Do you answer the door if someone knocks?

[Anonymous]

I remember when I first moved to the NoVa suburbs, I attempted to meet my neighbors in my condo building by knocking on their doors. Nobody answered, ever. Coming from a smaller southern city, this was very odd to me. Fast forward many years later, now I'm living in DC proper, and I HATE when people knock unexpectedly. Do I ignore and risk someone I know being offended? Do I answer and risk being robbed or worse? I realized that I'm fully in the camp of if you didn't call or text beforehand, you are not welcome. No more causal drop-bys. At 11pm on a Friday night, there was a knock on my door. I had just had a conversation with a neighbor while walking my dog, and I figured it was the neighbor following up, so I let down my guard and answered. An elderly man was at the door, asking for work. I live close to homeless encampments, and it's a pretty high-crime neighborhood. I had no work for this man, and I felt bad and doubly worse because I was missing some spirit of holiday charity, but my demeanor during the entire exchange was guarded, door cracked, ready to react in self-defense if required.

The longer I live in this city, the more detached from humanity I feel.

[Anonymous]

Don’t answer. Talk through the doorbell if you feel obligated or if they saw you. Or just talk through the door. I never open mine for anyone I didn’t invite. Haven’t in years.

[Anonymous]

I leave the door cracked during the day if I open. But anything at night I always look before I open even if I am expecting someone.

[Anonymous]

Ummm no, I don’t. I work from home and we have outdoor security cameras so if someone knocks, I can look and see who it is and decide if I want to open the door or not. 99% of the time it’s usually just a delivery person leaving a package at the door and knocking before they walk away. I’d never answer the door to someone I don’t know.

[Anonymous]

I live in a very safe community in Southern California (no “diversity” or nearby homeless etc, we generally feel very safe) and we don’t open the door either. Let alone at night.

Door to door salespeople, religious nuts etc are not welcome. Friends would call first.

[Anonymous]

Nope. We don’t answer.

[youtube] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Swzvm-gXHg[/youtube]

[Anonymous]

Nope

Do you not have a peephole, OP? That’s safety 101. I honestly can’t believe you opened your door at 11:00 pm without checking to see who it was.

[Anonymous]

You sound like you have a good heart, OP, but knocking on random peoples' doors (regardless of whether or not they are your neighbors) or opening the door to strangers is NOT smart. Nothing wrong with being a good neighbor, I just moved from a building where I knew many neighbors and really miss those connections, but I have never knocked on their doors randomly without being invited, even those I 'knew'. Please don't do this anymore, for your own safety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I remember when I first moved to the NoVa suburbs, I attempted to meet my neighbors in my condo building by knocking on their doors. Nobody answered, ever. Coming from a smaller southern city, this was very odd to me. Fast forward many years later, now I'm living in DC proper, and I HATE when people knock unexpectedly. Do I ignore and risk someone I know being offended? Do I answer and risk being robbed or worse? I realized that I'm fully in the camp of if you didn't call or text beforehand, you are not welcome. No more causal drop-bys. At 11pm on a Friday night, there was a knock on my door. I had just had a conversation with a neighbor while walking my dog, and I figured it was the neighbor following up, so I let down my guard and answered. An elderly man was at the door, asking for work. I live close to homeless encampments, and it's a pretty high-crime neighborhood. I had no work for this man, and I felt bad and doubly worse because I was missing some spirit of holiday charity, but my demeanor during the entire exchange was guarded, door cracked, ready to react in self-defense if required.

The longer I live in this city, the more detached from humanity I feel.

What was the nature of your 11 PM conversation with your neighbor that required 'following up'?

[Anonymous]

No new neighbor is going to knock on your door at 11pm to meet you and introduce themselves.

Why aren't you using your peephole?

[Anonymous]

I would check to see if the person was a neighbor or a kid before answering. And, we have a locked storm door I can talk through in front of the door I open.

I would never answer the door to anyone after dark who I did not know. It's just common sense in an urban environment OP.

[Anonymous]

I might but would leave the chain on. We live in a condo building with front desk and security though.
The only time somebody has knocked is they messed up the door.
Back in a day, we had neighbors over all the time and the key was behind the door in a boot. Nobody opened the door unless they had been instructed to do so. We never took the key with us since we only had 1.

[Anonymous]

I introduce myself to new neighbors by leaving a card and a food item. I don't knock or disturb them. And I don't like door knockers.

[Anonymous]

I have cameras.

[Anonymous]

Love the comedy routine. Have seen before and it always makes me laugh. Times have changed and what used to be friendly is not poor etiquette or even rude. You don't go knocking on doors to introduce yourself unless the person's door is already open and the screen is the only thing closed. You can leave a welcome gift and a note, but it is rude to expect someone to drop everything for you. We moved with an infant. The younger neighbors all were lovely introducing themselves when they saw up strolling around the neighborhood. Some elderly neighbors introduced themselves by ringing the doorbell multiple times or knocking furiously always either waking the baby, interrupting breastfeeding or getting me while I am in the bathroom. If I actually made it to the door eventually to stop the barrage of noise, I got the judgmental look for looking like something a cat drags in. Yeah, some welcome to the neighborhood. Even worse one asked "Why didn't you answer the door sooner, can't you hear?"