How to deter of door to door salespeople?

[lucille]

I work at home. At our previous residence I was frequently interrupted by door to door prosteletizers. We finally bought a no prosteletizing sign for the front door. That kind of helped cut down. We were averaging three a week for a while.

Since we moved we don't get the door to door religious people but it has become the daily door to door sales person, every day since the weather turned nice. A few of them like the Chemlawn guy were not rude and took the first "not interested" and went on his way. We have had all sorts of fly by night people selling grocery raffles (not for charity or fundraisers), magazine subscriptions and the new one is some cleaning product. The last two that have come around hawking this cleaning product are really rude, don't want to leave and start raising their voices when you start to shut the door.

When we moved we didn't put up a big no soliciting sign because we didn't want to give the impression we were shutting out our neighbors since local kids are frequently selling cookies or other things for group fundraisers. I don't have a problem with the local kids knocking on the door. I do have an issue with these adult salespeople though.

Does anyone have any ideas that have worked to deter the skeezy door to door sales people without coming off like the anti-social person in the neighborhood?

[72Tiger]

peep hole. If it is a neighbor, someone you know, or a kid selling school fundraisers, go ahead and answer. If it is a stranger/likely sales person, don't answer.

[Xin Lu]

My parents have a very noisy little dog. If you can't see him you'd think he's a huge dog from the sound of his bark, but he recognizes people so when its a stranger he barks like crazy and my parents don't answer the door. Usually salespeople tend to stay away from houses with barking, too.

Personally I live in a condo complex that has a front gate that's always locked so only the neighbors get in.

[lucille]

Originally Posted by Xin Lu

My parents have a very noisy little dog. If you can't see him you'd think he's a huge dog from the sound of his bark, but he recognizes people so when its a stranger he barks like crazy and my parents don't answer the door. Usually salespeople tend to stay away from houses with barking, too.

Personally I live in a condo complex that has a front gate that's always locked so only the neighbors get in.

I have a large dog. Coming upstairs to see who is at the door is too much work. :-)
Maybe I need to get her a smaller more ambitious companion.

[Milehimama]

Put up a sign that says:

"Come back on the 1st. Thats when the welfare check arrives. Get here early before Billy drinks it."

Works on telemarketers, anyway!

[lucille]

Originally Posted by Milehimama

Put up a sign that says:

"Come back on the 1st. Thats when the welfare check arrives. Get here early before Billy drinks it."

Works on telemarketers, anyway!

OMG. That is funny.

[purplefdu]

Answer the door naked. My husband's mom used to live a block from the Jehovah Witnesses. nice group of people, very pleasant but they just don't get that no one living there believes in G*d. Finally my husband answered the door naked with lipstick around his hardware. Needless to say they never came back and haven't even bothered the new tenants since his mom moved out.

[cindybythesea]

I did this in college for a charity. If there's signs up, we're told to skip that house.

[purplefdu]

legally you have to skip those houses, but you'd be surprised how many people don't.

[Jason830]

What are the repercussions if you dont skip the houses?