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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To dislike strangers knocking on my door

248 replies

lizzieoak · 12/10/2017 20:43

Last night I was home alone & the porch light was off (about 9:00pm). I wasn't expecting anyone and someone knocked on my door (which is glass). There was a pause then another (quite firm) knock. And again. They stood out there for what felt like a few minutes. I had lights on, tv on, car in the drive.

I didn't feel safe opening the door - safe area, but I don't feel anywhere is 100% safe for women.

After they left I peaked out and could see a man and woman walking down the road & they didn't go anywhere else. So not door to door charities/home reno businesses (get a lot of that here).

Today I was home w my tall teenage ds & someone knocked on the door. I called out "I'll get it", sort of expected neighbours - this time it was someone trying to sell yard services (had a jacket on w name of company).

Aside from being annoyed at people pestering us for things I can't afford/random people knocking who knows why, does anyone else find it frightening when someone knocks on the door (when you have no adult male around)?

OP posts:
formerbabe · 13/10/2017 16:24

You'd have opened your door at 10pm when you're home alone to an unknown man who was begging for money?! Well, more fool you!

Slimthistime · 13/10/2017 16:25

Blunt "I quite like getting jehovahs witnesses"

doing your accounts, Mr Black? Grin

reet - fair enough, you can open your door, but round here there's been a couple of incidents of people being attacked after opening the door. Domestic violence can happen anywhere.

as I say, I know some of my neighbours (big blocks of flats all round here) but could be anyone I don't know and we've also had a couple of homeless people try to sleep on the stairs etc. I am not having a go at those homeless people, I'm sure I'd try that too. I'm just saying I don't understand why some MNers don't understand why anyone would choose NOT to open the door to a stranger. There are many reasons and they are perfectly valid.

formerbabe · 13/10/2017 16:29

That's all fine, but if he had come to my door the chances are I would have said no, closed the door, all well

Not necessarily. What if he got angry and tried to come in? What if he saw some expensive possessions in the house and tried to come in to grab them?

mintteaandbananabread · 13/10/2017 16:34

I don't have any expensive possessions and I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself.
But you what if about anything, doesn't mean there is any particular chance of it happening.

For me, the good things about being a door opener outweigh the bad. For you, maybe it's the opposite. Both are perfectly fine stances to have.

formerbabe · 13/10/2017 16:38

There's really going to be no advantages to opening the door at night to an unknown man. Would you get into an unlicensed minicab? If you were single and doing online dating, would you go round to the home of a man you'd never met? Despite your insistence that you can "look after yourself", I doubt you'd do those things. It's about basic safety.

Original poster
lizzieoak · 13/10/2017 17:00

Mint, you don't live in the U.K., but surely wherever you are it's not normal to knock on a strangers door at night asking for spare cash? Does that not strike you as odd behaviour? It does me, and I don't want to chat to people who have odd ideas about reality.

For most of us I think it would be the case we'd wonder about the grip of someone who thought knocking on strangers' doors was a good way to drum up money (versus begging on the high street, which, I will grant, can earn £).

OP posts:
helpmefast · 13/10/2017 17:51

My neighbours like this- I once had a package for her for 2 freaking months before sending it back because she'd never open the door to claim it and I'm not stupid to leave it somewhere it could get stolen so I sent it back to the company, 2 days after I sent it back she came around and asked if i had it Angry (she had my cell number and 5 notes put through the door as well, and yet she STILL wouldn't open the damn door)

Bluntness100 · 13/10/2017 19:11

To be fair my neighbour has a bit of previous for this but I think she just doesn’t hear the door, I’m not really sure, but she tends to not answer it quite often which results in me getting her packages. I suspect she also only answers when it’s convenient, however she is lovely, so I don’t mind.

I clearly remember as a kid there was an older couple , prob in their sixties, two doors up who didn’t answer the door of an evening, trick or treating, parcels, neighbour stuff, any callers, they were clearly in and simply did not answer. All the adults thought them weird and laughed about it, but I suspect now reading this thread there was more to why they would lock them selves in of a night and I feel a bit sorry for them, although this was late seventies so they will be long gone by now. What it does show is there has always been people who do this.

abigailgabble · 13/10/2017 19:41

scares the shit out of me (when I’m home alone with the baby aka 6/9 nights). our kitchen window has useless blinds and looks onto our front garden. so you could come in through my gate (we are in the countryside so outside is pitch) and stand in my front garden with a perfect view of whatever was happening in my kitchen completely undetected Angry I mean why the hell would you want to but that kind of logic does not apply when I’m getting the willies of an evening. so this weekend I’m having DP fix a bolt to the gate so there will be no getting in unless i day so.

AndrewJames · 13/10/2017 19:47

but surely wherever you are it's not normal to knock on a strangers door at night asking for spare cash?

It's never happened and I doubt it ever will. Which is yet more reason I would open the door! It's never anyone who annoys me.

Slimthistime · 13/10/2017 20:05

Bluntness you mention trick or treating
Why would anyone think it's okay to go around ringing doorbells asking for sweets?
This was in the 70s? I thought it was a relatively modern problem but maybe I'm wrong.

Also, all this "we could see they were in" - they could be having a shag, taking a dump, meditating, working out, in the bath, sleeping...anything.

It's only since I've been on MN that I've heard a lot of people answer the door every time and think it's weird not to. I had one flat mate who did it but she also thought it was fine to leave the back door open in a really rough part of town and was almost permanently drunk, which definitely affected her decisions Grin

Tapandgo · 13/10/2017 20:32

I won't answer the door if I don't want to - not through fear, just because I prefer to control my own activities. Not so much bothered during the day if I'm up and around - but if I'm settled at night watching TV, then no - they can come back at a more sensible time.

I never answer to trick or treaters - pain in the butt having to get up and down answering the door to other people's kids. We just go to
the pub instead.

Bluntness100 · 13/10/2017 20:45

Trick or treating I get, but the point was they never answered, to anyone, ever...this was Glasgow in the seventies, and I doubt they were meditating or working out, you didn’t get so much of that then, you could see and hear the telly. As their house was the same as ours, with one loo, only one of them could have been taking a dump, and it would be unlikely the other one was sleeping at the same time , every single time someone came to the door,,,Grin

Yes, I’m forty eight and I trick or treated with a parent when I was little, all the kids did, it was the norm where I lived, all the local kids did. I think it’s only recent years it’s become frowned upon, but I’m not sure.

However again, trick or treating is a red herring, they never answered the door and it was a bit of a standing joke with the adults, and the kids thought them the creepy people who didn’t answer the door.

In my world, which is quite extensive just real life , everyone answers the door. Other than those people when I was a kid, I’ve never known anyone not to, even as students flat sharing we all answered the door and would think it weird as fuck if one of us refused to.

Tapandgo · 13/10/2017 21:11

I can't get the idea that you have to stop what you are doing to attend to some random person at the door. Your house, your door, your choice. Deliveries come in the daytime, pals text first and neighbours generally ring to ask things. It's no different from the phone - sometime I'll let it go to messages - and deal with it later if I'm engaged in something else.

AndrewJames · 13/10/2017 21:48

Why would anyone think it's okay to go around ringing doorbells asking for sweets?

Cos in the real world, it is?

coddiwomple · 13/10/2017 21:57

Why would anyone think it's okay to go around ringing doorbells asking for sweets?

Cos in the real world, it is?

It most certainly is not, and that's why in London houses who are happy to be involved in Halloween put pumpkins on their doorstep. No pumpkin = no begging. I thought it was the same everywhere, but apparently not.

If someone rings the bell in the middle of the night, I find it safer to open an upstairs window, so they won't force the door open thinking the house is empty!

bingbongnoise · 13/10/2017 22:01

'You are statistically more likely to get attacked by your partner than someone knocking at your door.'

What kind of wanky analogy is this?

I am 'statistically more likely' to get attacked by opening the door to strangers at 10 at night than I am to get attacked by my own partner. Especially as my partner/husband has never laid a finger on me in 25 years. Hmm

Stupid analogy!

isawahatonce · 13/10/2017 22:08

I live with housemates who don't feel the need to tell me when they've got parcels being delivered and the front door leads into my bedroom (there's a porch in between) so I always open the door in case it's a delivery. I absolutely hate it when someone knocks on the door trying to get money out of me - it happens quite a lot and I never know what to say, I'm really awkward. If it weren't for potential deliveries, I wouldn't answer the front door at all - visitors know to use the side door.

Escapepeas · 13/10/2017 22:09

It’s not an analogy, it’s a statement of fact. Just because your OH isn’t violent doesn’t mean others aren’t. The possibility of someone being attacked by a stranger after answering their door is vanishingly small, but highly publicised cases where it has happened makes people think it’s commonplace.

99 times out of 100, if someone comes to your front door indending trouble, they are known to you, so neighbour disputes, former partners etc. To suggest that no one should ever answer their front door in case of these ignores the fact that most people never have these kind of issues.

bingbongnoise · 13/10/2017 22:13

Please do provide a link to this STATEMENT OF FACT.......

biscuiteater · 13/10/2017 22:15

We have a stair gate across our door so more difficult for anyone to push their way in. A lot of visitors can't get out without help either! Rarely get random house calls though.

SupermarketSally · 13/10/2017 22:16

We have this all the time. It's usually JW or sales/charity people, there was even somebody trying to sell well known recipe boxes wearing the other day at 7.30pm in the dark.

It's not only annoying, it's rude and disruptive

SupermarketSally · 13/10/2017 22:17

Wearing aprons that should say Hmm

Bluntness100 · 13/10/2017 22:20

We have a stair gate across our door so more difficult for anyone to push their way in

Am curious as to why?

ReanimatedSGB · 13/10/2017 22:20

Funnily enough the one time I will cheerfully answer the door is Halloween. Always have a load of pound shop sweets in for trick-or-treaters.

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