Friday 22 May 2009

Blocks of flats

The nicest roads for leafletting are rows of semi-detached or terraced houses with small front gardens of course; detached villas with big front gardens are a bit of a pain, but the best/worst of all are blocks of flats, which fall into three categories:

1. The best kind are those with letter-boxes on the outside or in an open lobby, because you can do a dozen leaflets in a minute and move on.

2. The OK kind are blocks with an unlocked front door, but where you have to walk up several flights of steps and push a leaflet through each front door as you descend again*.

3. The worst kind are those with a locked front door, where you have to hit a buzzer at random, count to twenty and if nobody answers, hit another one. You keep going until you lose your nerve or somebody answers and you have to beg to be granted access. I've noticed that if a woman answers, she usually takes pity on you and lets you in, but men are totally pig-headed. I suppose you could sub-divide this into a worst-of-all category where you have to be buzzed in and where you have to walk up several flights of stairs.

Just sayin', is all.

* If you're leafletting for UKIP, you worry about being attacked by a BNP voter who regards you as a traitor to their cause and/or being attacked by a non-white who confuses UKIP with the BNP - so the logic is, if you push through the leaflets on the way up, you might be accosted on the way down again by somebody who's already read your leaflet, so doing the reverse gives you a marginally better chance of being able to make a run for it.

9 comments:

RantinRab said...

Any unfortunate incidents with our canine chums yet?

Letters From A Tory said...

It's those letterboxes with the stupid and impenetrable brushes that really get on my nerves.

woman on a raft said...

The time I put in a leaflet and the entire letter box and dolphin knocker vanished back inside the house, leaving a huge hole in the door, still bothers me.

Yes, I legged it, hiding the rest of my leaflets in case the householder caught up with me.

Later I banged my head when I bent down to put a leaflet through a door and an enormous electronic bullfrog with a movement sensor and cruel glowing eyes croaked loudly, spooking the wits out of me.

Yes, Tinky Winky ran away - but I crept back like a leaftletting teletubbie when I realized it wasn't alive.

Then I saw the householder watching me tip-toe back in to the porch, trying not to set it off again. He nearly did himself a mischief laughing.

Mark Wadsworth said...

RCN, so far no (although I heard one of my leaflets being chewed up on arrival).

LFAT, some of them go one better and have the world's strongest spring on the inside flap, what's all that about?

WOAR, that's awful. So far I've only torn down a gate post, but I managed to balance it back into place.

Stan said...

It's been a long time since I did any leafleting (back in the days when I was a Liberal Party member), but there was never any animosity or anger towards us back then - even on the dingiest council estates. However, there were a number of close calls with dogs that saw me leg it back up the garden path rather sharpish(and council houses tended to have large front gardens) and hurdling immaculately maintained (and thankfully quite low) privet hedges. Not sure I could do that so well at my age.

Anonymous said...

You're right about the flats.
Always start at the top and work down in case you have to run and don't want to be cornered.

Anonymous said...

Flats with locked doors usually have a buzzer marked Tradesmen/Trades/or just 'T'. These are there to let the postman in, and will open the door early to mid-morning.

Dick Puddlecote said...

I heard this misconception about UKIP last night at a sports club. Some neanderthal whose only voting interest, it seemed to me, was to know which party would "kick all the immigrants out" said that UKIP were just "taking votes from the BNP".

How do people confuse 'resisting unsustainable immigration' with kicking all the immigrants out?

Mark Wadsworth said...

Anon 2, brilliant, that's why they don't work in the afternoon or evening!

DP, it's quite easy if you are Righteous, or indeed a BNP voter.