Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Unwanted junk through my letterbox...
This may have been raised on HoL before - apologies if this repeats, but does anyone else find the level of junk mail in Harringay somewhat tiresome?
I have a sign on my door, printed in plain English. It politely states that I do not want junk / unsolicited mail through my door, yet time and time again, it's ignored. I see lots of similar signs on other front doors on this road, and other ladder roads too. Clearly it's a big enough problem that numerous people have thought to put such signs up.
I get endless cab cards, pizza leaflets, take away leaflets, and now a whole magazine from Lidl. I don't even know where Lidl is, and I probably wouldn't shop there when there are so many good local shops on Green Lanes anyway!
It's easier to stop Spam email these days, than it is to stop unwanted junk through your own front door it would seem. There are laws governing Spam emails from UK companies at least, and generally, it's pretty easy to persuade an uneducated UK business that they need to abide by the bulk commercial email regulations.
What's equally annoying to unwanted things through my letterbox is that now my road (Allison) is littered with adverts for some crummy looking garage, as they popped flyers under the windscreen of every motor on the street. I crumpled mine up and put it in the bin, but others haven't been so kind to the poor pavement, and now there's lots of litter. My car might be getting on a little, but I'd certainly not take it somewhere that touted for business - a good garage has a good reputation and gets loyal customers in that way, without the need to litter our streets.
I've taken to phoning those responsible for this waste of tree fodder. I politely ask that they cease. Of course, I don't leave my exact address as that would probably be foolish. Yet still, the same cab cards, the same pizza cards and so on.
If I catch someone posting this through my door, I nip out and hand back the junk while tearing a few strips and pointing at the sign on my door... However when I'm out that's not possible.
What can be done about this?
I have two thoughts. The first is probably a little naughty, but the idea entertains me and it would probably provide the quickest route to the desired result: What if we all started to order services from these lovely business owners? Cabs to Luton, Gatwick, Stanstead to pick up a Mr Smith on the flight from nowhere... Pizzas ordered for delivery to Mr T Axi at the local offending cab shop, that kind of thing. Perhaps if every round of these unwanted leaflets / cards / menus were met by a whole heap of such return fire, the practice of advertising generally crummy looking services to those who clearly do not want to be advertised to would stop. That's my plan for a direct action approach, but I'm not sure if it's acceptable or not, so haven't taken such a step yet. The more this happens however, the closer I get!
The second idea is that we ask HC to erect signs at each end of a road, to state that residents do not want cold callers, door to door marketing and so on. But is that enforceable, and is anyone going to take note of a sign at one end of a road if they can't be bothered to read signs on many of the doors? Indeed do some people actually want the door to door sales people calling etc.?
Maybe nobody else really cares, but I thought I'd ask HoLers to see what other local opinions are.
Tags for Forum Posts: junk mail
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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"that was an excellent read and thoroughly absorbent", yes I am trying to get my family to switch to using newspapers instead of kitchen and toilet roll. They're very reluctant so far but perhaps I just haven't found a newspaper that's absorbent enough.
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Permalink Reply by Abi on
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I read it from cover to cover while suffering with a fever recently as it was the only thing to hand at 4am when I couldn't sleep. It was the recent 'cuts' edition and certainly didn't aid my recovery any... *shudder*
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Permalink Reply by Joe Bailey on
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Thanks for the link - just ordered one :-)
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Permalink Reply by Alison P on
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Used to get a fair bit of stuff this way but it's almost stopped since we put a no junk mail sticker (from Haringey Council I think) on our letter box a few years back - maybe 1 or 2 things a week, tops?
Personally I think that is the way to go - I'd imagine they'd stop bothering once a certain proportion of homes had these signs.
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Permalink Reply by Louise Nazeraj on
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The thing with junk mail is that it's going to be of interest to someone, hence the scattergun approach. If that medium of advertising didn't work, businesses wouldn't bother printing up flyers and paying someone to push them through letter boxes.
What really makes my blood boil is dog muck. Not pushed through letter boxes obviously (well, I hope not) but the fact that it's bloody all over the pavement wherever I want to walk. My hastily conceived and ill-thought out solution is this: Following the perpetrators of said fouling and pushing their deposits through the owners' letterboxes. What do we think?
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Permalink Reply by Gina Fenton on
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One woman's junk is another woman's useful takeaway leaflet/community choir flyer/minicab-card-which-do-come-in-useful-from-time-to-time! Word of Mouth is a far better way to advertise than touting, but small businesses dont have money to waste and I'd bet they dont do this leafletting lightly - it costs a lot of money!
Its a free economy, of course the Council cannot legislate against marketing, and I think we need to let these businesses work out for themselves which is the best way to promote their services. I disagree with the council spending our money producing these 'No Junk Mail' stickers (and the leaflets that went with them) - I'd love to know what they cost and how many are stacked up somewhere waiting to be pulped. I dont think it is right at all for the council to work against small businesses (or community groups for that matter) or to label their marketing materials as 'Junk' (some people might think Haringey People falls into this category!)
Surely the answer is to convince the traders that the leaflets don't pay, whereas online advertising (and PR) on targetted local websites such ast this one, does!
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