Man knocking on door

[foxychox]

More of a WWYD....
this started a couple of weeks ago. The door went in the middle of the day, answered it to a middle aged guy, fairly well dressed, who wanted to chat about the recent pavement replacement work. At first I thought he was from the contractor that had done the work but when I realised he was not I got rid of him pretty quickly and didn't think much of it. Last week he passed our house while we were having some ballast delivered. Once the delivery was complete he rang the door bell and wanted a chat about what we are having done to require ballast. Again, got rid of him pretty sharpish and mentioned it to my husband. On Saturday he turned up again and tried to chat to my husband about a "festival" taking place in a cul de sac down the road.

Today he rang the doorbell twice, I was in a call and my daughters know better than to answer without my permission so it went unanswered, my eldest watched on the doorbell camera though.
What would you do? He's probably harmless but I don't want him disturbing me or for this to potentially escalate.

Appreciate your thoughts, thank you!

Is he a new neighbour or something?

Depends who is he. How long do you live there ? Can you ask your neighbors about him?

Maybe he has some sort of learning difficulty and he's trying (clumsily) to make friends?

Is this a neighbour?

Surely you have asked him who he is?

Just tell him to go away.

If he doesn't inform the local cop shop.

He might be harmless, might have mental health issues.

Who knows.

I would politely tell him to stop ringing your doorbell as you work from home and it's distracting. And keep telling him until he gets the message.

This just made me think of Jim from Friday Night Dinner.
No sensible suggestions sorry!

I wouldn’t answer the door to him again until your husband is home. The first question needs to be “Who are you?” The second “Why are you asking?” After that if he continues to knock after being asked not to, it’s a matter for the police?

I have a neighbour like this but I’m used to her and know she’s harmless. I would probably just not answer and hope he gets fed up. If he doesn’t stop you’ll have to tell him.

He's not a prospective MP is he? They do this sort of thing.

Why do you answer the door to him if you can see who's there on the doorcam?

Maybe I missed something.

@TwoLeftSocksWithHoles

He's not a prospective MP is he? They do this sort of thing. grin

You must have asked who he is?

Thanks for replies. To answer a few points, he said he lives down the road and we have no reason to disbelieve that but people don't often pootle up and down the road. We're in London so knocking on other peoples doors is very unusual and we are probably a bit more suspicious of motives than people might be in other parts of the country.
Re the camera, yes using it now but prior to this would just open the door as likely it was a delivery or my in law's dropping something in.
I'm going to continue not opening the door and hopefully he gets the message....

I wouldn’t feel comfortable about it, but it could well just be a lonely man. Still, it’s not your problem.

I would ignore it.

When you say he wants to 'chat' about these things, is he just kind of randomly chatting about them socially or does he give some sort of reason/pretext for it? I guess what I'm asking is if he would say 'Hi, sorry to bother you, but I just wondered if you'd been bothered by the disruption from the pavement replacement works, as a few of the other neighbours are thinking of making a complaint and we wondered if you'd want to add your name to that?' or something like that, or would it be more like 'Hi. I see they've replaced the pavement then. That took them long enough, didn't it? Still, looks a lot better now. Nice weather we're having today isn't it?'

If it's the former, I'd say he's maybe just a slightly obsessive busybody who likes getting involved in everything, the type who would set up a neighbourhood watch group or form a jubilee street party committee and be really officious about it. If it's more the latter, then I think he's a lonely bloke with poor social skills. Either way, I would definitely stop answering the door if you know it's him. I would feel uncomfortable too, and a bit irritated at the interruptions to my work/day.

Are you friendly/on speaking terms with any of your other neighbours? If so, might be worth asking if he's been knocking on their doors too. Because I do think there's a big difference between a lonely man who knocks on everyone's doors and a lonely man who only knocks on your door - I'd be uncomfortable about both to be honest but a lot more uncomfortable if my house was being singled out.

Just tell him to sling his hook and not to come bothering you again.

It's just general chatting. I will ask the neighbours if I see them but won't make a special trip to do so. For now just using the camera prior to opening the door :)