29th April 2025
I was having a lovely time scraping the second chair. There was sunshine, but with a breeze that had blown the stack of leaves I had ready to burn, across the front lawn. That didn’t make me very happy. There was also a large branch that had broken off one of our trees. I think this tree is on the way out, it seems to shed branches with any wind that is going about.
As I was scraping this young chap on a Segway sped into our driveway.
I immediately saw the signs of what was going to happen. He was either selling something or offering a service, it was the latter.
Although I will give him his due, he had listened to his teachers. He first showed interest in what I was doing, he recognised my accent, asked questions about that, so there was a friendly atmosphere. Eventually he got to the reason for his visit, BUGs!.
It just so happens that his company are working in the area and could offer a generous discount if I signed up to have the house treated.
I made the excuse that my wife arranges all that kind of thing. Fortunately she had driven down to the post office, so I could say, without lying, that she was not at home. He kept the pitch going, talking about the quality of their services.
I dealt the next card in my pack of excuses, which was we already have a local man who normally does our bug control. This slowed him down a bit, but he fought back saying that a local man would not do a good job or use cheaper materials.
At this point he had fallen into my trap.
“Don’t you think that there is more at stake for a local man? He relies on reputation, to keep his customers.”
He went quiet, his brain searching for a suitable reply.
I then came in with the final thrust, “ I don’t know your company, you come round here, at this time of day, probably looking for old people who fall for your patter, and sign up just to get rid of you.
Sorry, but I’ll stick to my local man”
I was beginning to sweat a bit, after all I don’t usually get so worked up, but something got to me.
He wished me a good day, got back on to his device and sped off up the road looking for another victim.
There is a constant stream of these young people offering window and roof replacements, grass and insect treatments, and they all come round when normal people are at work, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out their target market.
I hope they learn that there is an English man in the area who won’t take their crap, and will tell it to them.
I explained it all to Kelli when she returned, and that I saved her from having to deal with it.
Later she found a free piece of furniture in Zeeland that we set off to get. The house was out in the sticks, we had to go to the basement where there were various other pieces set out that had been posted. We originally came for two pieces but were unable to get both into the truck, so we passed on the larger piece.
With a bit of cleaning and a bit of touching up, we should be able to flip this quickly.
Another Lifetime to go 