Sunday 13 January 2013

Kerb house numbers

We ended up with some fluoro orange kerb numbers just before Christmas. It symbolises my complete lack of backbone when it comes to hawkers.

I was at home one afternoon with the boys when we answered the door to a guy who was hawking his kerb painting services.

Painting services equals spray painting a stencil of your house number on the kerb in reflective paint...to make it is easy to identify your house at night.

The kerb number guy rattled off his well-rehearsed spiel about how kerb numbers saved his son's life when the kid had a life-threatening illness and emergency services nearly missed their home. It was a rather melodramatic tale where he promised himself that no child should ever be in his son's situation.

And then we got the 'down-on-my-luck' story about how hard it was to make a living in these hard financial times...needless to say the sob stories were coming thick and fast...and he wasn't going to take no for an answer. He was determined to make a sale.

My standard excuse of not having cash on me didn't work either (and it was actually true in this situation). He told me that I could go to the nearest ATM to get the money out, as he was prepared to wait. I really wanted to tell him to bugger off at this stage because he was so freakin' Pushy. With a capital P.

He needed to go to Charm School...cute and charming is always a winner.

In the end it was just easier to scrounge $30 change from our coin jar to get rid of him...hence the lack of backbone.

Moral of the story: if you knock on my door with a sob story, I'll probably give you coins from my small change jar!

At least the numbers are in my favourite fluoro colour...

8 comments:

  1. You are so not alone in your (putative) spinelessness (actually I don't think it's that at all). It's the hardest thing, to send someone away. I find that if I can say 'no' before the spiel starts, then I'm safe. For every word that gets uttered it becomes exponentially harder to say no. I hope you can enjoy the colour rather than worry about feeling you should have told him to bugger off.

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  2. I take the dog - dalmatian - to the door and hold her back from licking said sales person to death - its a struggle to pitch with a dog giving you so much attention :) le xox

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  3. Don't feel bad. Just means you're empathetic and kind. Are people allowed to spray paint public property like that?

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  4. I no longer get sucked in after putting up with constant door to door sellers in our previous suburb. Hubs and I finally wised up and used the technique of politely saying no thank you and closing the door.
    I hope he did his paint job where a car can't park therefor blocking it's effectiveness?

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  5. You may feel coerced but having the number painted is a good thing. My hubby was very ill a few years ago and the ambos found our place quickly because of the number painted. Hopefully you'll never have use for it but it's a cheap insurance when minutes count. Interestingly we found most people had their numbers done too...I think ours were offered by our local council though.
    X kl

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  6. I think it's a good thing to have house numbers painted on the curb. I have had mine done. I recently bought new house numbers and a matching stencil to paint the curb numbers. I have the house numbers up already, but I need to buy the reflective paint for the curb numbers.

    I avoid spiels by simply not going to the door if I'm not expecting someone...but if I accidentally get caught unawares, I have no trouble closing the door in a pushy person's face.

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  7. Bring on the "Do not knock" register!! He probably charged the pensioner down the road $60! Another thing is that it makes your house more identifiable to pushy sales people once they see the newly spray painted kerb with fluro paint.

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  8. You're not alone...

    Annie... It seems logical for the numbers to be on the curb of your driveway entry so no vehicles can park in that area, I would think.

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