Free Printable No Soliciting Sign – except Scouts (we love them)!
Free Printable No Soliciting Unless you’re a Scout Sign – Opens in a new window
So, do you want to know why I made this Free Printable No Soliciting Sign to share with the world? I am sitting at my desk trying to work and this young woman in her early 20’s strolls up to my house and rings the doorbell. I can see her from my office. I don’t recognize her and she is hauling a clipboard. I am guessing that she is probably selling something. I am too busy to deal with a solicitor, so I ignore the doorbell. She rings it again. I continue to ignore it. Finally, she starts banging on the door. You would think after 3 rounds with the doorbell I am REALLY either not interested or not home. She begins to bang on the door… hard. I ignore it until she does it the third time.
I stomp to the door. She has to hear my footsteps, as I am fuming by now, kicking myself for not having gotten a no soliciting sign yet. I throw open the door and my cat goes darting out. She just stands there staring while I retrieve the run-away kitten. If I don’t catch him, I could face a fine in my neighborhood. He doesn’t want to be caught, so I end up with scratches.
While I am wrestling with the cat, the “conversation” goes something like this:
Her: “Are you the mom of the house?”
Me :”Just tell me what you are selling.”
Her: “I am the neighborhood book lady and I sell children’s books.” It’s clear she’s not from MY neighborhood, she’s not MY neighborhood’s book lady.
Me: “My kids have outgrown children’s books.” I begin to shut the door as the cat almost made it out again and I am obviously not interested.
Her: (Grabs the screen door to keep me from closing it.) “Can you tell me which ones of these people are empty nesters so I don’t waste my time?”
Me: I am still fighting with a restless kitten that scratches the mess out of me trying to get to the door. At this point, I could care less about HER time. She obviously doesn’t care about mine. However, my next door neighbor is gravely ill and on hospice. I don’t want them troubled. The rest of them are not at home or have no children. I do tell her to avoid the house will the sick neighbor, but tell her I don’t know what my neighbors would be interested in.
Her: (Pressing the issue) “You don’t know which of your neighbors have small children?”
Me: My kids are too old to play with small children, so, as I said, you will just have to ask them yourself – and I promptly get scratched… again.
This girl just couldn’t take a hint and, by this point, I would not buy water from her if I was on fire!
Now, my family loves scouts. I will buy girl scout cookies all day long – and have bought them from more than one girl in a season. In fact, my own daughter is a scout. Last year, we bought over $100 worth of cookies from her – and then still bought from each of the scouts that visited us. I gave them away on the site. I also buy Christmas wreaths from the boy scouts. My own kids are in school, so I don’t buy all the school sales stuff unless I get it from them. If a politician comes to my door, he or she just lost my vote (if they had it to begin with). I don’t donate to door-to-door charities. I give through local charities I am familiar with and the only people I talk religion with is my friends or family. In short, if you are a solicitor, I don’t need what your selling (unless you are selling cookies or wreaths for the scouts.)
However, try as I might, I could find no pre-made no soliciting signs that excluded scouts from the warning. I also wanted my no soliciting sign to explicitly mention that I don’t contact from schools, politicians, charities, surveys, petitioners, religious people or sales people. I obviously needed to customize my very own sign.
At any rate, I went through the effort to print up a no soliciting sign for my front door. I thought I would share it with like-minded people who don’t welcome solicitors, but don’t mind scouts. You can either click on the picture above, or download it from right here. Enjoy the Free Printable No Soliciting Sign – and hopefully, it will stave off the solicitors!
Now, if I could just get the phone book people to also abide by this!
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