Door-to-door clothing collections

[marksi]

I got a sticker through the door today to attach to any unwanted clothing.

Recognised charity shops often do this, but recently I've noticed some leaflets and bags from companies which clearly just hope you'll assume are charities, but aren't.

This morning's was from a company called "Clothing Aid (Europe)".

Dear Householder. We need your HELP. If you have any unwanted Clothing, Bedding, Curtains, towels, paired shoes or handbags that you wish to dispose of, we would be delighted to collect them from you. People in developing countries find it extremely difficult to afford new clothes but would be happy to purchase clothing you no longer require.

What the fuck? They want me to GIVE them stuff to SELL to deprived people in the third world. They may well have made the stuff in the first place...

[Stuart*]

I got a sticker through the door today to attach to any unwanted clothing.

I stuck one on my former Housemate Tracey once, but they left her slumped by the front door and refused to collect her.

I did think of sticking one on a sexy bloke, just to see how he would look after he'd donated his clothes

[Katnap]

Always avoid door to door charity collections (especially those paper leaflets which ask you to leave stuff in a black bag) - even the genuine ones can be targeted by people who go around ahead of the collection van and pinch the bags.

My gran once left a small bag of dirty laundry (underwear and a pair of pyjamas) on her doorstep for one of us to collect, but one of these fraudulant collectors mistook it for a donation put out for the Heart Foundation, even though it wasn't by the gate and in the special logo'd bag you get from the genuine ones.

[Spencer For Hire]

I generally have a problem with people putting stuff through my letterbox that I didn't ask for.

Genuine charity collections aren't too bad, but what really fucks me off are those catalogues like Betterware which they push through, and expect you to return to them.

I recently got a series of notes posted to me insisting, as I wasn't in when they called, that I phone them to arrange a time for them to collect the bloody thing. Why the fuck should I go to the effort of calling them when I didn't want the thing in the first place?

It's quite funny when someone comes round to collect the catalogue and you tell them "it's gone in the bin with all the other junk mail". They don't like that.

They always explain that you're supposed to give it back, and I always respond that by law anything posted through my letterbox instantly becomes my property so I can do whatever I want with it... which doesn't include having it cluttering up my hall for a week.

[Jenny]

I put catalogues and charity bags straight back outside. Despite always having a thing on the bags saying "if you're not going to use this, put it outside so we can collect it to use again", they never do collect them so there's a pile of twenty-odd bags outside my front door. I inherited this habit from my parents (though once they'd accumulated a couple of dozen, they gave up and used the bags for taking garden waste to the dump).

[nwtv2003]

We don't really bother with this, so we just use them as an extra bin bag.

[Lorns]

The bags do, as you say, have a great use as bin bags - any old clothing I have either gets turned into a rag for cleaning the cars or taken to the local charity shop.

Or just left in my wardrobe for years and years and years ...

Same as. I have loads of clothes i must get rid of. I had one of these bags through the door yesterday. A lovely pink PDSA one. I find they never give me enough bags to do a proper de - clutter.

Bettaware and Avon never bother posting catalogues to my house anymore as i never leave them out for them to collect, they go straight in the bin. Apparently they have to pay for the catalogues themselves or they have to pay for any catalogues they don't return. Can't quite remember as i switched off when the Bettaware man caught me off guard and launched into a tutorial about it.

[Gareth]

Talking betterware catalogues.... my grandma is furious as when the lady pushed it through her letterbox the letterbox cover has apparently fallen off.

My grandma being my grandma laid in wait until the lady came to get it back and gave her a mouthful!

That opens up an interesting question as to whether you could sue somebody for your letterbox breaking whilst they were using it.... is a letterbox a public facility?

[cdd]

You know I had no idea what you were all talking about, and assumed actually that you had all created this thread just to confuse me, that is until I got a catalogue pushed through your door wrapped in a wrapping saying "LEAVE THIS CATALOGUE OUTSIDE YOUR HOME TOMORROW WITH OR WITHOUT AN ORDER". What cheek! I did so because I didn't really fancy the hassle of being questioned about it, even if I was in the right.

[Stuart*]

I got a catalogue pushed through your door wrapped in a wrapping saying "LEAVE THIS CATALOGUE OUTSIDE YOUR HOME TOMORROW WITH OR WITHOUT AN ORDER". What cheek!

I did go through a stage of just throwing these unsolicited catalogues outside the door, so they could be collected, but it makes a mess during the week it takes them to do so.

I now simply put them in the green bin. When I bother to answer the door (which I usually don't to strange uninvited callers in the evening) the representatives of these companies whinge and moan when I say I threw away what they claim to be "their property", as they loose money for every unreturned catalogue.

I'm sorry, but it became my property the moment they forced it through my letterbox. Enough said!