I need one of these doormats...
I bought one of those for my dad as a gag Christmas gift a few years back. He could be a crusty old guy at times, so I thought he'd get a chuckle out of it. I never thought he'd actually put it at the front door though! He kept it there for a couple of years, but I never did ask him if it worked.
Haven't noticed any increase in peddlers around here recently. Mostly we just get the usual suspects: Jehova's Witnesses, gas-contract salesmen, and kids selling chocolate bars for school fundraisers.
Sometimes we get shady-looking kids pretending to be raising money for some vague cause, but when pressed for details, it seems they're just trying to make a buck for themselves. Maybe I'm just turning into a crusty old guy, too, but I suspect there's some kind of shady door-to-door sales operation out there that recruits kids to exploit people's generosity/gullibility.