04-02-2010, 09:20 AM
Our family of five never got anything from the Cencus people, not even in the mail.
aloha
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no trespassing / litter
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04-02-2010, 11:19 AM
Here on N. Glenwood Rd, our census forms were stuck on the mailbox in a white/red bag. The mailbox is a joke as we do not receive mail here, but it is a great place to post our address.
I want to be the kind of woman that, when my feet hit the floor each morning, the devil says "Oh Crap, She's up!"
I want to be the kind of woman that, when my feet
hit the floor each morning, the devil says "Oh Crap, She's up!"
07-09-2010, 08:03 AM
Hi, I live on the lower end of Glennwood in Fern Forest. Any thoughts on the following, because I gotta say I'm pretty upset about what just happened a couple minuets ago. A census worker just went over the chain across my driveway, walked past 4 or 5 "no trespassing" & other "beware" signs down a 600 foot driveway, walks around a bend and up to my house and looks in through my screen door to say "hello, I'm from...". Yep, never has anyone been so bold before, but there she was, looking at me through the screen door in my boxers and my wife on our bed breast feeding my son. (Its a small house) Now, I wouldn't be so upset if we had been a couple of "dead beat's" who hadn't been cooperating with them and this was their action of last resort because we hadn't sent in our census questionnaire. However, we did fill it out & and we mailed it back to them months ago. But here is this young woman who comes out of no where, and is looking into my house (Startling the CRAP out of me & my wife)asking questions about my neighbors? Come on!! Couldn't they have put their questions on paper and tied it to the gate like the ones we filled out before? Isn't it going too far for them to ignore a chain across the driveway, ignore the posted warning signs, and not even announce themselves as the came into sight of the house? A house where the residents have already complied with the census and given the department no reason to think the residents wouldn't fill out additional documentation if it was left on the gate as was their practice before? They can just look into a house in the middle of the woods and say "We're here" and not expect the half dressed residents (who have been playing by the rules) to be upset? Isn't this an abuse of power? Could the census rep have opened my door and entered my home if she so chose?
Do I have grounds to file a complaint? Should I have called the police?
07-09-2010, 09:09 AM
The census people are now going to residences where they had no response before. This is why census workers tried to get people to respond the first time around. Because other rounds of census workers were going to have to follow up if there was a known residence from which the bureau did not get a returned questionnaire. And people in rural areas, particularly districts where previous census results were considered underreported (as Puna is considered) were NOT mailed census questionnaires; their residences were visited by census bureau workers.
Are you sure you mailed in your census form? (Yes, yes, I know....some people did get visited who had mailed in questionnaires, including myself. It's the slow train to the Hawaii census hdqtrs. in Waianae and the addresses they're getting from L.A. for followup are sadly behind the times. ) Did she identify herself and offer to show you her badge? Did she give you a form regarding census privacy? If so, then she was legal; no need to call police. Did she ask you the questions on the form or give you the questionnaire to fill out, then sign? Did she take the questionnaire with her instead of leaving it with you to fill out and mail in? Then, that's supposedly the final round of census followup. No, she could not have legally opened your door and entered your home without invitation, as in the case of a wheelchair-bound resident who was home alone. Are you sure she didn't call out? The workers now are having to follow up on the residences where workers left bags on gates and there was no response. They are looking for PLACES where people are living, and haven't been counted. Do you think that woman liked having to go down a 600-ft driveway in Glenwood with no trespassing and beware signs? No way! But she is REQUIRED to try to seek out every potential residence, including cars, buses, caves, even bushes if it looks like someone may be living there. AND she is required to ask about any other potential living quarters in the vicinity, whether on your property or a neighboring one. Yes, it is startling when you are not expecting someone. But think about who was the more vulnerable party. Because she did the job the Federal Government hired her to do, at least 3 more residents of Puna got counted...you, your wife and your baby.
07-09-2010, 01:56 PM
Frankie, who would have been at fault and paid damages if Chris's pitbull tore her arm off while still on his chain next to the door ?
07-10-2010, 10:59 AM
quote: Frankie, it sounds like you are a census worker but I won't assume. Let me make it clear that I had no opinion toward Census practices in the past. My wife and I have participated in previous head counts just as promptly as we did for this one. Reading some of your statements leads me to believe that you weren't listening because even your last sentence could be interpreted as if we didn't cooperate with the Census mail response process. And if that woman did count us yesterday then some of my tax dollars will have been spent to have us counted twice. I feel my accounts were true the first time I wrote them and I really don't see any reason to repeat. There was a question that asked.... how a woman might feel about stepping over a chained gate and walking 600 feet down a strange wooded driveway loaded with warning signs because she was told to? Looking back on this question, I think it really makes the Census look bad because it looks like they're putting field employees into potentially dangerous and avoidable situations. Was she trained on "Approaching a Domicile when evoking the federal right to trespass" or is there no such census training? Because we heard nothing but the startling "hello" coming through the screen door. Ok, so my response to that question is I will not feel sorry about feeling invaded. There is just no reason or excuse for this sort of thing to happen to a family who cooperates with the Census's questions via U.S. mail and does so within the required time frame. We had already cooperated with their questionnaire process the first time around. Therefore, we feel the Census had no grounds to justify trespassing on our property to obtain more information. If they had additional questions about us or questions about our neighbors, why couldn't they have used the same method of getting in touch with us that worked just a few months ago? OR Couldn't they have tied something to the gate like a "request for appointment" or something? I would think such an act of common sense would have given both parties a chance to arrange a time to meet, right? After sleeping on it, I'm firm in my opinion that the Census abused its authority to trespass by exercising such a drastic level of authority without first exhausting other avenues to contact us. I'm a citizen and I think the census is an important service. But I do believe that this specific incident should not go untold and that it would be wrong to justify the actions of the census here. I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about it when I woke up this morning, but I'm certain now. I feel that if my family ever had any right to privacy, it was violated yesterday. In my mind, justifying the actions taken by the census on my property yesterday is the kind of stance a bully would take. We (My family and I) are not the bad guys here. [  ]*hope my grammar isn't too bad.*
07-10-2010, 11:32 AM
chris, I know you feel violated, and I too am not a fan of having people show up at my door unannounced. You are not the bad guys, either. What I think when I read your last post though, is that you make three large assumptions when you view the census office as the bad guy.
1) You assume that USPS delivered your questionnaire. 2) You assume that if it got delivered, it got properly input by whoever received it. 3) Because you assume 1 and 2 happened, you assume they should know that their first method of contacting you was successful, when in fact they wouldn't know that if 1 or 2 went awry. I can't count the number of communications I've made with people in recent years that either get lost in the mail or get lost in the shuffle upon receipt. So, let's say that either step one or step two failed, and they have no record that you complied with the census. Are they still abusing their authority to come up your driveway? Maybe so, in your mind. I'm just saying, you base your outrage on the fact you cooperated, but you have no way of knowing if your cooperation is known by them.
07-10-2010, 11:54 AM
Well, yesterday morning, the wife and I are sitting at the table, having decided to play a bit of Scabble as we waited for the weather to dry. Out of the clear blue, there is a knock on the door and a "Hello". About scared the bejeezas outa us. Our property is fenced and gated. The gate is electric, at the drive entrance about 400 feet from the house. He promptly ID'd himself as being from the Census. My first question was , "How did you get in the fence?" He replied he came in the side gate behind the shed. He must have looked pretty hard to find it as there is no path to it and the grass is pretty tall. Anyway, my next was to say not only did we mail the forms in a timely manner, but we had already been visited by another CT and redid the forms in person - seems there was a problem with the mail, starting with misidentifying our area on the preprinted forms - go figure. This guy tells me that he is back because they are rechecking any place listed as vacant as they are looking to plus up the numbers. Dutifully, I reanswer the questions. I let him out the main gate. Now that I think about it, I thought the census was a snap shot on a certain date, so a non vacancy at a later date doesn't change the vacancy on that certain date - unless maybe you're cooking the numbers.
I do have to wonder how many more times we'll have to answer. Counting the 2 precensus visits, this makes 5 people to count 2. Of course, I'm assuming our forms were delivered by one of the prescreeners, otherwise it has been different people each visit. Sounds like the BHO stimulus/employment plan is working. David Ninole Resident
Ninole Resident
07-10-2010, 11:59 AM
KathyH. You posted while I was writing mine. True I don't know about the post office piece, but in our case I personally spoke with the people the other FOUR visits and have now witnessed the forms being filled out by the census person TWICE. Pretty inefficient.
David Ninole Resident
Ninole Resident
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