SIGNS FOR ROGUE TRADERS

I wonder how many readers tolerate salespeople at their doors? Years ago people knocking on the door were usually neighbours wanting to borrow a cup of sugar or something but now there are so many rogue traders it’s difficult to differentiate between good and bad salesmen. Because of this people don’t bother to answer the door unless they know who is calling. How sad the world has become!

Last year at Townswomen’s Guild and again at the Women’s Institute’s ACM, I listened to talks about Rogue Traders. Both speakers outlined some of the tricks used to gain our confidence as well as access to our homes – all very worrying, particularly to older folk. We constantly read or hear about pensioners who have been robbed and some who have even been knocked about and hospitalised.

So what to do? Apart from hiring armed guards or take ownership of a few wild dogs there isn’t much we can do unless we lock ourselves away and have nothing to do with the outside world. However, councils and police came up with the idea of putting notices on our doors and the speakers at the aforementioned events gave some away. Me being a greedy kind of gal, I took a few to distribute at the WI but not until I’d pinched a couple for myself.

The notices are not the same as the one at the start of this post. I have a few of those but they’re rather large whereas the ones I have are circular and take up less space. There are two sides: one is for the householder to read if someone strange knocks her door, and the other is what the trader (or whoever) sees. Once the backing paper is removed it can then be stuck to a glass door. Sadly not everyone has a porch door so I don’t know how residents without one would manage unless they put it in a nearby window.

It’s quite gimmicky and I couldn’t wait to install one on my door. Here’s a couple of pictures I took. 

As you see, the notices are called DOORSTOPPERS – dead original! Note the warning to unwanted traders: ‘SORRY, I DON’T RECOGNISE YOU, I’M NOT LETTING YOU IN’. And it works... leastways let me say that there have been fewer callers at MY door since the notice appeared. Did I say fewer? I’ll rectify that – in actual fact I believe it has stopped the callers altogether. Time will tell, of course.