The simple fact is this: If you live in Eden Prairie, Edina, Bloomington, Eagan, Burnsville, and several other southern Minneapolis suburbs then your door has been knocked on by a solicitor seeking to perform a storm damage inspection on your home. Some of you reading this have personally spoken to 30+ solicitors and have ignored the knocks of scores more.
How can I get them to stop bothering me? Why do they keep trying to solicit for this long? Others have been around doing the same thing for so long already, why are more still trying to knock on my door?
These questions will be answered in this weeks "Coffee & Claims" with Midwest Construction.
I guess we should start with
Q: "Why are solicitors still trying to knock on my door at this point?"
A: The first obvious answer is that 'it is their job'. Keeping this simple fact in mind should be able to ease some of the tension you will have walking to answer the door for what seems to be the hundredth time. Proactive people that go out and try to earn business usually beat the ones that sit around waiting for it to come to them (All things being equal). So the fact that someone is working should make you feel a little better about the situation. Work is good for the economy and the bigger picture as a whole so you can even be a little positive about the situation.
A2: The second answer is that you were in the path of a serious storm that insurance companies are deeming worthy to spend millions of dollars in restorations on. This fact alone should make the homeowner think twice about the "I don't think my roof was hurt at all" excuse. The hail may have been small to you, or it may have not lasted long, but companies are deeming it serious enough to dish out millions to fix the problem. They might be on to something. Unfortunately, a lot of homeowners think that if they don't let anyone see the roof, then nobody can tell them there is a problem that needs to be attended to. It's a turn and look the other way approach and hope that it solves itself or there is nothing wrong. I think you can see why this method of reasoning is not advised.
A3: This stems from A2 - do you still have an old roof on? It is very easy to tell if the situation has not been taken care of yet to people looking to perform the repair. Your situation still needs attending to if you have an old roof on and do not have a "no soliciting" sign on your door or another company's sign in your yard.
A4: So if you want solicitors to stop knocking on your door then you need to do one of these things:
1.) Choose a company to represent you with your insurance claim and attend to the problem. Once you have done that then the company will be more than happy to mark its territory and tell other solicitors to back off with a sign in your yard signaling they are working here and the problem is being addressed.
2.) Get a new roof! - this wont stop all solicitation because it can still be sometimes hard to decipher by the untrained or inexperienced eye if a roof is old or new. But it will cut down the number of knocks you get drastically.
3.)Once you have had your insurance company come out, preferably with a contractor OF YOUR CHOOSING to inspect and assess the storm damage to your home, then you can put a "no soliciting" sign on your door. This should eliminate all but only the most knuckle-headed solicitors. And yes knuckle-heads are out there. But I have never knocked a door with a no soliciting sign. It is illegal to do so. And those who do are just asking for a complaint or a rude engagement. I personally will fire any solicitor on the spot if he/she knocks a door with a no soliciting sign easily visible even if the homeowner doesn't report it but I somehow find out. It is classless. You do not need an official no soliciting sign either. A simple hand written "No Soliciting" on a piece of paper taped on your front door will suffice.
I hope this first edition of "Coffee & Claims" with Midwest Construction (midwest-general.com) has helped some of the local homeowners understand why solicitors are still knocking on doors and what they can do to prevent that from happening.
Any questions or comments can be emailed to me, Brian Alexander, at brianontheroof@gmail.com.
