Canvassing: making life that little bit harder

Every day this week that I have set out to go canvassing the rains have come. I was starting to feel a little jinxed until I went out today, suitably clothed in waterproofs and jumper, only to be left gasping as the sun came out and I puffed up and down the hills. Colerne is a very hilly ward.
Having pretty much covered the village now a couple of thoughts struck me about canvassing:
1) Can someone invent a device to allow me to poke my leaflets through those tough draft excluders that hide behind letter boxes and scrunch up my beautifully designed leaflets?
2) What is the point of a letter box you'd have trouble posting a Top Trump card through? All their letters must get mangled?
3) I've seen plenty of 'Beware of the Dog' signs, but today I came across several 'Dogs running free' signs which are infinitely more worrying.
4) For some houses it's really difficult finding the front door. I know it sounds silly; but perhaps we could have a little clue?
5) There must be a mathematical formula to work out if walking all the way up a long drive and back again is really going to make much difference when in the same time you might have done ten terraced houses. 6) One place I canvassed took me a good five minutes to get through their grounds before I made it to the door - which then had no letterbox.
7) If you have no letterbox that is a sign of real wealth; everything else is a bourgeois affectation.
8) Where is everyone? I've been out a dozen times and not seen a single other canvasser or poster from another party. A few people have said they been canvassed and the postman's been delivering generic literature. Other than that - you'd hardly know an election was on. Have the main parties decided it's better to keep their heads down? (update: Mike Smithson over at Politicalbetting detects a national trend of inactivity).
Tomorrow it's off in the car to canvass all those houses which are in idyllic isolation. I know it's not Green; but it's the thought that counts.

Comments

[James Barlow]

The device you wanted: It's called a "spatula"

[Phil]

That could do it; but several times people have opened the door just as I'm stuffing the leaflet through and I'd feel a little self conscious talking to them holding a cooking implement in one hand.
Some kind of folding design or one that I could disguise up my sleeve perhaps?