I put one on my college apartment door and it was a GODSEND.
I thought of putting one up at my house (I never buy anything from people going from door to door anyway, why my and the sellers’ time?), but think they look tacky.
Do others think they look tacky? If so, why?
I had a “no soliciting” sign on my apartment door back in college. Before I put it up, I had to deal with at least three or four solicitors per week. And they’d always knock right as I was sitting down to eat dinner!
As to whether the sign looked tacky – who cares? It made my life a lot simpler (although about once a month some joker would ignore the sign and knock anyway).
It looks tacky because the display of the sign says “There are undesirable people wandering around the street bothering the residents and trying to weasel them out of some money.” The sign also says “There are unfriendly people living here who don’t want to meet anyone new.” It doesn’t say anything upbeat.
Now if you could think of a different way to phrase it (i.e. “Thank you for not smoking” instead of “No Smoking!”). Maybe “Wandering scam artists are kindly requested to make an appointment before approaching my pit bull.”
Funny, I’d’a thunk the point of a sign meant to keep away religious door-to-door types would be a GOD-NO-SEND.
More positive… how 'bout “Thank you for not trying to sell me shit”?
I don’t get the number of door-to-door sales types I did in college. I didn’t have any money then. Why the number of sales people hitting up cashless people? Maybe cuz college kids get suckered into doing door-to-door magazine sales and they stick in their neighborhoods. Maybe college kids actually buy the shit.
Actually Bryan, I had to specifically list church types on the sign (I printed one out on the printer – too cheap to buy one). So GODSEND really wasn’t the right word. Unless God doesn’t like door-to-door God types (and he doesn’t if there’s any justice in the world).
The problem on our campus was coming home each day and finding a dozen flyers for pizza and other food places stuffed in the crevice of our apartment door. We came up with the solution of placing a plastic container on the wall with the sign “Please place all flyers here so that they are not lost” Worked great - once a week, we would just empty the container into the trash 
My friend Denis lives in a very nice, upscale neighborhood, with several roommates. They’ve got a very nice carved wooden sign next to their door:
“No Soliciting- Except Cookies”.
Now THAT’S class.
In a similar vein is what I did when I used to get a lot of teenaged door-to-door Evening Outlook and candy vendors.
I just put up a sign that said No candy or “Evening Outlook” wanted", and it worked like a charm.
Touching on that, you’d think that whoever organizes those underprivileged kids into door-to-door sales teams could give them something else to sell. A lot of people don’t eat candy. The same with newpapers. If you’re not already subscribing to one, you probably don’t want one anyway. If you do subscribe, why would you need another?
I always feel bad turning down those kids, but I just don’t want those things, at all.
I think it’s because it makes you look cheap. I’m not much bothered by solicitors at home - I live pretty far out and on the last house on a dead-end street. plus I have 5 large dogs. The next door neighbor kid comes over 1-2 times a year to sell junk for school. I buy one small item and it maitains friendly neighbor relations. No other kids come to my door. However, I HATE having to run the gamut of solicitors outside Wal-Mart, K-Mart and the grocery store. Religious organizations (I give to my church, thank you), Vietnam Vets (all my brothers and brothers-in-law are Vietnam era veterns. None of them are asking for a handout), Salvation Army ( they pay those bell ringers, they aren’t volunteers), various school organizations. LEAVE ME ALONE! I just need toothpaste and dogfood.
I have charities I donate to. When I couldn’t afford to donate money, I cleaned the church for free and did the bulletin and donated blood at the Red Cross. I don’t appreciate people in my face expecting to guilt me out of money. And it doesn’t work, not with me.
StG