20 Sep What can I do about door-to-door salespeople?

Q. What can I do about people who go door-to-door offering driveway sealant work, roofing, siding, etc.?
— Annoyed homeowner

A. I personally will never, ever, hire a door-knocker.

Home improvement salespeople will often knock and say something like: “We are doing work at your neighbor’s house, and we noticed your driveway/roof/windows could use some work.”

All of the statements may be true. The company may be doing work for a neighbor. Maybe your home could use some updates.

But really, if a company is in demand and good at what it does, it’s often hard for a consumer to get quick service. Maybe the door-knocker is the best contractor in town, but we doubt it.

Before you hire anyone, you should do research on the company, check for complaints about it and get multiple estimates to compare options. If you hire a door-knocker, you probably won’t have that time and you’re probably going to be pushed to make decisions too fast to do any research.

So how do you stop them from knocking?

Well, some towns do have local ordinances making it illegal. Some have created “do not knock” lists that salespeople are supposed to follow. Check with your town to see what ordinances it may have, and if it doesn’t have any, perhaps you can get your local government to enact one.

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This story was originally published in September 2024.

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