Am I denying it???
In the OP’s scenario but living where I do I’d resent the unexpected visit but in the interest of future relations I’d throw on borderline presentable clothing and go for a snack with the invading troops to the kebab shop over the street (in the afternoon, go for cake in a café a few streets over). I gather where the OP lives there are no such options?
Not picking on you as such, but this is a very clear vignette to comment on.
IMO …
Not answering the door amounts to lying: attempting to create the false impression you aren’t home.
It’s cowardly if someone (anyone) can’t stand to open the door, confront your friend / neighbor / relative / acquaintance, and tell them the truth: “Go away. I’m too busy / not in the mood for an unannounced visit. No, not even from you”.
You owe strangers no duty of anything. Not truth, not courtesy. Maybe, depending on circumstances, not even the absence of violence. But for people with whom you (any you) already have a relationship however tenuous, IMO one of the highest duties you owe them is dealing with them truthfully.
Which can be done diplomatically. Being diplomatic is not synonymous with being a doormat acceding to their every request / demands.
I agree! I hate drop-ins. My in-laws were well-known for dropping in. I hated it so much. I would just be sitting down to eat and watch a good show and I’d see their vehicle pull into the driveway. Afternoon ruined. Once we said that we were just going to eat. MIL said - that’s ok, we’ll wait. So they sat on the couch while we ate. I hadn’t made extra food so I couldn’t even offer for them to join us. Dinner ruined. I came out of the bathroom once, still zipping up my jeans, and almost ran into my MIL. They let themselves in the house! My husband hated it too. He finally told them they couldn’t come over unless they called first. FF to last summer. We were sitting on the patio, eating our lunch and enjoying the beautiful day. I hear MIL’s car pull up. When she sat down, I said kind of snarkily - Oh, I didn’t know you were coming today. She actually said - Well you told me to call before I came. I called and no one answered. 
Why would you come over if no one answered the phone???!!!My husband had been mowing and didn’t have his phone with him. After she sat for an hour, she got up to leave and said she was going to stop in at a friend’s house. Unannounced of course.
She died in March. Every once in a while, I hear a car and think - oh no she’s here.
Moderating:
This is MPSIMS, not the pit. It’s totally inappropriate to call another poster those names. Don’t do it again.
Nope. It’s an attempt to create the accurate impression that you’re not opening the door.
You might not be opening the door because you’re not home. You might not be opening the door because you’re in the bathtub. You might not be opening the door because you’re having sex. You might not be opening the door because you’re in a zoom meeting at work. You might not be opening the door because you’re frantically trying to finish off something that must be sent today or you’re going to be financially or otherwise screwed. You might not be opening the door because you’ve got a migraine. You might not be opening the door because you’ve got social anxiety. You might not be opening the door because you’re composing a poem, or finishing an article on deadline. You might not be opening the door because your cat or your mother or your best friend is dying or just died and you can’t deal with anybody else right now.
Or you might not be opening the door because you promised yourself this one afternoon to yourself and you badly need that.
And there is nothing whatsoever cowardly about not answering the door for any of those reasons; or for any of the ones which I’m sure I left out.
I can. And my first impulse is that I’d tell them, “sorry, not a good time, I’m busy now”, but chat for a couple of minutes and let them use the bathroom. And if that’s how it played out and then they left, I’d be happy to have seen them.
But… The niece’s insistence that the OP feed her kids gives me pause. I don’t mind people popping by. It was common in my youth, and I’m generally gregarious, and most of the time I’d be happy to see a friend or relative. But part of the rules of popping by is that “not now” is an acceptable answer. And the niece isn’t playing by those rules. And I’m inclined to trust the OP in her claim that the family wouldn’t just use the facilities and leave, since the niece isn’t playing by the rules.
So… rude, but understandable, given the circumstances.
What an interesting (and quite valid) point that I had really not considered.
In my mind, if someone asked random strangers “Which would you consider more threatening, a random person coming to your door in urban New Jersey or a random person coming to your door in rural America?” I probably would assume people would think New Jersey is a dangerous place and choose that one.
But I live in urban New Jersey and we have police that will arrive in minutes, there is lots of busy traffic in front of my house, and it is not uncommon to have various strangers coming by, usually asking to give a quote on windows or siding or trimming our trees.
If I lived on a farm with no neighbors for miles, I would absolutely be creeped out by some stranger coming to my door, especially if I were alone!
Of course, that’s all during regular daylight hours. If the doorbell rings at midnight anywhere, that pegs the “creepy” meter.
Apologies. I phrased that badly and it was not meant to directly insult the OP.
The point I was trying to make is that if my friends and/or family were to stop by uninvited, I would generally forgive the interruption and lack of protocol to hang out with them for a bit.
Slamming the door in their face (particularly with children) strikes me as someone who generally does not want to be around other people, unless it is under very specific circumstances.
I guess one exception is my wife’s parents and one aunt (the other aunt and her husband I like). And the reason for that my wife’s mother shows up to our second home constantly (because my wife bought down the fucking street from them) and every interaction with them is tedious.
I’m just saying if it were me, I’d take a break from cleaning for a bit if company came by.
Of course there is the opposite extreme. I had been dating a girl for a few weeks and got her a small Christmas gift. I was driving by here house and dropped it by the front door, nothing UPS or FedEx wouldn’t do and certainly not being a stalker. She broke up with me over that because how dare I go to her house without calling her first to make sure it was ok.
I loved my parents and enjoyed spending time with them. And when i was shopping for houses, the house across the street from theirs came on the market, and i could have bought it without an agent fee and probably at an attractive price, because the owner was friends with both me and my folks.
And i didn’t buy it, i bought a house half a mile away. Because my father would have dropped by all the time. And despite enjoying company in general and my parents in particular, i wanted a little more privacy and space than that.
Regarding the idea that the OP was expected to make lunch for everyone; not everyone has the skills or ingredients or inclination to whip together lunch for five, four of whom are children, perhaps with particular wants or needs.
I think this is the right approach. I’m not faulting the OP too much, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask to have a short chat, let the kids use the bathroom for goodness sake, and then shuffle them all out the door saying “let’s get together real soon”…definitely no preparing lunch for everyone!
Even if Lark is willing to do the food prep, even if she brought the food, it’s an unreasonable imposition to demand that someone else host you for an hour right now .
I mean, if I’d been Lark, i would have seen all the stuff taken apart, and said, “hi, auntie Strong, we were in the neighborhood and thought we’d drop by and visit you, but i see this isn’t a good time.” And i might have asked if she could let the kids use the bathroom, but maybe not even that.
I try to make the best of it because our kids like spending time with them and they’re getting on in age. Although it seems to stress my wife out dealing with her parents all the time. Like her mom is always buying junk at the thrift store or food because she thinks she’s being helpful, but it’s not. It’s like a whole thing I don’t want to even get into.
I grew up on a farm, and, although it was a while back, before this country became an armed but not polite society, strangers came to the house several times.
The most common was those who hit a deer with their car after dark. They needed to use the phone to call for a tow. Actually, I was once that person as well: I hit a deer at 5:30 am and had to walk to the nearest farm. Thank goodness they didn’t shoot me! (of course, this is no longer an issue. Even in rural WI everyone has cell phones.) Interestingly, I never talked to them again, and they were only a couple miles away.
We also had Jehovah’s Witnesses come by unannounced. My dad loved that, he’d try to convert them to catholicism!
An antiquer came by one time cold, looking for old stuff to buy. We made a few bucks that day.
You dodged a bullet there. maybe literally.
I feel like it was different back then, in that there weren’t expectations if you were just stopping by because you happened to be in that part of town. Like if we were near my aunt and uncle’s house in the late 70s/early 80s, we’d stop by and knock on the door, but there wasn’t any expectation that they’d be there, or they’d be ready for us to hang out, etc… It was literally because we were in the neighborhood, and there wasn’t any other way to get hold of them, shy of finding a payphone and calling them.
It sounds like the OP’s niece came with expectations, which is where the f-up really was. Had she just taken the news that the OP wasn’t ready for visitors, I don’t think it would or should have been a big deal.
Is that what you ordinarily do when you single handedly deep clean your entire house which takes up the whole day?