(37) Well in the Great Lakes of the US, spring has sprung. And with it, a few nights a week, come the door to door sales people and religious proclaimers.
Did this happen as much when we were kids? Either I wasn’t home or my parents dealt with it. That and the sales kids today are trying hard to get a deal. I appreciate the hustle, but had to tell a pest control guy this week. “Are we really gonna sit here and go round for round for another 15 minutes?”
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I have a big “no soliciting” sign. So no, doesn’t happen to me.
I feel like it happened way more often.
But it is probably contigent on the neighborhood. Certain ones are made more for walking.
I remember it being pretty common in my neighborhood that we’d either have the book/magazine/encyclopedia salespeople, the Kirby people, as well as kids doing fundraising for school, scouts, etc. Of course at least in my neighborhood they rarely made it to the door in the warmer months – dad, uncle, or granddad was usually in the garage or the yard doing something, so they got intercepted before they got to the door. If they were interested they’d send them on to the house – if not, you’d never have known they’d been there.
I live in. Tiny town outside of a small town (but we all have fiber) and STILL get the satellite internet guys knocking, power solar, and window folks.
🤦♂️
Only the people that ignore the “we hope you like big ass dogs” sign come soliciting.
And with the advent of Ring cameras, you can pick and choose who you open the door for.
Of if you open the door naked, holding a shotgun in one hand and a bourbon bottle in the other.
I don’t think that it was any more common then than to today.
BTW, I have found that the best way to get rid of religious folks is to ask them to come back when my husband is home. (I’m a straight dude.)
All the time! I live in a new development, and we get them daily. I have a sign on my door saying I have a sleeping baby and loud dogs, and to not ring the doorbell. Sometimes they won’t listen, and if I’m home I’ll cuss them out
I get fewer and fewer.have a doorbell cam and honestly just don’t answer the door when they come. Even if they can see me through the windows I just go about my business and they leave.
All the time.
A company in my town printed Bibles and sent high school kids all over the country during the summer to sell them. I worked there as an accounting student at the end of the summer. Some of the kids came back and made a whole lot of money, and some of them came back and basically had made nothing.
I feel like it’s less. Fundraiser kids often don’t go door to door anymore. I still get some religious people but I feel like it’s the same amount that there was when I was a kid. Also, salesmen used to stop by when I was a kid. I remember one guy selling books specifically.
Different country (mexico) but close enough.
Yep, it happened, pretty often.
My circle of friends even remembers the legendary american Mormon who got invited to eat fried cow intestine tacos…and seasoned them with ketchup.
It’s one of the only acceptable ways to be a complete asshole to someone. They literally came knocking. I give the “I’m good thanks” close the door method. If that doesn’t deter them go to level 2 of “get the fuck out of my yard”. Nothing worse than a living spam email that you never asked for showing up at your door.
Door to door sales is illegal in my country.
The religious types (exclusive Jehova’s) do come by now and then; legal since they don’t sell anything. And also people who raise money for charity. But neither is often. Maybe 2-3 times a year for both.
I always tell them that I’m busy and give them my phone number and tell them to text me.
So far only one of them has.
And it’s for a service that I am actually considering.
>(37) Well in the Great Lakes of the US, spring has sprung. And with it, a few nights a week, come the door to door sales people and religious proclaimers.
At about twice your age, I noticed it depended on the neighborhood I was living in. Suburban? Absolutely. Happened from Spring to Autumn. Urban? Not so much, it depended on how friendly the neighborhood was; so not as much.
I think it was pretty surprising for me here in Louisiana. Even during the isolation times during the COVID pandemic. We were getting door-to-door pest control sales people during that time, which for the urban setting we moved away from (Providence, RI) was both surprising and unsettling.
No. But then I grew up in Britain and, with the exception of the occasional Jehovah’s Witness, we’re far too reserved to show up at our neighbour’s house uninvited.
There’d be a fucking national shortage of tea and biscuits if we did.
Used to happen more often in the 70s and 80s. The Jehovahs Witness folks were constantly on the prowl as were niche random salesmen.
There were way more forty years ago. Vacuum cleaners were even sold door to door
“Hey, your time is valuable. I’d rather see you see you get a hit somewhere else than waste it here with me. Go get ’em, tiger.”
People don’t knock in Los Angeles, they’ll just litter your doorstep with flyers.
Mostly sales, not religious folks, but yeah it was common when I was growing up in the 90s and 2000s. I thought it had gone away but we recently bought a house and they’re definitely still around and kicking. Mainly kids selling home maintenance services.
It happened a ton about 30 years ago. Got so bad I defaced my door with multiple no-soliciting signs. There’s one that’s eye level when you reach the front porch. And another that’s eye level when you’re standing at the door. They’re different colors. You have to be a special kind of stupid to not understand what you are being told when you knock. But god bless them they knocked anyway. Illiterate, I assume. Congenitally insane, or just irretrievably stupid. In any event, not someone to do business with, obviously.
But, blessedly, it dropped off very sharply since Covid. The city made it illegal during the pandemic and lockdowns. And I guess infrastructure and just social acceptance of it crumbled since then. It’s one thing to have someone knock on your door at dinnertime and annoy you. But it’s something else if Typhoid Mary knocks on your door, and lays you down for three weeks and kills Grandma. People got a lot less chill about that nonsense after Covid. It still happens occasionally, but it’s usually a few times a year now, as opposed to several times a week.
I wasn’t supposed to answer the door for strangers as a kid, as my parents were rarely home. But nowadays every time I move into a new place, when I get the first round of religious folk, my wife tells them we’re exiled or excommunicated because I used to invite them in and waste as much of their time as possible by debating faith until they got uncomfortable and left. Unless it was a scientologist, they’re met with hostility at the door. I’m a carpenter that works for a company that doesn’t cold call or door to door. So with those ones, I love to get their quotes and laugh to see how much they’re ripping people off. When I get it,I then let them know I’m a carpenter and I see why my company gets so many jobs that we don’t do door to door sales. I’ve never had a pest control one. But it’s frozen here 4 months out of the year.
I’d say it’s happening a little less than back then,but it’s been increasing since COVID
To answer your question, door to door selling has been around for a very long time, for hundreds of years in this country.
To answer your question, door to door selling has been around for a very long time, for hundreds of years in this country.
It was more common when I was a kid in SE Michigan. Now I only get 4-8 people a year, and it’s usually trying to sell masonry/cement work.
It probably happened as much or more than how, but we were in school or out playing in the neighborhood and thought nothing of it.
If there’s an R/askwomenover70, they’ll have better insight
I remember many more door salesmen when I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s. St Louis, Missouri. Male. 74.
My mom still uses the vacuum that a door to door salesman sold her in the 1990s. After she bought it, my dad hung a “no soliciting” sign on the door
Dealt with a window sales guy last year. Not pushy, and friendly to deal with. I don’t mind that. They scout out neighborhoods with houses that are 10-20 years old and will potentially need renovations. I took his card and will consider his company if we remodel.
It’s the door to door political folks that drive me nuts.
I have not had a solicitor in over 20 years.
In the early 1960s, it was quite common.
I have hardly ever had this happen in my lifetime and only once in the last 15 years did I have goofs from whatever religion show up at my door.
It did till grandpa met them at the door with a shotgun. Not kidding. Gramps was very old school.
I lived in apartment buildings most of my youth, so it was super rare and mostly kids selling chocolate for school fundraisers.
When we did live in a house/duplex situation, door to door sales seemed rare but we did get visits now and then from religious groups.
Definitely more frequent now, but feel like I likely witnessed it less as a kid. I definitely experience more sales than religious groups now. I’ve even had door to door cell phone plan sales pitches. One dude, when I was in our driveway outside of our car, tried to pitch me a garage door system but I looked at our house then back at him and laughed saying “I don’t have a garage”.
The new thing in my area seems to be independent realtors canvassing the neighbourhood looking for a house to sell. More than once I’ve answered the door and been handed a hand-written, photocopied flyer by some guy I’ve never met before who wants me to let him broker the biggest possible transaction I could ever be involved in.
!lock