Like most people I really, really hate door-to-door salespeople. So much so that I have come up with several stock lies to dispose of them as quickly as possible.
My most recent one is to tell the home-remodeling salespeople when asked “do you own the home?” reply “No, I’m watching it for my friend who is out of the country.” They seem to leave real quick after that.
However, my wife hates it that I lie to these guys. She says “Why do you have to lie? Just tell them you’re not interested.”
To which I try to explain that these guys have a million and one responses for every ‘not interested’ answer and I rather not get into a verbal back and forth with them.
Should I feel bad or am I wussing out by lying to these guys?
Next time make her answer the door and deal with them.
You’re wussing out, but I wouldn’t feel too bad about it personally. You do what you gotta do.
I say: “I’m not interested.” If they try to speak further after that, I say, “I’m closing the door. Please leave my property.” And then I close the door.
Why even answer the door? I don’t. My friends all know to call me, not to just drop by, cause I never answer the door unless I’m expecting someone.
When I was a kid I remember being really impressed a couple of times when my mother answered the door to be confronted by religious fanatics. They started blathering on and she politely said, “I’m not interested. We are Jewish.”
We weren’t but it got rid of them in an instant.
IMO, you shouldn’t feel bad about lying, just about wussing out. I’m about the least assertive guy I know, and I have no problem saying, “not interested” and if the solicitor then utters any further words unrelated to how he is fucking off immediately, closing the door in his face.
Haahahaa! You gotta regulate on them all officially like that? Cold.
I used to be more polite, but they will not shut up if you are polite. The last straw was when I told a vacuum salesman guy “I’m sorry but I’m in the middle of something right now” and he literally stuck his foot in the door and said “This will only take 10 minutes!”
I was like “I’m closing the door now, you better get your foot out of there.”
Then I realized, hey, that was pretty effective, I’m doing that from now on.
My father grew up in the Camden area of Minneapolis and when he was 10, a door-to-door accordion salesman made a sale to his parents. After hearing that story and subsequent polka, I had a new found respect for door-to-door salesmen.
One of the advantages of having a big curious dog is being able to say urgently, “Back, girl… it’s okay… it’s okay.” I find door-to-door solicitors are a bit more anxious to accept an excuse to walk away. 
Of course, my dog is ridiculously friendly and is probably only interested in whether they’d giver her a ride in their car, but they don’t know that.
I have no doubt they are lying to you in at least part of their sales pitch so I see no problem with you lying to them either. Don’t worry about it.
So don’t. They don’t really have an answer to closing the door.
I usually go with “we’re happy with our current religion, but will contact you if we become dissatisfied with our service”. This generally discombobulates them, and they go away.
I used to get into long discussions with them, but now I haven’t the time.
My current issue is with people who call and tell me my computer operating system is screwing up, and they’re calling to fix it. I figure they’re fishing for personal data, so I either tell them I’d rather be robbed in person, or else I act incredibly stupid until they get frustrated.
My personal favorite used to be to answer the phone and say “just a second” and put the phone down and proceed to simulate continuing a screaming fight with the other people in the house that would end in a scuffle and disconnected phone. We used to call it ‘redneck opera’.
I’ve never seen a door to door salesman. They still exist?
I think I’ll try that next time. Even if they’re trying to sell a vacuum cleaner.
My wife goes for the weaselly lying excuses, but I just go for the “Not interested, good-bye” approach.
I think it woujld be more fun to tell them, with a straight face…“I don’t have a home”, then close the door while they are processing that.
I used to do that back in the day after phone company deregulation when I would get phone calls from companies trying to get me to switch my phone service. I would tell them when they called that “I don’t have a phone”
Naw, we’re just screwing with you.
I doubt that’s quicker than the straight forward method.
Interrupt their speech immediately and politely say “No, thank you” and close the door regardless of any form of communication that may be traveling your way as the door closes.
Typically the door is closed in under 3 seconds.
A friend of mine used to love answering the door when these guys showed up, because he loved messing with them. My favorite was when they asked if he was the man of the house and he said, “Oh no, I’m a bum. I’m just squatting here.”