I’ve actually skipped work just to help a homeless guy get his beard trimmed. Bought him pizza too. Kinda hard to get anywhere in life when you look like shit.
Be kind to the homeless, they just need a helping hand here and there.
What would you do?
It’s not typically the person that knocks that you gotta worry about, it’s the person that doesn’t knock that you really gotta worry about.
That’s not very true, unfortunately. Knocking allows someone to somewhat figure out if anyone is home, allows a person to gauge who is home (a man or a woman) and how easily the knocker can gauge overtaking them. Breaking in means the homeowner may have time to get a weapon and means the knocker will have to search for anyone home.
Getting them to come up to the door and see if they’re armed makes it easy if a person is looking for a victim. People just breaking in are usually hoping no one is home and just wants to rob the place.
I guess it partly depends how far out in the woods you live. The dogs will announce an intruder before they even get 100 feet close to your home, and I had my cats trained to knock on the door knocker, when they weren’t out eating rats anyways…
I feel like this might be one of those occasions where experiences and perspectives vary wildly by gender.
A strange man having the confidence to knock on my door is not something I can translate into an assumption he is safe.
You should never assume any stranger is safe. But take each person’s situation separately, some struggling people are actually legitimately honest.
Sure, but they don’t come conveniently labeled as “honest”/“not honest”.
If they’re being honest, the kitchens, shelters organizations, etc will help them better than I can alone. (In my area where those resources are available)
Someone who wants to avoid those places when they are readily available and instead knock on the door of a random stranger… we’re talking about increased odds of not-great intentions.
Honestly, the fella I helped didn’t even knock on my door, I knocked on his ‘door’, while he was resting at a local bus stop.
I had already known the fella for a few months in passing on my bicycle rides. I realized he was a good decent honest person, but he needed a haircut and beard trim.
Well, I happened to have trimmers, and figured that was the least I could do to try to help him out. That, and a pizza and a beer, just because…
Edit: Yes, I went out of my way to help this particular fella, he didn’t actually knock on my door. But, what if it was 120⁰F outside, and some stranger knocked on your door asking for help?..