Thanks to technology, we get fewer and fewer knocks on the door from strangers – and thanks to her doorbell camera, Maureen Jenkins didn’t miss two visitors on the porch.
Jenkins was vacationing in Orlando, Florida, when she got a notification on her phone. “We were waiting for the Space X launch to happen and the ring camera alerted me there was someone at the door.”
What appeared on her screen defied belief.
“I couldn’t believe what was happening,” she says. “I saw these guys dressed out of the 70s.”
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What she saw was two young men in polyester suits with wide ties, dark sunglasses and mutton chop sideburns. “My son didn’t believe me. He thought I was using some kind of AI filter,” she says.
The decades-defying duo declined to leave a message and left Jenkins’ porch with a wave and a quick “thank you” to the camera.
Jenkins had to find out who they were and what they wanted, so she went to Facebook.
“I went to my ‘Saanich moms group’ because they’re the best detectives on the planet,” she says. The video and caption attracted endless responses but no answers. It wasn’t until she posted it to a WhatsApp chat that the mystery started to unravel.
“Somebody said, ‘Hey, I know those guys! They make T-shirts!'” says Jenkins.
It led her to an Instagram account called “thegoofarm.” The account is run by Liam Horgan and Chase Jackson who design T-shirts from a studio on a Metchosin farm.
“We try to make them silly, we try to make them fun. Newspaper funnies on a shirt,” says Horgan.
They sell their wares in summer in downtown Victoria but in the winter they rely on their day jobs. “It’s tough to sell a short sleeved T-shirt on the streets in winter,” says Jackson.
It’s a creative endeavor, and they hope to attract customers online. But it doesn’t explain their door-knocking exploits in Saanich.
“We were looking for a new vintage suit,” says Horgan.
Their get-ups on the doorbell camera weren’t just one-offs. They dress in 70s styles every day, and with treasures being shipped off to thrift stores every day they decided to try and take out the middle man.
Liam Horgan (right) and Chase Jackson (left) are shown. (CHEK News)
“We don’t really want to spend $300 on eBay when I could just knock on somebody’s door and say, ‘Hey do you have my next crazy suit?'” says Jackson.
Horgan says their inaugural door-knocking campaign didn’t net them a single thread. “We got nothing.”
But it won’t be their last attempt, and they’ve got a fan in Jenkins. “They’re awesome,” she says.
Jordan Cunningham
