Stranger Danger! How do you feel about people in your house?

[DeniseAndy]

25 kids????

I have two, and that's enough most of the time!

I personally only have 3. These were kids for the home school outing. I do not home school (well, currently sort of). It was through a group in the area. Fun, but only for a couple hours.

 

[MJ in Boise]

I've had a pizza delivery guy and a cable guy both randomly see my first tank and hook me up with frags and equipment. 1000% yes! random aquarium strangers are welcome in my home.

 

[ZoWhat]

TIME OUT: I would define a "stranger" as someone you don't know anything about, you don't know any of their family, don't know any of their friends,..... you don't even know where they live.

When it comes to Strangers... i have plenty of experience. I spent 10yrs as a For-Hire tech hired to go into peoples home to work on their Computers. I could write a book on how frightenedly W E I R D about 5% of the general public is. I cant even begin to tell you things I've seen in homes and more scary, things I've seen on their computers as super-odd, boardline evil activities.

After dealing with the general public as a tech, when I sell smgth they either meet me in my driveway or we meet at a corner gas station for the transaction.

NO STRANGER IS WALKING THRU MY HOUSE with the chance of him CASING the place for him and his THUG buddies to come back to.....

NO WAY. I even don't like Service ppl tramping thru my house.

I'm telling ya.... im good friends with a Cop and he has said many times,

"We know who the bad guys are and its about 5% of the Community. If we could lock up that 5% and throw away the key, the Police would be out of a job and every town would be Pleasantville"

I couldnt agree more....

 

[rwreef]

No strangers, but fellow fish nerd buddy visits all the time.

 

[Ippyroy]

Due to my remote location, with over 2 million visitors a year, there aren't any reefers around. When I have sold other items online, I always meet them either at a bar or in a restaurant. I don't like people in my house, never have. That is the reason I am trying to get the owners of the hotel to let me put my large tank here in the lobby, so other people can see it.

 

[Reefs and Geeks]

I do mostly local sales for my frags and have always allowed people into my home to buy/trade for frags. In the past, it almost didn't seem worth it at times because my wife and I are friendly, but not the most social people. My wife feels the need to have a freshly cleaned house for anyone to walk in to buy a frag, my dog needs put in a different room while strangers are over because she is very large and energetic and will jump up on everyone when they come in the door. Also, it is astounding to me how many people show up very late or reschedule last minute for pick ups. Wouldn't matter if it were just me hanging out at home, but have had to change plans for later in the evenings, or had my dog put in another room (which she doesn't like) for a while when people are running extra late.

I've not ever feared for the safety of me or my family when having strangers over, but there are "defensive measures" in a few locations in the house for the very unlikely case that someone hostile comes.

Since beginning to have people over, I've upgraded to a basement sump and have a dedicated frag tank in my basement for sales/trades. Now I just have people park in the back and come directly in the basement so no need to put the dog away, or for my wife to feel the need to clean up before hand. It's been a very nice upgrade for the purpose of selling frags as well as easy maintenance. Now with Covid stuff, I still allow visitors, but only in my basement and with a mask and sanitized hands. Nobody has had a problem with this yet, and me and my wife are both satisfied with the low level of risk. I am of course also happy to pack up and bring frags out to anyone who would prefer not to come in.

 

[andrewkw]

This is a strange time to be asking this question. Up until recently I would not even let family members into my house. That being said I would probably consider letting someone in as long as they wore a mask and it was okay with my wife. If you just step into the door you can see my main reef without having to go in, and I actually have a door in the room my frag tank is in that is never used.

I actually went into my friends house recently to take a quick look at her tank and it was really strange. Now she is a good friend these days, but at least here we tend to take covid very seriously. She wouldn't be my friend if I never bought frags from her, and if I didn't go into her house and chatted for 20 minutes or whatever vs just picking them up from a driveway or mutual location.

Since the pandemic I have met a couple of people but it was always outside and just curbside / cashless transactions. I live in a rural area though and there are very few reefers. When I used to live at my old house I would always have people show up for frags.

I certainly met some weird people in the old days, but no one I would consider a danger. Back when Australian corals were new I had someone offer me something like $20 or $40 for a new micromussa colony that I had just paid $500 or so for. If that's about the worst thing I can think of in 100+ people that's not too bad. I will say back in the days when basically most frags were $5-$20 or even free depending on what it was only around 50% of people would actually show up at the agreed upon time.

I never entertain and don't have a lot of friends, but if someone is going to come in they are probably going to want to talk about corals.

 

[TriggerFinger]

I don’t sell anything...I’m the buyer. I’ve met people at fish stores for equipment, I did a porch pick up this weekend from a nice gentleman (from this forum) and another nice gentleman (also from this forum) did let me into his home (over a year ago) let me gawk at his beautiful tank, play with his dogs, showed the basement sump, explained all sorts of things to me, answered my silly questions AND gave me free frags on top of that.
That being said, I would never let a craigslist stranger inside my home but there are quite a few people on here I’ve had great conversations with and would love to meet them sometime. I would be SO stoked if someone wanted to come hang out and talk fish talk with me!

 

[Super Fly]

No, but sadly this is a reflection on my location. I grew up around NYC where strangers don't talk to each other. When I went away to college in upstate NY and strangers in the street said "hi" to me, I'd turn around to see if they were talking to someone else! Eventually I got used to this friendly behavior & appreciated it. However upon returning to the Rotten Apple area, sadly the guard went back up with trust factor out the window.

When my best friend from HS moved to Montreal and I was visiting him, some stranger tried to talk to us in the street while behaving strangely. Had this been in NYC, we'd kept on walking w/o missing a step. So when I tried to walk away, my friend stopped me while laughing and explained "people around here are not like NYC and they're very innocent & trustworthy" and took his time to converse with this stranger!

 

[NeverlosT]

I am leery about letting strangers in the house, we have young kids and my wife really doesn't love strangers in our space. That being said, Pre-Covid if I had spoken with someone a bit I would let them come by and see the system. In COVID-times, no one comes in.

I said "Depends" because if people give me a weird vibe I will keep them outside. That being said, I try not to judge people too much from their appearance, some of my good reef friends in the area seem like they may have interesting pasts (lots of tats and such), but we don't get into that much, just reefing!

I do try and share my system, not just because I am proud of it, but because how boring would our hobby be if none of us let each other see our tanks!

 

[creativeballance]

I won't let anyone masked in my house or outside my house. If you want to meet me, you'll have to take the 0.03% risk of dying of covid.

If you're so dang worried about covet, you had better be eating right and working out everyday because you still have a 15 times greater chance of dying from cancer or heart disease.

 

[mitch91175]

I still have faith in humanity so I have no issue with allowing someone in my home for aquarium-related stuff. Even during this COVID-19 I have no problem (just mask required and use of hand sanitizer at the door).

 

[ReefzJR]

No horror stories. Even with over 25 kids in the house ranging from 2 - 14 years old.

Do you live in a shoe? I read a book about that

 

[RobB'z Reef]

I still have faith in humanity so I have no issue with allowing someone in my home for aquarium-related stuff. Even during this COVID-19 I have no problem (just mask required and use of hand sanitizer at the door).

Agreed, why demonize 95% of people for the bad 5%. Literally everyone standing in a circle, each one thinking they are the only normal person out there and everyone pointing at everyone else as a bad person. A loose analogy but hopefully it makes sense to a few people lol. I'll keep my covid opinions to myself haha

 

[Krully]

I’m not in the US so the story about meeting people in a parking lot with a gun for safety seems surreal to me. I’ve met a few people reefing and they were always nice and welcoming, I wouldn’t invite someone from Craigslist (well our equivalent here) if I sold some power quality headphones or whatever but the reefing crowd is “safe” imo. No bad experience so far letting people in the house. It’s usually the opposite.

 

[Thaxxx]

This is funny.
Talk of letting"Craigslist" people into your house. Haha
You do know if this situation presented itself, you are a "Craigslist" person too.
Just being the seller.

 

[jgvergo]

The reefing hobby is one of those things that MOST of us like to share with others. The problem is that many of our "regular" friends don't understand the hobby and really can't appreciate it like another hobbyist can. Reefing also involves being able to grow corals and with that comes the opportunity to sell frags to people....strangers. Many of these strangers will become local hobby friends but at first they are still strangers coming to your home to see your tank or buy something! Let's talk about that today!

1. How comfortable are you with allowing a stranger in your home to look at your aquarium or to buy things?

2. Have you ever made a life long friend meeting a stranger this way?

3. Do you have any horror stories?


image via @hbrochs

In general I love having people over to check out my tank. HOWEVER, extra special caution is required with the crew that is pictured here (full disclosure...I'm in the picture and Howard started our local club)

 

[725196]

For the most part yes. Usually it's someone doing some sort of contract wok and they see my mixing station in the garage are are curious. Sometimes its someone coming to get a frag from me.

 

[Ef4life]

I ain’t scared I stay ready so I don’t have to get ready.

 

[FangsAndGames]

Used too. Used many service providers with minimal results. Now we are in the process of doing it by ourselves.

Need help setting up Triton in DFW area as well as asking for tips.

Hello all, I have a FOWLR 110 gallon tank which I am converting into a triton reef tank. We (My dad and I) have been using an aquarium servicer and have not been pleased with the results. The tank has not been successful and we have not been pleased with the results. Also for the amount we pay...

www.reef2reef.com

Any advice or help would be appreciated.