I live in an apartment on the 6th floor of a buiding with security guys day and night. So I never get any unwanted visitors ringing the door bell. But the telephone is another matter. I often pretend I'm the maid and say "Madam is away" or before they give the reason for calling I tell the I don't accept money requests on the phone and hang up. I feel sorry for them because if they are trying to earn their living that way is because they couldn't find anything else. My problem at one time was with fellows communicating through Skype with false identities. I would get up to 20 lmessages per day until I wrote on my page "To those fellows writing to me everyday please note that I am old but not stupid" Between 3 or 4 weeks later all the messages had stopped. 
The weather finally cooperated so I put the No Soliciting sign up! 
