Friday afternoon we had a knock at our door. Chad goes to answer it and it's a young guy going around from a carpet cleaning company. They're new in town and are offering a deal, they'll clean one room for free! Can he come in and take a look at our most high traffic area?
Yeah, sure, why not, right? So he comes in our doorway and briefly tells us about their magical foam cleaning that they do, someone can be here in 10 minutes to clean our carpets! Then his attention shifts to all of our electronics that we have out. And we literally had all of them out, in one spot, right in front of him. Chad's camera gear catches his fancy and suddenly he forgets all about the carpets and starts asking Chad questions about his photography. Then he wants to know what kind of dog we have. All the while, eyeing all of our stuff.
We decline the free cleaning and ask for a brochure that he said he had with prices and such. Except for now he doesn't have any. He doesn't have a brochure, pamphlet, not even a business card. So he leaves and goes to our neighbors house and we are sitting, looking at each other, thinking... he just cased our house.
So being the crazy people we are, we run around the house, double checking all the locks on the windows and doors and then came back and still felt pretty awful. We knew for a fact this little twerp just put us on his "To Rob" list.
So instead of feeling super paranoid the rest of the night, we called the police. They were here in less than 10 minutes, said it sounded a little fishy to them too, and went and checked it out.
Luckily they checked out, one of the guys going around had a business license, or whatever type of license you need. We were happy that they were legit and that we didn't need to be paranoid the rest of the night, although we may have packed up all of our things and took them with us when we went out to Subway that night. Because we've seen It Takes a Thief and know that 5 minutes is just long enough. Paranoid much?
I think you did the right thing. Maybe from now on only let them in if they have a business card, a brochure, and maybe even ask to see their city issued business license that allows them to sell door-to-door. I don't know about St. George but most cities in Utah require door-to-door salesmen to carry them.
ReplyDeleteI don't let anyone in my house. Anyone can get a business license. You just go apply and pay a fee. If I want to talk with them, I step outside to talk. I would keep my doors locked. In fact, I might be paranoid enough to leave a sign on the door that says, "Dear pretend carpet cleaning man...I now have that lovely camera you were eyeing hooked up for to send pics to the police. Get a real job!"
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