Fliers under my windshield wipers-a pet peeve of mine

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

For about the past month, whenever I've worked a day shift, it seems I can't get to my car at the end of the day without a flier for a payday loan/cash advance/car title loan place under one of the windshield wipers.

Once about 2 weeks ago I found two fliers for two different places under my wipers.

Today I lucked out. Nothing under the wipers. But then I saw a nicely-dressed young lady get out of an SUV a few spaces down from me, with a stack of fliers in her hand, and she started putting them under windshield wipers...:burneyes:

The only other time they seem to do this is back to school. How convenient for them for them to come out and spam cars at times when people are at their spendiest, and convince them to spend money they don't have.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

This is the one and only time I dont' mind littering. I figure if the owner of the store I'm in doesn't mind my car being messed with while I shop in his store, he won't mind having to pay for the cleanup of a thousand pieces of paper littering his property. I will usually go back inside and complain to the manager that if my car is not safe in his parking lot, I will avoid his parking lot in the future.

I scared the crap out of some loser once in a parking lot. He was doing this and didn't realize I was in the car. I yelled "HANDS OFF, MOTHERF#CKER!" as he reached for my windshield. He kept his hands off.

You know what? Don't touch my car. I didn't park it out there to be fondled, trashed up, or otherwise decorated, vandalized, or what have you. Just don't touch it.

I do not need advertising shoved into and under every orifice of my freaking life. :soapbox:

[chops]

I absolutely hate that. I wish I had the cojones to either:

(a) take either my own flier or as many as I could grab and deliver them back to the place they came from and say, "My car/our cars are not billboards" or

(b) if I caught someone in the act like you did, trail them, removing the fliers they put down, then when they get in their car, rush up to it with fliers in hand, jam them under THEIR wiper blade, and then run like hell. :devil:

[blas]

Ugh...I feel for you!

Yesterday morning, there were pieces of paper taped to everyone's doors in all the buildings. Usually the landlords do it to remind us to shut our windows in winter, etc, but this was a flier for a doctor who is supposedy willing to see people without insurance and is willing to take payments........uh.....ok......what a waste of time.

Too bad I was too late to catch the sob who was taping them to everyone's doors. One of these days I really need to tell the landlord about all the annoying people who solicit here (especially with all the elderly people around here, I do NOT want to see them scammed!) and the idiots who put unwanted fliers and crap on our doors or porches.

[iradney]

I'm quite lucky in that the car guards at the mini-mall I frequent (almost daily - hey, the gym's there, ok?? :P ) understand that I don't want crap under my wipers. I'll go to gym, come out, and they've removed all fliers. I think actually, that the management of that little complex has banned people like that. Awesome :D

[powerboy]

My boss wanted me to do that a few times. I just took the flyers and tossed them into a few different trash cans. I don't see what the big deal is with flyers under your wiper. If you don't want it, just toss it away. Usually around here, they are actually useful.

[draggar]

I hate it when they do it just before it rains.
(Well, any other time, too)

Assholes.

[Shabo]

They do it to cars at my school. Only, they do nice glossy ones that melt to your window when it gets wet. Add in a factor of people who drive their cars rather infrequently around here... and yeah, there's a lot of pissed off people. We did a marketing campaign on my campus for an outside company, and one of the suggestions of the professor was to do those glossy ads, and all of us shot that idea down. Yeah, it's cheap advertising, but we all hate finding them on our cars. No way are we going to do that to other students.

[protege]

We don't get the 'wiper flyer' people locally much now. Mainly, because too many people complained or threatened to take their business elsewhere. As for the flyers, I hate those things--they're just more crap I have to dispose of. I get enough of that in the mail ;)

[DesignFox]

My old manager wanted me to do that once. I replied, "I thought you wanted people to COME IN to the store..."

I hate those assholes that do that. I refuse to be one of them.

[Crazyredhead]

I absolutely hate that. I wish I had the cojones to either:

(b) if I caught someone in the act like you did, trail them, removing the fliers they put down, then when they get in their car, rush up to it with fliers in hand, jam them under THEIR wiper blade, and then run like hell. :devil:

I'd like to watch that. I hate it to.

[Rahmota]

I know what you mean. My local town has banned them and still they occasionally show up.

I loved this one time though. I had my dog with me in the truck. Hes a little coon dog/hound dog mix mutt. Very loud and ferocious sounding but a chicken little at heart for the most part until you back him up to the wall. Well he was sitting in the truck one day when i went to town and this guy comes up to put a flyer under the wiper on the truck while I was walkign out fom the store and little red dawg goes apeshit nuts tryign to get throu the window at this guy and bouncing off the windows so hard i thought he was gonna go throug them. the guy jumped back and landed on his butt droppping the flyers. He decided that moving on would be a good idea.

Redneck security alarms. hehehe.

[BookstoreEscapee]

When I first saw the title of this thread I saw "Flies under my windshield wipers"...

and I thought, "Is that really a huge problem?" :lol:

:o

[marasbaras]

I'm with RecoveringKinkoid ... it's the only time I litter. And, I make sure to do it ON their bushes or someplace conspicuous.

[draggar]

I've been known to call the business that the fliers promote and chew them out.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I don't litter, because I don't think you can necessarily blame the business in whose lot you are parked. Most places aren't able to be out patrolling the lots (unless they have people out collecting shopping carts and whatnot, there's most likely not an employee "on duty" out there). I've left work and had fliers on my car - if we knew they were out there putting fliers on cars the manager would go out and tell them to stop. If I were so inclined I would collect them from all the cars and drop them off at the business that put them there, and say, "Hey, you dropped these"...but then I wouldn't waste my time...:rolleyes:

(In addition, for example, at Store2, the store does not own the lot; they are in a shopping center with upwards of 20 other stores. Littering would just make the property management company's cleaning crew in the morning have to clean it up. I think Store1 does own their lot, but they don't have security or anyone out there during the day, and there aren't enough employees to send someone out there to patrol.)

[gunsage]

When I worked security for a corporate center, we'd often have the situation where prospective businesses in the area would send out flyer boys to try to peddle their crap a la windshields. Fun stuff, except that it's a private property...a corporate one at that. What does this mean? First and foremost, YOU'RE TRESPASSING. It is NOT official business as it has nothing to do with US as a corporation.

Second, not only are you trespassing, but you're an annoyance. If you really wanted to push it, you're littering. Besides, it's not like you have our permission to be there, in other words, I have to refer you back to my first point: YOU'RE TRESPASSING. There were a few times where I'd catch the son of a bitch...here are the situations I remember...

Flyer Turnabout - Episode 1

Me: "HEY! What do you think you're doing there?"
Flyer Boy: "Oh, ah...uh, here, you want one?"
Me: *Slap the flyer out of his hand* "You're trespassing, buddy! Further, that can be considered littering! If you REALLY want to advertise here, you need to get your supervisors to contact our management. In the meantime, you need to go collect AAAAAAAALLLLL these flyers and get lost."
FB: "Uh, oh...oh okay..."

Yeah, no...he waited until I was out of eyesight and GTFO. Anyway, the second situation occurred much the same way, EXCEPT I found him later...

Flyer Turnabout - Episode 2.2

FB: *STILL PUTTING FLYERS UP LIKE THE WORLD'S BIGGEST ASSHOLE*
Me: *Taps FB's shoulder, FB spins around then goes white* "I'm sorry, didn't I just talk to you?"
FB: "Uh, uh...well, uh..."
Me: "Grab that flyer...and that one...and that one..." *FB complies* "...Now come with me."

I guided him up to the front desk where the general manager was already waiting. Yeah, the GM more or less told him to fuck off or there'd be a trespassing report filed. That company finally got the point, but unfortunately, there were others. Sigh...

[HawaiianShirts]

...It seems I can't get to my car at the end of the day without a flier for a payday loan/cash advance/car title loan place under one of the windshield wipers.

I get those fliers too. Really aggravating. E-mail junk is no big deal because I can just delete it. Postal mail junk I can handle because I can just toss that in the trash with the empty envelopes from stuff I do want. Windshield advertising, though, makes me mad because it makes me do more work. Someone has just littered on my car, as far as I'm concerned, and now I have to clean it up.

Around here, most of the fliers I see are either for Little Caesar's Pizza or from somebody claiming: "I make millions of dollars a month at home doing nothing, and you can too! I'm going to share my secret of success! Call me to find out how!" :wtf: If it's so lucrative for you, why are you sharing? And why are you sharing with cheap home-printed and hand-cut ads like this?

I saw some poor kid get shoved to the ground by a guy who REALLY didn't want those fliers on his car. I ALMOST felt sorry for the kid.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

You screw with someone's vehicle, you get whatever you deserve. Some people are really funny about their cars.

[Amethyst Hunter]

I have a very simple rule concerning my car and strangers that approach it without my express chiseled-in-stone permission:

You touch my car, you DIE. Slowly and painfully.



...that reminds me, I really need to get one of those bumper stickers that says "U toucha my car, I breaka u face." :devil:

[Broomjockey]

My first theatre had a standing policy. We catch you once, we tell you to get off the property. We catch you twice, we ream out your company. We catch you thrice, you're getting a nice trespassing arrest, AND your company gets charged for the advertising. It was a large theatre chain. They could get away with it. Oddly we never got a place more than twice, and that even only once...:devil: Couldn't have anything to do with the large guy with a broom, I'm sure...:angel: