Am I the only one fed up of lazy leafleters?

Living in the Middle of Hillsborough, we seem to be innundated with flyers and leaflets from everything from take-aways to painters and decorators. A lot of the houses round here have their letter boxes on the back door, and the majority of people rarely use their front doors. People delivering these leaflets appear to be too lazy to push them through the letter boxes, prefering to just slide them in the crack of the door or leave them on the doorstep.

After a mornings hard work, litter picking in Rivelin Valley, I came home to find two teenage girls depositing buisness cards onto peoples doorsteps and even throwing them over gates instead of bothering to find a letter box to post them through. These cards, along with all the other lazily distributed flyers, will no doubt end up littering the streets, making it look a real mess.

I was so fed up with it that I rang the company on the card and complained. They are paying someone to do a job that they aren't bothering to do properly and I thought they should know exactly what was happening to their buisness cards. The woman I spoke to was very apologetic and promised to sort it out. I doubt she will come and pick up all the stray card floating around the street though.

Does anyone else have this problem? Do you think I am over reacting? I just get fed up of all the litter and think that these kind of flyers really do add to the problem.

Yep, the flyers seem to be getting much worse in Hillsborough lately. Last year it was one or two flyers a week, now its about a dozen a day! I mean, how many pizza flyers for the same company does one household need?! Also, there seems to be a rush of those "not-quite-charity" bags at present.

I get this too, we have a side door in the passage between the houses and lazy leaflet mongers often leave their stuff on the step and later a light breeze will rattle down the passage and all the leaflets end up in the back yard or down the road.
The worst culprits I find are.
Local churches and Pizza/curry take away houses.

But why do leafleteers feel it necessary to give you 5 of the same leaflet, three days in a row? It's not like I'm going to order 15 times as many chinese takeaways.

I know, I know - they are paid to distribute a set number, so they are just being lazy... I might lie in wait for them with a collection of old flyers and hand them back through the letterbox. Gggggrrrr!

Do you think there is any point in complaining to the council about these offenders? What they are doing is in effect littering, which unless I am wrong, you can be fined for?

Seeing as it's election time, have a word with your councillor. You'll probably get more joy out of them in the next few weeks than any other time!

Is it my imagination, or is Sheffield getting much worse for litter at the moment? Just scrappy bits (and flyers!), crisp bags, fast food boxes, etc. How hard can it be to carry a fag packet home?

FF - you keep up the good work in Rivelin - it was spick and span in the Valley last time I walked though - it was lovely, like being on holiday!

This used to happen with us, but it was the journal a free newspaper, I called their office and told them not to deliver any more as the paper boy was too lazy to put it through the letterbox, and this was giving burglers a clue that the house was empty,but recently and this is more worrying, the postman has started to leave the post on view, I would have thought they were more responsible.

I'm fed up of receiving loads of leaflets and I wish they would learn to shut my gates.

I have just had the worst fright of my life, as one of my dogs managed to get out. Luckly my dog was only out on my road for 5 minutes as a kind lady who was passing managed to befriend her and grab her collar. Isn't it lovely how your dog won't come back to you despite making a pratt of yourself shouting and calling them on the street?!

Yes, it was my fault for not checking, but I also blame the bloke for not shutting the gates despite having a large notice saying "Please shut the gate" and another smaller notice saying "Caution, dogs running loose"

How hard is it to shut a gate after you open it? It's just plain good manners to me to close it. Since putting up the notice asking people to shut the gate, I have noticed a reduction in the amount of times my gate is left open.

Applegrim, it's not just you with the postman (or woman) either. I was off work one day when I heard a thud at the front doorstep and went to see what it was - some very important mail sitting on the doorstep, and the postman (scruffy bloke) walking up to the next house. He hadn't bothered to come round the back and use the letterbox, and had left it sitting where it could just blow away in the wind.

I phoned the Royal Mail and complained immediately. And (touch wood) it hasn't happened again since.

Originally posted by Applegrim
This used to happen with us, but it was the journal a free newspaper, I called their office and told them not to deliver any more as the paper boy was too lazy to put it through the letterbox, and this was giving burglers a clue that the house was empty,but recently and this is more worrying, the postman has started to leave the post on view, I would have thought they were more responsible.
Applegrim, when I was paperboy in the early 1980s I used to have customers who complained if I put the paper right through because their dog would chew it up, or because they were too frail to bend down and get it off the floor. And I also had customers who wanted to have the whole lot put through so it didn't look like someone was away.
On sundays with all the suppliments, some customers had such small little letterboxes that I had to take the paper to bits and put it through in bits. And one bloke went mad over this and I had to screw it up into a tight roll and shove it in with all my might ripping the outer sheet! and that's what he wanted.
So unfortunately not all customers are the same and often they want entirely different things.

But I think (possibly incorrectly) that we all agree that private and confidential mail should not be left sticking out of the letter box, or worse yet, sat on the doorstep. After all, there's a world of difference between someone pinching your newspaper, and your new credit card.

Originally posted by feargal
it was spick and span in the Valley last time I walked though - it was lovely, like being on holiday!

I can never understand why a large number of Sheffield residents call any green space 'wasteground' :mad: and then set about treating it like a dump :mad: :mad:

Originally posted by FetishFairy
Do you think there is any point in complaining to the council about these offenders? What they are doing is in effect littering, which unless I am wrong, you can be fined for?
Does it count if it's on private land (your garden)?

It's true about green space Strix... it's almost as though people think "well, no-one can see me, so it won't matter if I drop some litter". It must salve their conscience a bit if nobody is about.

I was walking down Dividion Steet with a friend the other day when a chap in a parked car threw his empty fag box out of the window, about a metre from a bin. My friend picked it up and threw it back in through the open window... the look of astonishment on his face was classic!

Originally posted by feargal
It's true about green space Strix... it's almost as though people think "well, no-one can see me, so it won't matter if I drop some litter".

I could cope with that idea. It's the ones who think it's okay and that we all think like that that drive me nuts.

There are some pleasant open spaces in Woodhouse, but it's interesting how many houses that back onto these have a huge pile of crap just outside their fence. It's not like the tip is a million miles away if you live up here. And it' open all sorts of stupid hours too.