War of words over unwanted advertisements for Halloween decor company

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- You've likely had it happen at your house -- a business leaves a flier on your door. Some people in Bridgeland got some unwanted fliers about installing Halloween decorations and they got email responses you have to hear to believe.

The company, "Halloween Decorators," distributed fliers in the community in northwest Harris County. A couple of residents contacted the company saying they didn't want the fliers in their neighborhood.

One received a response that said to prevent this happening again "we suggest that you move" and "we gave strict instructions to our drivers not to give out fliers to [expletive]."

Another email said, "Do you send emails to the Chinese restaurants, lawn-care providers, maid-cleaning services, and the like that place flyers on your door?"

We talked to the owner of Halloween Decorators. He admits to sending the emails and apologizes. He also says he's going to stop with the door-to-door fliers.

He didn't explain the language used in the emails. But you can read it for yourself below.

"Hi [OMITTED],

Thanks for your "Contact Us" submission regarding the flyer that was put on your driveway. After reviewing your request on how to prevent this from happening again, we have several options:

1. Since we are only servicing the greater Cypress and Woodlands area, we suggest that you MOVE!!!!

2. We gave strict instructions to our drivers to NOT give out flyers to *******S! Please give us your address so that we can determine which driver did not follow our simple instructions and we will fire them IMMEDIATELY. Subsequently, they will probably become homeless and you will see them on the side of the road with a cardboard sign that reads "Will work for food" with two or more words misspelled, and you will KNOW that JUSTICE has been served.

3. Quit your job (if you are not already a stay-at-home-with-nothing-better-to-do housewife) and setup some form of surveillance system so that the next time this happens you will have concrete evidence that you can take to your local police department so that formal charges can be brought.

4. Put up some type of sign in your yard that instructs people to NOT throw advertising material in your driveway. For a small fee we would be happy to supply you with such a sign.

Note: We think this such a good idea, that we have decided to start a company that supplies these signs to the general public. Please expect in the next few short weeks for us to be throwing flyers with washers advertising signs that prevent people from throwing flyers with washers.

5. Just to let you know, we spend good money on flyers, washers and twistie-ties. If you are not going to be a part of this capitalist concept that our great country was founded upon, please put the flyer with washer back on your driveway, and we will retrieve as soon as possible. Wait a second...please do not tell us that you threw away our flyer! This is considered "destruction of property" and our lawyers will be in contact with you.

6. Perhaps you could join forces with the Neighborhood Watch force in your community and form some sort of coalition to put a stop to ALL forms of advertising in Bridgeland -- but then how would find lawn service providers, pool cleaners, maid services, tree trimmers, house painters, and the like? What about all the door flyers that you get for Chinese food, pizza restaurants, cable providers? And since we're on the subject, you could then contact the US Postal Service and DEMAND that no more junk mail be delivered in your mailbox!!! I mean, what is the difference? At least we didn't knock on your door when you were trying to enjoy dinner with your family and go into some 15-minute pitch about our product and services.

7. By now, we're sure you're starting to feel aggressive. What if you were to start a company that provides Halloween decorations for $98 instead of the $99 that we offer? Theoretically, ALL customers would buy from you instead of us and that would put us out of business, which would equate to us not throwing flyers in your driveway since we were no longer promoting our business. If you need some effective ideas for advertising your new business, we would be happy to assist you. We recently adopted a flyer-and-washer-thrown-in-driveway advertising campaign that proved fairly effective. The only drawback to date was ONE complaint from some _________.

These are just some options that we were able to come up with on such short notice. We would love to hear what ideas you have.

Thank you again for reaching out to us. We look forward to hearing from you soon!

Sincerely,

Halloween Decorators"