for liability purposes.

If one of these yahoos walks up our driveway and trips and falls on our sidewalk, we are liable and can be sued ... and we didn’t even invite them onto our property. It’s becoming for rampant where scammers are intentionally causing car accidents to benefit from insurance claims (we just had one locally where a woman had 30-some fraudulent claims and is finally in jail); while I haven’t heard of this exactly becoming a rampant scam (D2D solicitation/injury scams), these days NOTHING surprises me. And I don’t want to be part of the start of it either.

 

[GliderPoss]

We don't get many, I just open the door & say "No thank you not interested!" then firmly shut the door in their face. Apparently a girlfriend of mine opened the door to Jehovah's Witnesses in a towel straight from the shower and they were so mortified they never ever came back!

More often we get phone calls from charities etc, especially after work as they try to catch people at home. I don't answer anything from a number I don't know (unless obviously I am expecting a specific call). If I think it's a scammer & they are persistent I question their ABN etc or ask awkward questions about their legal office address and they always give up and end the call....

 

[missy]

Most bothersome to me of all the possible solicitations are the phone calls. We have landlines in both homes and we get the most nuisance phone calls on the landlines though yes some do come through on our mobile phones as well. I am at the point where I am considering giving up the landlines but I am old school and prefer talking on a landline especially copper wire connection.

 

[Madam Bijoux]

I don’t answer the door if I don’t know the person. If I’m outside, I tell the person “I don’t live here, I’m just the gardener.”

 

[Austina]

Once the post lady has been, DH goes out and locks the pedestrian gate. The driveway gates aren’t left open, so people can’t walk up to the house, they have to press the intercom. We can see from our camera who is at the gate, and if it’s not a delivery, we just don’t answer the intercom.

We have the Preference Service on the land line, which prevents cold callers from contacting us. If they do, they can get fined. We have an unlisted phone number, so unless we’ve given our number to someone, they have no way of finding it.

I think a sign with a big, vicious looking dog is a bigger deterrent than a no soliciting sign. I can’t tell you the number of times my barking, vicious sounding dog had people turning away without waiting for an answer

 

[Slickk]

I don’t answer the door if I don’t know the person. If I’m outside, I tell the person “I don’t live here, I’m just the gardener.”

This!! I read a terrible story once about a woman who opened her front door to a ‘solicitor.’ I think I read it here...it was awful.
I never open the door if I don’t know the caller.

 

[smitcompton]

Hi,

I didn't read many replies, but our Village has a ordinance against soliciting, and we are not a new or wealthy town. These laws were passed to protect residents in our town. I suggest you call the police, I have, and they were happy to help, as solicitors may be casing the homes for burglary. They should help. If not call your pol rep and get them to pass a law.

Other than that a" beware of dog.+ sign. Am not responsible if you step on the property.

Annette

 

[distracts]

I’m close to my wits end and going postal on the next salesperson who walks up our driveway to ring my doorbell and try to sell us pest control/financial planning/religion/politics/book club/cookies/gutter cleaning/etc. services.

People going door-to-door canvassing for politicians or other political causes are not soliciting. It's protected free speech, legally exempt from "no soliciting" signage/areas. The best thing you can do to prevent political canvassers from knocking is during election season put out signs for your preferred candidates and then vote on the first day of early voting. You'll avoid most of the GOTV effort that way.

I recommend switching to a Nest doorbell or similar. We don't like our doorbell rung so we switched to a Nest and have it set to just deliver a notification to our phones when someone is at the door. That way we can easily ignore it if it's not an expected person. Plus we can check them on video so if it's someone we do want to talk to, just at an unexpected time, we'll know.

 

[whitewave]

1) people these days don’t know what solicit means

2) give them one warning then call the sheriff. (But I live in a gated community, so it’s a private road once you cross the gates and then we also can’t have signs in the yard).

I hate to sound ugly to call on someone trying to make a living, but nobody likes door to door sales and it’s somewhat dangerous, or could be. This is what the serial killer Derrick Todd Lee used to do— that was his MO. Ring the door bell and say he was selling or needed directions to see if there was a man in the house, and then bust in for the kill.

I also agree with the video doorbell. We have the ring doorbell on the other house, but darn if I didn’t actually cement a fleur de lis doorbell on my stucco at this house lol.

 

[smitcompton]

Hi,

Distracts, even political operatives cannot go on private property without the owners permission. Free speech does not entitle you to go wherever you want. Condo Ass, apartment dwellings and private homes are able to be used as the owner wishes. PO may be able to give out elections materials in a public throughway. Most will get permission if they want to go into a building or give a talk. They surely can be denied it

Annette

 

[Tekate]

Cameras, a Ring doorbell system. TMT we have a camera at our side door that 99% of people use, but the front door is all glass but one has to walk the whole house and then up the steps etc.. rarely and mostly kids use the front door. The Ring is great - my son uses it on his home and my bestie uses too, she knows when someone rings her bell when she is all over the world traveling!

 

[Tekate]

Ha! back in the day when I didn't have caller ID and we had to answer our phones whenever a cold sales caller asked for my husband I'd say "He died 5 months ago and start crying" they couldn't get off the phone fast enough. Front door people I usually can see them b4 they see me and I hide.

I don’t answer the door if I don’t know the person. If I’m outside, I tell the person “I don’t live here, I’m just the gardener.”

 

[cmd2014]

It's the religious people who come to my door. And worst of it is that they use the window in my door to look in, see that I am not coming to the door (as you can see right into our house), and knock louder (ignoring my doorbell entirely) without stopping until I come. Seriously people, I am not going to convert! And certainly not because of some random stranger who has interrupted my dinner and violated my privacy. And as safe as my neighborhood is, I don't feel safe with strangers asking me to open my door. It's just wrong. (and yes, I have a sign, and no, they don't respect it).

 

[the_mother_thing]

People going door-to-door canvassing for politicians or other political causes are not soliciting. It's protected free speech, legally exempt from "no soliciting" signage/areas. The best thing you can do to prevent political canvassers from knocking is during election season put out signs for your preferred candidates and then vote on the first day of early voting. You'll avoid most of the GOTV effort that way.

I disagree that political ‘operatives’ are not ‘soliciting’ - they’re asking for something, be it my time, information, donations, who I’m voting for/why, etc. And I really don’t care what someone else’s ‘rights’ are outside the boundaries of our property; when they come onto our property, they’re uninvited, trespassing, and they are not only a nuisance but a liability. Our home/property is not ‘public’ or taxpayer funded space for people to invite themselves on/in, litter their flyers (hubby literally JUST came in with yet another one just tossed on our lawn), hock their religion/politics/whatever. They don’t care nor see it that way because they aren’t the ones paying our insurance.