Posted by anonymous, a resident of the Duveneck/St. Francis neighborhood, on Jul 17, 2012 at 3:00 pm

A good question. I commend you on your thoughtfulness.

I have a "no solicitors" sign by my front door, since there is no possibility I will buy anything or donate anything to any door-to-door solicitor, believe me, and this heads off a certain percentage of these folks. No, I am not a scrooge and will donate to select school or Girl School stuff IF I know the child, of course.

We do get a few fliers, door hangers - I just recycle immediately. Since they are usually placed on every front door of every house on the street (from what I have seen), I don't think it immediately creates a huge signal that someone is out/away since it takes awhile for people to get to the fliers. I guess if the flier stuffed into the front door handle and it is visible from the street and it stays there multiple days, there COULD be a signal to watching criminals that the house is unoccuped. A solution is to ask a neighbor to get your mail when you are gone and also remove any fliers/door hangers left at your front door.