by Anna Holdaway
It all began right around the time of the first Santa parade of 2019. As we turned into our rural driveway there it lay, all prettily packaged in pink plastic, a large bundle of colourful commercial flyers.
How strange I thought. Many years ago when we used to have our own mailbox, there was a period when flyers would periodically appear in it along with my then frequent personal mail. I remember mentioning to our friendly mail lady that I preferred not to receive flyers and that’s all it took. I never received one again. Why would someone suddenly start throwing them into my driveway now? And if they kept doing it, what would I do about it?
It all began right around the time of the first Santa parade of 2019. As we turned into our rural driveway there it lay, all prettily packaged in pink plastic, a large bundle of colourful commercial flyers.
How strange I thought. Many years ago when we used to have our own mailbox, there was a period when flyers would periodically appear in it along with my then frequent personal mail. I remember mentioning to our friendly mail lady that I preferred not to receive flyers and that’s all it took. I never received one again. Why would someone suddenly start throwing them into my driveway now? And if they kept doing it, what would I do about it?
“The neighbours will know,” I decided. But my neighbours, usually a font of information, were just as mystified as me. So I broadened the search to my Facebook friends and fellow Route 114/915 inhabitants. Most replies were from people as puzzled as I was why somebody was suddenly being paid to throw flyers into driveways of people who had never requested them, and in some cases (like mine) had formerly requested not to receive them. A few people who responded were happy with the development, but most were wondering how to make it stop. Most mysterious to me was that no one seemed to know the name of the person doing the delivery, which is unusual in the country. It would have seemed most natural to me to just ask the delivery person to leave me out. I received a few useful leads, including a possible company name and a couple of phone numbers. In the meantime, having received two more pink packages, I had got busy with a large piece of plywood and a black marker and erected a big “NO FLYERS” sign by the road.
Over the next few days I was successful in reaching a customer service representative at the Times & Transcript (1-800-561-7166) who accepted responsibility for the flyers and offered to put me on a list of people who do not want to receive them. She said it would take at least two weeks to take effect so we left the sign in place. Imagine our surprise when a few days later, as we were walking up the road to our house, we were stopped by a very nice man in a car who introduced himself as John and asked if we wanted to get the flyers or not. Evidently he had already left one in our driveway, but promised it would be the last! I asked if he had seen our sign and he said no. That mystery was solved when we reach our house to find the sign covered with a thin coating of snow from the night before and completely unreadable!
So far this week our driveway is free of plastic and paper. Fingers crossed that we have seen the last of the flying flyers.
Over the next few days I was successful in reaching a customer service representative at the Times & Transcript (1-800-561-7166) who accepted responsibility for the flyers and offered to put me on a list of people who do not want to receive them. She said it would take at least two weeks to take effect so we left the sign in place. Imagine our surprise when a few days later, as we were walking up the road to our house, we were stopped by a very nice man in a car who introduced himself as John and asked if we wanted to get the flyers or not. Evidently he had already left one in our driveway, but promised it would be the last! I asked if he had seen our sign and he said no. That mystery was solved when we reach our house to find the sign covered with a thin coating of snow from the night before and completely unreadable!
So far this week our driveway is free of plastic and paper. Fingers crossed that we have seen the last of the flying flyers.
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