Police in Everett say a group of aggressive people claiming to be doing door to door sales may actually be casing houses to steal from them. They say at least one home was targeted the same day the team did a vacuum demonstration there.
Sarah Yarwood has "no solicitation" signs all over her front porch but she says an enthusiastic young saleswoman dubbed her from the very beginning.
"She knocked on the door and said ’hi it's your neighbor,’ so we answered,” Yarwood told us.
Yarwood says the woman came right in, went in almost every room in the house, and stayed—for two hours. This-- despite Yarwood and her husband insisting they weren't interested in a Kirby vacuum cleaner and repeatedly asking her to leave. She even asked for a snack.
"He starts picking up her stuff and putting it outside and she's screaming back him ‘why are you doing this, this is a household that deserves a Kirby,’" Yarwood explained of her husband’s interaction with the young woman.
After other reports of encounters with the woman and three men she was working with out of a maroon van, including one robbery at a home hours after the group had done a demo there, Everett police started investigating. They learned they're not licensed for sales in the city and are still working to find out if they are actual Kirby employees.
Everett police posted about the incidents on their Facebook page, and they've already had hundreds of shares and comments from people saying this exact same thing happened to them.
"There are groups out there, not specifically this group, but there are various groups out there trying to gain entrances to houses,” explained Aaron Snell with the police department.
And they're hard to catch. The woman used Yarwood's phone to call her associate just three days ago. She gave us that number, but when we tried to call it, it was disconnected.
"I felt very tricked,” Yarwood said.
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