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My HOA is terrific about sending us all e mails alerting us to solicitors, strange cars, crimes in other neighborhoods, etc. By the time the solicitors get past 2 or 3 houses the word has gotten out and the SAHMs or Dads are ready. One neighbor sits on his front porch dressed in hunting clothes and carrying a BB gun or something sinister. Some other neighbors put up very explicit signs and some call their children in from play and another one ties his extremely tame and lovable pit bull to the front door. Most turn around but if they came to the door the dog would kiss them to death.
We have a medium No Solicitor sign on the front door. Still we get people who claim they are not soliciting. One kid said "But we aren't soliciting. We are offering free quotes for roof work". Can anybody really be that dumb?
My kids are not allowed to solicit either. Every year at GS Cookie time e mails go out and orders are done on line. Best way to handle it.
Last year a kid all dressed in N.C. State red and insignia came to the door of my Chapel Hill house saying he was selling something. I was in a foul mood and said "Do they teach you over there in Raleigh how to read?" and pointed to the No Soliciting sign. He stammered something about raising funds for research and that wasn't soliciting. Again, do they really not know what they are doing?
I was upset the one year the school didn't just ask for a check. With a check my contribution is doubled by employer matching funds and my children don't have to be held captive to the Boosterthon peer pressure crap. One year, my youngest would come home in tears each day for a week feeling inferior because she only had a couple of pledges and there was such pressure to solicit more to earn "prizes".
Equal prizes for direct donations too - obviously we get more money from direct since we keep all the money so we want the kids to be rewarded for that too!
I have a very explicit No Soliciting sign on my front door that does the trick. It has a big circle with a red slash through it and it reads: Politics, religion , magazines, candy, charities - NO EXCEPTIONS! If we don't know you or aren't expecting you, DO NOT BOTHER US!
Works like a charm.
Before we moved here, I had one that said no solicitors: sales or religious and no one paid it any attention-had it on red paper on the door.
I hate that they still make kids do this crap. I miss the days of school festivals with PTA-organized bake sales and the like. I wonder what percentage of the fundraising sales go straight to the company
My kids' old school did bake sales. I liked that much better. Here in Clayton, my kids each brought a packet home of the overpriced crap and EACH needed to sell 8 items or they will be excluded from a schoolwide party. that is so not fair. I don't know enough people to burden with begging for sales. Last year it was only one kids in the middle school. so I bought 8 things. Then she got to the party but since she only had my 8 items sold, she didnt have extra "points" to do any of the activities. This year I told them I'll pick them up at party time so they don't feel excluded. it's not fair to make kids feel bad because they didn't sell the junk. (crappy candy 5 or 6 oz package for 10.00!) Coffee cup I bought last year made it through ONE dishwasher cycle-or should I say, didnt make it through!
The kicker: now we got a letter a week later that they will be doing a "money campaign" where we can just donate money and not have to buy anything!!! AND the book fair is this month.
My kids' old school did bake sales. I liked that much better. Here in Clayton, my kids each brought a packet home of the overpriced crap and EACH needed to sell 8 items or they will be excluded from a schoolwide party. that is so not fair. I don't know enough people to burden with begging for sales. Last year it was only one kids in the middle school. so I bought 8 things. Then she got to the party but since she only had my 8 items sold, she didnt have extra "points" to do any of the activities. This year I told them I'll pick them up at party time so they don't feel excluded. it's not fair to make kids feel bad because they didn't sell the junk. (crappy candy 5 or 6 oz package for 10.00!) Coffee cup I bought last year made it through ONE dishwasher cycle-or should I say, didnt make it through!
The kicker: now we got a letter a week later that they will be doing a "money campaign" where we can just donate money and not have to buy anything!!! AND the book fair is this month.
I would have a plu perfect hissy fit if that happened in my school. That is the sort of situation which makes parents call the media, picket the school and make a federal case out of it---literally. to keep a child from a party for not selling enough cheap crap or overpriced crap is so wrong on so many levels. Our family consists of 2 adults and 2 kids at home and 2 adult kids. No grandparents, no aunts, cousins, etc. No co-workers- in other words nobody to bug about purchasing stuff for our kids and I'm glad we don't have to be put in that position. I've known people who have to hide at work to avoid co workers who pester everybody to death selling their kids school stuff at work. And i know of businesses who outlaw it all together. people are sick and tired of it.
Back when I was a kid, we had to do a magazine sale once. My friend and I went door to door, and our first stop was my next door neighbor, who asked us if we had a permit. When we said no, and it was a school function, he called cops on us! We kept going around our neighborhood, but in the end, the only sale we ended up getting was my other next door neighbor.
Re the ones dropped off going door to door. It's not only about the magazine sale scam itself but also about the abuse of young people promised an exciting trip across county and some never heard from again: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/us...anted=all&_r=0
My HOA is terrific about sending us all e mails alerting us to solicitors, strange cars, crimes in other neighborhoods, etc. By the time the solicitors get past 2 or 3 houses the word has gotten out and the SAHMs or Dads are ready.
I'm going to recommend our HOA do this. Rarely a week goes by that we don't get people wanting us to fill up a sack with food for the less fortunate, buy discount coupons, hire them to mow our lawn, attend church... We've even had people try to sell us meat out the back of an old van.
About a month ago, a guy stopped by in the middle of a rainstorm, said his crew was fixing a roof down the street, and it looked like we had the same problem they did. He said because they were in the neighborhood, they could replace our roof for $12,500.
Thinking we may have some problems ahead of us, we got several roofing contractors to come out. We got two more bids upwards of the $12,500. Along with the original guy, they said that our roof sheathing was thin and we needed to cover it with half inch plywood.
However, two other roofers said our roof was just fine and likely good for another 5 or 10 years. Plus, when we did reroof, it was likely we'd only need shingles, not the whole nine yards.
We have "No Soliciting" signs posted at the entrances of our neighborhood. Whenever someone starts soliciting, we just give the cops a call, they come out and shoo the solicitors away.
We have "No Soliciting" signs posted at the entrances of our neighborhood. Whenever someone starts soliciting, we just give the cops a call, they come out and shoo the solicitors away.
We have those signs too, but we've been told that we can't enforce them. We're within the city and if they have a permit there's not a darn thing we can do. Unfortunately, people around here are still opening doors for solicitors, so they keep coming. I wish the men that were home during the solicitation periods would be more forceful about running them off or at least asking to see the permit.
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