West Seattle, Washington
03 Sunday
For those who track door-to-door sightings – both e-mailers say they have no proof these aren’t legitimate, but they wanted to share word of the sightings – read on if you’re interested:Read More
Door-to-door alerts are usually shared here by WSB’ers (here are our archives) but this time there’s one from the state Attorney General’s Office: If these folks come to your door, beware.
“SPRING FORWARD,” ANOTHER REMINDER: At 2 am, it’ll suddenly be 3 am, in the third year of early-arrival Daylight Saving Time. We’ll get the hour of sleep back on Sunday morning, November 1. Did you know Daylight Saving Time isn’t U.S.-only? Here’s a worldwide list.
WEST SEATTLE WEATHER WATCH UPDATE: “Snow showers” are still in the forecast, though things have been pretty calm since that hour or so of snow this morning (WSB coverage, with video, here). Around 6 pm, according to King County’s Twitter feed, Northgate and environs were getting hail. John sent us a note saying he saw SDOT treating The Bridge around 5 pm, he thinks with salt, although our understanding is that only deicer is put down pre-storm – we’ll see if we can find anything out. 8:43 PM UPDATE: Per comments, and Twitter, snow in various West Seattle locations – Morgan Junction, Myrtle Reservoir area, 21st/Juneau, Highland Park, The Junction — not here in Upper Fauntleroy so far, though. 9:01 PM: OK, *now* we have light snow – very fine crystal/flakes.
DOOR-TO-DOOR ALERTS: We’ve received two in less than 24 hours – first, we didn’t get to this one last night because of the Rite-Aid incident, but Renee sent us this note via Facebook (we’re WS Blog):
Twice tonight someone knocked on my door. I asked “who is it?” and got a reply “(inaudible)- glass company”. I replied “no thank you” the first time. (around 8:30pm) The second time someone knocked again around 9:50pm, when I asked who it was I got the same reply as first time along with someone trying my door knob! (and I mean really forcefully trying!) Thankfully I keep my dead bolt locked! Police have been notified.
To make matters scarier, Renee doesn’t live far from last night’s robbery/SWAT scene. Then tonight, we got e-mail from David, who wrote: “A group of young adults is doing the door-to-door subscription sales bit. They just came to our house, we’re on the 3700 block of SW Webster.” He notes that some of those types of sales teams have been known to represent “unscrupulous companies,” as has been discussed here before; we have a followup note to him to ask if this group had a license, as is required by City law.
Two items to share this afternoon – first, from Keri:
Just wanted to send out an alert for my area neighbors (Morgan Junction area at Mills Street) that in the last two weeks I’ve had mail stolen from my mailbox and a package taken from my front porch. This is the first time in the year I’ve been here that this has happened
Second, from Corey:
I live in the Seaview neighborhood. Two teenage girls came to my house in the evening last week inquiring if we have ADT. I asked them what they were looking for and they were kind of vague. I mentioned this to a neighbor and they had visited them as well. My neighbor had called ADT asking if they were sending people around concering their systems and they said no and that they would not send people around in the evening. These girls are targeting houses without security systems and if anyone encounters them they should call the police so they can at the very least investigate.
At the bottom of the WSB Crime Watch page, you’ll find resource links for both deterring mail theft and dealing with solicitors.
A note we just got about a suspicious “solicitor” reminds us of something that happened here a couple nights ago – read on:Read More
Two notes we’ve received this afternoon that might be of interest – read on:Read More
From Brian – who’s wondering if the person who showed up at his door a couple hours ago was legit:Read More
This came into the inbox Friday night from a longtime WSB’er who prefers to be unidentified:
After dark tonight a young woman knocked on our door near 45th & Edmunds [map] to offer new windows and energy efficiency survey. She was polite and left when we declined. Within an hour we found a gang ‘drop box’ on our corner. While assuming the two activities are unrelated it makes me
uneasy and we will be more than usually vigilant tonight.
We hadn’t heard about “gang drop boxes,” so asked a followup:
Seems gangs ‘drop’ a cardboard box where they want to mark territory or schedule some event. Because it’s just a cardboard box most of us would ignore it. Our corner box was heavy cardboard 8x8x3ft. A gang name was painted on it. We don’t know if there is an event code on it because we don’t know about this stuff. The box would have been dropped between 6:00 and 8:00 tonight. The original shipping label was to an individual on Queen Anne.
A family member with law-enforcement ties is the one who spotted it, our e-mail correspondent explained, adding that the family member subsequently spoke with a police officer who offered this additional information: “… that the boxes (or spray paint on garages, etc.) act like a GPS system for the gangs. He said for us not to worry because the paint color on this box would say ‘keep going’ as an arrow would.” We can’t find any evidence of this phenomenon on Google, but maybe it’s known by another name – we’ll make a note to follow up with police next week to find out if this is something new and if there’s something you should do if you spot one. (Or maybe YOU have expertise to share?)
Before launching the next round of weather-related coverage, a non-weather note – a door-to-door alert from Megan, who lives on Fauntleroy “a few blocks from The Junction” – she wants to know if anyone else has had this visit:Read More
Wanted to spotlight a reader report that a Gatewood resident just posted as a comment on a Crime Watch report from last weekend — sounds like this may be a new door-to-door ruse:Read More
This one from Jesse – second time this week we’ve heard about solicitors at fairly late hours:Read More
Another door-to-door alert, this time from Westwood, e-mailed by Pauli, who says, “I just want my neighbors to be aware” after he wound up calling the police about two solicitors:Read More
Elizabeth wonders if anybody else had the same door-to-door visitor she had last night at 36th/Graham (map) – read on:Read More
MYSTERY HELICOPTER: Received more than a few notes about this earlier this evening (thank you!) but couldn’t find anything obvious via scanner or in person. Anybody who can solve the mystery of what a chopper was doing over eastern West Seattle – Triangle, Fairmount, possibly Pigeon Point – in the 7 pm hour, please share. (10:16 pm: Nancy e-mails to say that from past experience, it might have been a chopper covering sports at WS Stadium; not WSHS football since they were at Ingraham — 33 to 6 win for the Wildcats, by the way, congrats, and they’re in Game of the Week running for next week! – but schedules reveal Seattle Prep played O’Dea tonight at WS Stadium.)
DOOR-TO-DOOR ALERT: This quick note from Todd in the California/Charlestown (map) area:
Just a note to alert the area that those pushy magazine salespeople (who ignore or can’t read ‘no soliciting’ signs) are at work on the Admiral / Gen. Hill line.
ONE MORE NOTE: Just got word from Carol Viger that the West Seattle High School Grad Night fundraiser car wash planned for tomorrow is off. We’ll let you know when it’s rescheduled.
If you’re in Upper Fauntleroy, heads-up, you may get a doorknock from “Evans Glass.” At WSB HQ, it was a particularly energetic doorknock, er, door-pounding, moments ago. We don’t open the door to anyone, even in the interest of journalistic research; “sorry, we don’t deal with solicitors” was answered with “Oh, we’re not trying to sell you anything, we’re from Evans Glass” and we repeated “no thanks” (answered with a polite “OK”); coincidentally, we had just received a note from WSB’er Venkat, also in Upper Fauntleroy, saying they’d been at his door offering “free energy inspections” that online research suggests is a prelude to window sales.
First one we got a half-hour or so ago, we were mulling over how to handle. Then came the second one. That suggests a trend – so here are two reader reports of pushy door-to-door folks out in southwest West Seattle (Gatewood and Fauntleroy) tonight:Read More
If anyone has info that this is a legitimate door-to-door survey, it would be nice to hear … otherwise we would agree with Karma, who sent us the report, that the line of questioning is potentially unsettling:Read More
Neighbors are sharing these sightings, just in case. Might be perfectly innocent. If you’re interested, read on for two reports from Admiral and one from North Delridge:Read More
That’s how Julie titled her e-mail, seeking to share this:
Today in our neighborhood (Genesee)……..we had two very polite West Seattle High School football players (selling Gold Card Savings coupons for new football uniforms) come to the door.
We’ve had so many unsavory obscure organizations canvassing for ages it is hard to remember there really are some worthy causes out there. And they were polite teenagers too!
I hope they get lots of support from our community. Go Westside!
We’ve told you before about the uniform-fundraising drive — which kicked off with a food booth at West Seattle Summer Fest.
First, from Karen:
Warning for the Westwood area – 18th Ave SW. A neighbor just stopped by to let me know that he saw two men going down the street in a pickup truck and taking anything metal they found. That included walking into our fenced front yard and taking the kitchen sink that was sitting out there while we put up new sheetrock. The police were notified but did not offer any hope of recovery.
And from further west, Amy sent in a door-to-door alert – might be perfectly innocent, always hard to tell, in which case comments might prove reassuring:Read More
As the second team of blue-shirted DNC solicitors in 2 nights walks past the WSB HQ window, we’re reminded we got an update from 34th District Democrats chair Ivan Weiss (backstory here and here):Read More
On Saturday, we told you that 34th District Democrats chair Ivan Weiss was looking into reports of West Seattle solicitors claiming to be seeking money for the Democratic National Committee. 
Tonight, they were making the rounds again — came to our door in Upper Fauntleroy, in fact, plus we got e-mail and phone calls from others who were visited — and we wanted to note that Weiss did confirm over the holiday weekend that the DNC does have solicitors out, dispatched from national HQ, and he’s not happy about it; he believes the most effective way for the party to raise money and awareness is locals-to-locals. (This is what we told tonight’s solicitors, by the way, who spent some time plotting solicitation strategy right outside our home-office window before they went door-knocking.) Nonetheless, just because the DNC apparently does have solicitors in the area, don’t take anyone’s word for it — ask for their ID.
Just sent to us by 34th District Democrats chair Ivan Weiss, his response to a note he received about solicitor concerns in the Fairmount Springs area — someone reportedly asking for $100 contributions to the Democratic Party:
From the e-mails forwarded to me, I would say this is *not* legitimate.
NO one should be canvassing in our District claiming to represent the Democratic Party who is not working with the 34th District Democrats or with a specific candidate’s campaign — ESPECIALLY if they are asking for $100 donations!!!There is at least some precedent for this. The Democratic National Committee, under its (thank goodness) former chairman, Terry McAuliffe, did send solicitors door-to-door for contributions to the DNC in 2004. I thought Howard Dean had stopped this practice.
Even so, neighbors should refer any such solicitors to me. If they are, in fact, sent here by the DNC, I will get to the bottom of this but FAST! This is NOT the face of the Democratic Party that *I* want represented in our communities. When we canvass door to door, I want our volunteers to be able to say “We are your neighbors!”
Bottom line, if anybody shows up on your doorstep saying they’re soliciting for the Dems, contact Ivan. You can e-mail him at ivan.weiss@centurytel.net. In the same area, someone had written us pointing out a lot of recent concern about security-system soliciting, which one neighbor reportedly checked out and discovered to be legitimate.
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