We live on a small cul-de-sac off a busy road. Our house has a long driveway and is barely visible from the street, through the trees. Our neighborhood is so quiet that we don't even get trick-or-treaters for Halloween. Weeks can go by without our seeing the neighbors outside their cars.
One winter night, several years ago, we heard a knock at the door. A young woman stood on our porch. She was dressed roughly, wearing work boots, jeans, and a flannel shirt. She held a baby in her arms. She told us about having been kicked out of her house by her abusive husband, and about her family in the western part of the state. She asked us for money for her trip. I gave her ten dollars. She thanked us and left. "That was strange," we said afterwards. "But we've done a good deed."
A year or so later, again around 10:00 at night, we heard another knock at the door. Our visitor was a young woman holding a toddler. She told us a story that sounded familiar... This time there was no hand-out. A good grifter should at least make the effort to remember whom she's scammed in the past.
Another night we saw the headlights of two cars on our street. The second car was a police cruiser with lights flashing. The first car turned down our driveway and stopped outside our garage. The police car remained on the street. We opened the front door to find a disheveled man who spoke to us softly and urgently--he wanted to come inside. (Even after fifteen years living in the South, we're still not completely fluent with the patois; it took almost a minute for us to figure out his request.) The man asked us to pretend that he was our friend and that he'd just arrived for a visit. He'd stay only a short while, until the police car left.
This, we thought, went beyond the bounds of ordinary hospitality to strangers. Eventually the man left. A short time later a police officer came to our door. He told us that he'd taken our visitor into custody. He didn't say why. The officer would drive the man's car back up the driveway to the street, and one of the man's friends would stop by to retrieve the car the next day. This happened without incident.
One afternoon, while my wife was working in the front yard, a young man stopped by the house to talk to her about house maintenance and repairs. Would we be interested in replacing our windows? We've had this task on our to-do list for some years (it remains on the list to this day) and my wife arranged for an evening visit from a salesperson to talk about our windows.
I arrived home from work a few nights later, around 7:00. The salesman had already arrived. He'd taken off his blazer and unpacked his wares: vinyl windows. He showed us binders full of customer testimonials. He demonstrated, with the help of a hair dryer and thermometer, how energy efficient the windows were. He banged on his window samples with a rubber mallet. His pitch went on for some time.
At the hour-and-a-half mark, I told the salesman he'd have to wrap up. We needed to get to dinner. He reacted with shock. "I've never been given so little time to make this presentation!" At this point our dining room seemed to transform itself into the showroom of a used car dealership. The salesman began writing down numbers on a scrap of paper.
"Would you buy these windows tonight at this price?"
"No," I said. "We're not going to make any decision right now. We'll need a few days to think about it."
"I could add this special, one-time discount to bring the total down. Now would you buy?"
"If you leave the offer with us, we'll get back to you."
The salesman even resorted to calling his district manager to ask for permission to apply further discounts. We resisted, saying that we'd call him within the next few days. It took another half hour for the salesman to leave. He took everything with him, including his offers and his contact information. We were a lost sale.
I realized something during the visit from the polite but persistent vinyl window salesman: There are social conventions for dealing with people who visit your house, and if someone is willing to push the boundaries, it can be hard to know how to deal with them. I now know how to deal with three new situations, but I suspect that I'll learn about more in the future.
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Chicken Mãâàn
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Alan Milner
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The window salesman used the same technique employed by vacuum and pots and pans salesman and every other door to door peddler. Sometimes people sign up just to get rid of them. Oh -- and that's not a lot different from the way a lot of car dealers operate. Slice away everything else, and it's basically an appeal to the buyer's greed.
Once I was with my eight yr-old son when I was approached by a woman with a baby under her arm who pleaded for five dollars for gas to get home. Knowing the scam, I politely declined.
As I drove away, my son looked at me like I was a monster, so I explained to him how the scam worked. He didn't believe me, and not wishing to be thot a heartless bastard, I returned to the scene of the crime and offered the woman a five-gallon can of gas. Naturally, she declined and walked briskly away looking for another more compliant -- and foolish -- mark.
Gypsies winter in FL, and the gypsy scam is well-known there -- at least by those who pay attention. The men go around preying on the elderly with schemes to "restore" the asphalt on driveway (with spray-on drain oil or some such) or "patch" roofs that aren't leaking. Meanwhile, young attractive gypsy mothers are dispatched to prey upon the unsuspecting with the baby in tow ploy.
Sorry to sound so crass -- so Republican -- but every dollar wasted on grifters is a dollar that doesn't go to someone who truly needs it.
Having once sold vacuums and pots and pans, I knew how door-to-door peddling works. So when the Kirby salesman showed up at our door, I beat him up pretty bad. We got a new machine with attachments for $125 and an old broom -- since we had no old vacuum to trade-in. This was back in the late 60's, and retail on the machine at the time was around $750. But I assure you, the salesman still made some money on the deal. How's that for a profit margin?
My wife -- who'd been trained by her father to always wait 24 hours before making a deal -- didn't want to go for it, but I insisted. She was pissed. A month or so later, her uncle -- who prided himself on being the consummate horse- trader -- bragged about how he'd really put one over on the Kirby salesman by getting a vacuum for half-price -- $375. It was hard to hold back the laughter as I watched my wife's chagrined face.
Several weekends ago, a family showed up at our door--young guy, pretty wife, a kid or two in a stroller--to tell me they were "new to the neighborhood" (I'm pretty sure those were his exact words) and they were temporarily out of cash to start their M-Power prepaid electric meter. That's a problem in Phoenix, where summer temps routinely are 108-112 degrees.
I didn't give them anything, and made it clear that I doubted their story. They looked horrified at the very thought that their intentions could be so misconstrued, and left, presumably for the next house. I've felt guilty about it ever since.
But they didn't tell me their names or their address, and I didn't understand why they were parading their kids around in the heat. Why didn't mom and kids stay in the house, which, even if hot, would still be out of the direct sun? Why didn't the man introduce himself, offer to shake hands, and tell me exactly where he lived?
I'm so poor myself that, more and more, I err on the side of prudence rather than compassion.
Are you and Miguela trying to get me to buy a huge poodle, roberto? I'm starting to feel the pressure...
Ardee, I think that's exactly it. It's an immediate sale or nothing at all. But that has to say something about the quality of the product.
Hey, Abby, I half-wish I were in your shoes, still living in a city. I used to love the bustle, and I could tolerate the panhandlers pretty well. But I've been living in small towns for too many years now to go back for more than short periods. (Though I don't own a gun.)
That is the strangest story, Cindy! It does sound odd, and I wonder what I'd have thought about a clever scam like that.
Stim, I had a slightly different reaction: "Dude, you've had an hour and a half, and you're not finished yet?" The salesman didn't mention it, but I wonder if his usual target was retired people with lots of time on their hands?
Ric, you're not telling me that you're a barbarian, are you? I don't believe it. :-)
Hi, Candace. Thanks for the kind words. You're right that there are stories behind all of these people's actions, stories I don't know and don't have the skills to recreate. But they'd be interesting to hear about. I'll keep an eye out for yours.
In Europe I saw some gypsies, gaunt people...never approached me. The only one I interacted with was a fat happy one, no longer in The Life, on a train, who gave me and my friend a bottle of Holy Land wine. He was hoping to convert us to *Jesus*. You could say I (kinda, sorta) ripped off a gypsy!
Thanks for visiting, Joan, though I will say that in the future you should buzz first.
Hey, emma, I'd love to read your stories. I don't know why stories about grifting are so appealing to me, but I think it's universal.
Thanks for commenting, Mumbletypeg, dianaani, and Poppi Iceland. Grifters are everywhere, and I'm often a sucker for a good story. One with a detectable grain of truth, at least, as emma says.
Here's mine. My parents in their early 50's lived in a safe suburban community on Long Island. One night... also it was late like 2 AM, late for them, there was some hysteria at their front door and a loud knocking. They went down stairs but after my dad called the local police who knew them, and who were there within minutes.
"What's up?" my dad asked seeing these two very glamorous if sloppy drunken folks --male and female --fighting in words and looking to my parents for confirmation of one or another point as if they knew my parent's, their home etc.
The police was the the one who got it. They watched a soap opera, this odd couple, and my parents house, all white and oblong, looked like the house in the soap. Ergo: the couple were disturbed or just drunk enough to confuse reality with a soap, inside a broadcast my parents would be the last to know about. Amazing. hmm? Thank God the cop watched the same program.
So were your stories great, which set off this memory.R
60 Minutes did a piece on them several years ago, where the now grown children (who have American accents) went to DisneyWorld and checked in on Halloween. A woman had sex with her boyfriend, then allowed her brother to beat her with a sock full of rocks. The boyfriend dressed in a full body Halloween costume, knocked on their door and was admitted (the CCTV camera picked all this up). The woman called 911 an hour later to say she had been raped.
Disneyland almost paid out a $5 million dollar settlement to keep the event quiet until the sister of the victim spoke up, and informed because they had refused her any share of the loot.
Yes, beware, beware of strangers baring babies asking for money.
Thanks for the story, wendyo. Very strange! I'll sometimes play-act a fragment from a movie or TV show, but not at length, and not in someone else's house.
Interesting, Kate! I've only seen travellers in TV and movies. Quite an unconventional way to live.
Long and the short of it is that I have some prior construction trade experience and a 2" top coat of asphalt on a driveway of my size should run around $3500. Gypsy "special" price was $4400. Talked him down to $2300 and demanded a 3" layer. Got the wife back on the phone and told her to make the guy put it in writing and start the work. I showed up at the house a bit later. He was surprised to see me. I got a ruler and made sure the job was done properly and with fresh, not recycled, asphalt. Gypsy was not happy. Too bad.
An old logger who lived way out in the country was an acquaintance of mine and I stopped in once to pick up firewood. My knock at his front door was not well received. He told me that was the mark of a stranger and he not been so tired he would have gone down the hall first for his gun. The proper way to enter was one sharp knock at the back door then step in. That put his mind at ease that it was someone he knew.
As for living in the city which we do, my wife says we have never needed a big dog because she has me. I do not take kindly to strangers at the door unless they can pass my initial bark and have a needed and valid purpose.
That said, I end up a 'mark' a few times a day generally. There is something about me that must scream weak sister. Good on you both for telling people no.
Not even the JWs defy that one.
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al, saying No at the door is a fine idea. I try to apply it generally, whether it's people selling insurance, home repair, or salvation. But I'm not always successful.
Director, I look forward to hearing more about Beijing.
alsoknownas, I half-envy people who have the self-assurance of peddlers, but I also think, "There's no way I'm that kind of person." And that logger story! Holy crap. Is there more?
Julie, Sheila, and skypixie, I wonder if I have a visible-to-some tattoo that says I'm a soft touch. Maybe. I'd guess that at least half of the time when my wife and I go out to dinner downtown, we don't make it back to the car with any leftovers. Someone approaches us, and we give them away.
Okay, greenheron, Frazier, and Steve, I hadn't thought of these stories as being scary, but now I'm wondering. "The Strangers" was actually pretty terrifying, to me. I'm going through alternative outcomes and thinking, "It could have turned out much worse than it did." I guess it's time to invest in an ugly van and a huge poodle.
There is a time and a place for everything. I am open to commerce, to sales pitches in the commercial, public sphere. But I don't believe that the private sphere is the appropriate place to make such pitches. I can't even stomach television ads, which I consider a vulgar, psycho-commercial invasion into the private space.
I would and did.
To the religious proseltyzers, I called through the door that I am agonostic and not in the market for a God.
My ex-husband's Southern grandmother, however, was well known to welcome hungry vagrants at her kitchen door and always fed them. I suppose country tales of strangers at the door could fill volumes. Nice to read yours.