Buy a vacuum - get free baking soda

If someone bangs on your door and asks if you want a decrepit box of baking soda, it may not be a knock-knock joke.

Apparently, door-to-door Kirby Vacuum salesmen have been traveling through the Big Horn Basin over past months using a bizarre method to get their foot in the door.

They were apparently in Cody this past summer, in Cowley in November, and tried unsuccessfully to hit-up Powell last month. Two vacuum salesfellows were issued misdemeanor citations here, Dec. 14.

My step-brother-in-law, Hauns Schnackenberg of Cody, had a salesman try the routine this summer. He recently recounted the strange presentation.

Hauns recalls answering a knock at the door around 9 p.m. one night. A windowless van was parked in front of his house, and a young man was standing on the doorstep, holding a beat-up box of generic baking soda.

"You want some baking soda?" the guy asked.
An unrepresentative photo illustration. Baking soda was reportedly generic, and the vacuum, though unwanted, was nice and new.
Hauns was a bit confounded. "If I had been on my toes, I would have said, 'Yeah, I just ordered this,'" but instead, "I was like, 'I don't know. I guess? Whatever.'"

That was a mistake.

"I took the baking soda, and the next thing I know, he was sprinting to his van," Hauns recalls. "And he came back with a big box."

The entryway entrepreneur quickly began pulling parts from the box, rapidly assembling something as methodically as an Army Ranger putting together a rifle. Hauns asked what he was doing.

"Oh, just a minute, I'll have it put together - you'll see," said the assembling young man.

It quickly became apparent that the ware in question was a vacuum cleaner.

"When I saw what it was, I was like, 'Aw, no!" Hauns said.

It took a concerted effort, but Hauns was eventually able to convince the salesman that he was not going to buy a vacuum. The seller headed for the exit, and, perhaps predictably, "on his way out, he takes the baking soda back," Hauns said.

The obvious question in the whole thing, is why anyone would use free baking soda as a way to get into someone's home. Kirby sellers elsewhere have used promises of complimentary carpet cleaning - using baking soda to demonstrate the device's suckiness (one example). But using the soda as the bait seems a bit off.

"I think the reason is it's so baffling to people," Hauns said. "It catches them off guard."

In December, in what appears to have been a similar presentation format, a pair of Casper vacuum pitchmen were cited by Powell Police for violating the city's Green River ordinance (yes, named after that Green River).

Basically, Powell's ordinance requires that door-to-door salesfolk - or "transient merchants" - get a $35 city permit approved by the Chief of Police before peddling their wares in town. Additionally, it's illegal to knock on someone's door for commercial purposes unless you've been invited to do so. You can read the the City Code here (PDF). The relevant section starts at 5.28.010.

The two Casper gents had been warned to stop the day before, but continued anyway, said Police Chief Tim Feathers. The offense carries up to a $750 fine. They were ultimately fined $60 in municipal court, Jan. 7.