An unsuspecting young salesman from The Window Store just had the misfortune of ringing my doorbell. My “Not interested,” which I delivered as soon as he introduced himself, was not enough to deter him. So, instead of getting a quick and easy brush-off, he got a30-second diatribe as to why I am adamantly opposed to what he does—market replacement windows so aggressively that salesmen go door-to-door in the dead of winter. I threw a few window rehab facts at him—that there’s no good reason to replace historic wood windows, that replacement contributes to the landfill and wastes resources through intensive manufacturing processes—and his eyes grew wider with every word. Hoping that he is young and impressionable—and maybe even a little uniformed, himself—I referred him to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has pages of information about window rehabilitation as an alternative to replacement. (I was a little reluctant to divulge my association with the Preservation Alliance, lest he come back later and egg my house, or something. Admittedly, I could have been nicer to him, but he rang when I was in the middle of cleaning the litter box and my kids were upstairs alone, so I had to rush up from the basement. Why can’t the door-to-door sales types understand that there is almost never a good time to interrupt somebody at home?)
Do you have facts at the ready to deliver a 30-second defense for historic windows, for those times when the window salespeople come knocking at your door? If you need some refreshing, read my earlier Window Talk post in the Field Notes blog, peruse the resources listed with the 10 Most Endangered listing of Historic Wood Windows, read the March/April 2008 issue of the Minnesota Preservationist, or go in-depth at PreservationNation.org
I know I’d catch more bees with honey, and all, but I was a little unprepared myself. This visit served as a bit of a wake-up call—and definitely an opportunity. Maybe if all of us could be a little more prepared, we’d make inroads with the salespeople themselves—who would see the light and turn to window restoration instead. Zach-the-salesguy, if you’re reading this, I hope you’ve learned something. (And I’ll try to be nicer the next time you ring my doorbell—I promise.)
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