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Comment by richrichardsson | Hacker News Reader

Ring their doorbell. When they answer, tell them "Hi, this isn't the house I was looking for, but you've got that surveillance system in place, so I don't want to be registered as 'suspicious'. OK, sorry not sorry for wasting your time, goodbye."

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Me: Presses doorbell button

Ring: Please provide a valid email address to continue.

Me: Turns to leave

Ring: Sorry we missed you! Please state your reason for visit and someone will reach out to you. Please provide a valid email address to continue.

Ring: Warning! This entry attempt have been recorded. An unauthorized entry attempt will be reported to the cloud and local law enforcment.

Couldn't help myself but read this as if the last line suddenly changed to be in the voice of ED-209

...for every house? I don't go up to random houses and ring their doorbells to begin with, because nobody does that anymore.

Nobody? Where I live (suburbs, New England, USA), it's pretty common to be visited in person by local political candidates and/or volunteers during campaign season. I doubt this is in any way unique to my neighborhood.

Campaign season is an outlier, and I've had that happen... well, I can count the number of times on one hand, since a decade ago.

OK, nobody except salespeople (politicians going door to door electioneering are really being salespeople).

Did you think I was suggesting doing this to every house with the system? Not my intention at all. I was replying to hypothetical "walked up to the wrong house" scenario.

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