I've been burned before by people going door-to-door trying to scare up work.
Because of my husband's long-term involvement in law enforcement, I am painfully aware that it's one method of burglars use to check out a potential theft. And living in as remote an area as ours, it's been used around here before.
I had a friend of a friend of a friend who offered to build a horse shed for me; talked me into paying him half of the money in advance (to purchase supplies, in theory), and then disappeared with it.
So when a couple of guys came around yesterday, offering to do whatever yard work or hauling stuff that I wanted done, I looked them over very carefully - skinny father-and-son pair, pronounced Southern accents, and both of them put together shorter and lighter than I am.
So I walked them around one acre or so around my house that is covered - no,
saturated with weeds, Russian thistle, full-blown tumbleweeds, obscure Arizona grasses and various cacti - enough that it's waist-high and solid enough that you can't see the ground.
When they didn't run screaming away, and offered me a pretty reasonable price for clearing everything out from the house out about 10 meters, I had them come back.
And made VERY certain that I didn't pay them until the job was complete and done to my satisfaction.
It was nice to have all my suspicions NOT confirmed.
