From my front doorstep:

[The Q]

Luckily I think most of us here believe that JWs or anyone else have the right to their own beliefs. It's just they are an easy target, as in, unwelcome callers.

Fortunately I live in the middle of nowhere( well not quite, there's a place ten miles away called nowhere) so I don't have stories of trick or treaters or double glazing sales men or even political canvassers ( we've just had elections). The only one we've had in the last ten years was selling the chance of having a painting done of our house! Unfortunately for him painting is SWMBOs hobby!

Also the House being called The Kennels helps but unfortunately discourages some delivery drivers.

I do fancy a copy of something like Father Bills notice though.

[Bill aka Mole]

I now have a steadfast rule: I never open the front door. I learned this trick from my mother-in-law. Being in South Carolina, I think it is something of a state law that the only times that the front door of a home is used is:

1: There is no side door. Back doors can count as a side door. All friends know where this door is.
2: It's moving day.
3: It's receiving day for a birth, a funeral or some party that needs to take place in the Living or Dining rooms.

Where I am, we do have the occasional door to door person, religious or otherwise. Those that want to talk to you and have lived here for a long time do not go to the front door. They will follow a track from wherever the car is parked to whichever door that path leads to. I learned this from the members of my fire department. We actually went to a home that had about seven feet of stuff piled against the front door. Had it been a fire call rather than an EMS call, I'm sure that we would have eventually opened the front door but there would have been a fight to do it.

When I was out of the clinic after same-day knee surgery I was recuperating at my in-laws house as I needed to be supervised for a day. Our Padre came to the side door of the house, through the kitchen and into the family room to visit. When asked if he wanted to leave by the front door, he looked a bit embarrassed and said that his boots might be too dirty to go out that way. The next day, someone came up and knocked on the front door. Then they rang the door bell. Then they finally left. I asked my mother-in-law why she didn't answer it; her answer was: "If they're too good to use the side door, they're too good to talk with us."

[The Q]

This use of the side / back door is still common in detached houses in the countryside in the UK and was common in larger city houses. Front doors were / are reserved for the Owners, Padres/Vicars, the Doctor and invited Guests (say for a dinner party). We still have a notice on the Front door saying deliveries to rear door.

[Blupiper]

Is it effective?

I have met no Jehovah Witnesses on my door steps after one day I opened my door to a pair of them and said: "Please come an other day, today I am too tired to convert you." That was some five years ago.

When I was younger and single, a very attractive young woman--a Jehovah's Witness--came to my door. I spoke to her for a while and mildly flirted, as well. A week later, she was back. With three huge, burly JW men. Had a hell of a time getting rid of them and never saw her again, to boot. They returned several times. Never converted them, they had no luck with me. Oh, well.

JMB