Drowning in a sea of junk mail

When I first moved into my current home, I was horrified at the amount of junk mail that came through the letterbox. Every Thursday, I would come home from work to find two free newspapers and a massive pile of flyers for local shops and businesses stacked up behind the door. It all went straight from the letterbox to the recycling bin.

In the end, I got fed up of it all and placed a sticker on the letterbox, stating "No free newspapers or advertising flyers, please".

So why is it that I still get morons shoving stuff through? Can they not read? I suspect not.

OK, I no longer get the free newspapers, but I still get adverts for tree surgeons (Hello? Do you see any trees in my garden? No!), pizza takeaways (I'm allergic to tomatoes), carpet cleaning services (I have wooden floors), double glazing (that'll be the same as the double glazing that you just walked past to deliver the leaflet), driveway layers (you just walked up my driveway, didn't you?).

I also get those little catalogues put through, from local people selling perfumes or household knick-knacks. I never, ever buy anything from them. I knew that these people are just trying to make an honest crust, but surely they must notice that I just put them straight back outside? Sometimes they sit outside my house for weeks, until they either get collected or I get fed up and chuck them in the recycling.

Let me tell you this. If I want to purchase a product or service, I will approach a firm myself. Anyone who ignores my polite little sticker will most definitely NOT get my business. If you don't care enough to respect my wishes over a little thing like not wanting your junk mail, then I'm sure I can't trust you to care enough about doing a good job. All leaflets and flyers still go straight from doormat to recycling bin.

Then there's those little leaflets announcing a 'charitable collection of clothing' - which really means 'we're a profit-making organisation which will take away your unwanted clothing and then sell it to people who can't afford to buy new stuff'. Sorry, I only give my unwanted stuff away to registered charities - at least they sell the stuff on at a fair price and put the money to good use, instead of just pocketing it.

FFS, just stop putting this crap through my door - it's a sure-fire way of ensuring I won't buy your product.