Just USE THE DOORBELL

[freespirit333]

Does anyone else have a doorbell (a Ring Doorbell no less) and people just don’t use it?! And use the knocker instead? It drives me nuts as 1. The knocker isn’t as loud and 2. If I’m unable to answer, if they use the ring doorbell, I can speak to them. Can’t do that if they knock!

Just missed a Royal Mail parcel, didn’t even hear anyone at the door. Checked my footage and no ring, just a half arsed tap with the knocker.

In their defense you do have two means of getting attention at the door and often doorbells don't work so it's probably less time consuming for delivery drivers to just knock. Remove the door knocker if it's no longer in use!

Just to add - this is all fine apart from the odd person who does a single tap with the knocker. Just lifting it and letting it fall once. Was it a knock at the door or a random house sound? Who can tell! Fucking idiots.

Yes this really winds me up! I've been in trouble with our Housing Association before when they were sending someone around for the annual gas safety check and apparently missed us. We were home ALL day and nobody rang the doorbell, which is very loud and can be heard from every room in the house and from the back garden! They stand tapping lightly at the front door instead and then wonder why nobody bloody answers!

Ha yes one of our delivery drivers goes that. It's a huge iron knocker and SO loud. So he rings the bell which makes our large dog bark extremely loudly, plus he raps on the door extra hard as well. If I'm having a quiet moment or a nap it's quite an awakening!

We have a knocker, no doorbell. Most people don't use it and bang on the bloody door. Then at the other end of the scale, there's the local postie. I was in the hall at 8am on a Saturday morning when I saw him through the frosted glass. He tapped so lightly on the door, I only just heard him even though I was in the hall. I opened the door and asked why he didn't knock louder. His response was that he didn't want to disturb us It would disturb us more having to go and collect the bloody parcel!

This. With modern well-sealed front doors, the person on the outside often cannot hear the bell sounding inside, so as far as they are concerned, it has not worked. I miss the old doorbells which actually had a bell that you could hear, both inside and outside.

I have a lovely brass bell with a pull handle, which about 50% of delivery drivers use. On Hallowe'en, I extend it with a rope so that the children can reach it, with a little sign saying "ring if you dare".

But then again, with all the threads "AIBU never to answer my door?", I thought the Mumsnet protocol was that you never knocked or rang on anybody's door, without making an appointment three months in advance...

We even have a red sign that says 'Doorbell' with an arrow. They STILL don't use it!

The reason deliver drivers don't use the doorbell is because so many don't work and they've got fed up of standing there waiting and had to resort to knocking the door instead

Therefore they just bypass the doorbell and knock first time. Makes sense when you've got two hundred parcels to deliver and limited time

I asked a delivery driver once why he (/they!) don't use our Ring doorbell and he said he can't be bothered to get involved in lengthy conversations through the speaker.

I would always just knock as I wouldn't want to be recorded.

But Ring doorbells are motion activated, so you're being recorded regardless of whether you ring or not! This seems to be a real misunderstanding from people, that they're only activated by pressing the bell...

I opted to update all the services with a ‘leave on secure porch’ note (DPD, Evri, Royal Mail) allow this, and also set my Ring Doorbell to alert me when there is someone approaching the door.

My experience was that even when we updated our door to one without a door knocker, the still don’t bother with the bell. They dump, photograph, and run now. It’s my dogs that alert me to deliveries even before the Ring app!

I have a doorbell 9not Ring) that works perfectly well but the vast majority of people knock on my door - WHY?

I can't hear it as well so have missed deliveries which has entailed trekking somewhere to pick them up - just because they didn't use the bloody bell!

Makes me so angry.

Presumably you wouldn't shout if you were a delivery person, though?

YANBU - we have a conventional doorbell (DH very anti ring) and no knocker. Sometimes people just lightly tap on the glass on the door and it drives me insane.

We have a pvc door with no knocker - drives me nuts that everyone ignores the doorbell!
We had to put up a sign to please ring the doorbell after my husband missed a tesco delivery because they knocked the door and he was on the 3rd on a work call and didn't hear... the door bell is connected to his office so no way for him to miss it!

They all do it and it’s infuriating! We’re both disabled in my house and them refusing to use the bell causes lots of problems for us :(

This. I don't have a doorbell but the knocker is right at eye level. All delivery people insist on banging on the door with their knuckles! Why? The knocker is louder! I'm not going to hear a 3 second tap when I'm upstairs!

YANBU

We have a perfectly good bell, no knocker, but the vast majority of delivery drivers bang on the door and leave the white surface and glass filthy - so annoying

Think I will have to get one of these off eBay...

We've only got a door knocker, people mostly prefer to hammer on the door frame or glass either side of it, with their fists. Can't. Bloody. Fathom. It.

Thing is, would you rather have a dirty door-that you can clean- or an ugly notice on your door.

Ooh, I need one of those too...

Haven't RTFT but I often wonder if people default to knocking (or hammering!) because some people's doorbells don't work. You'd think they'd try, though.

Haven't RTFT but I often wonder if people default to knocking (or hammering!) because some people's doorbells don't work. You'd think they'd try, though.

Some of us have pointed out that our doorbell can't be heard from outside so the delivery person doesn't know if it's working or not.

They have very tight schedules and don't have time to stand and wait and then try knocking so they go straight to hammering on the door. Understandable really!

I have a Eufy one with a big notice on it saying DOORBELL.

Still people knock, or more often tap lightly on the door.

People just are idiots is my conclusion.

I mean this is true in a lot of houses. Many doorbells don't work, or you can't hear if they worked.

I think pressing the doorbell and knocking is acceptable. But ignoring the doorbell altogether is
infuriating!

I don't mind if delivery drivers don't wait around, but if they're going to leave my parcel on the step, pressing our lovely, loud, mains-wired doorbell would alert me to it wherever I am in the house.