Why I will never answer my door

The obvious answer in the states is to avoid door-to-door sales people that pedal anything and everything from encyclopedias to religion. However, in Korea we have the door-to-door "gas sniffing lady." No, its not a joke, it is for real. Normally everyday my door is plastered with advertising stickers selling everything from food to women; I ignore them and the "Trash Fairy" comes and makes them disappear in the morning. I can't read the advertising and don't try. I come home one night after work and notice five post it notices that show the date and time she had come to my house to sniff my gas. I ignore these too because I was sure the good Trash Fairy would make these too disappear. Then at 9:30PM the door bell rings and spontaneously I answer the door. There she is yelling at me and waving a wand at me trying to push her way into my house to do something. I smile and say thank you hoping that she will go away and as I go to close the door she grabs for the handle. More yelling... Then I give in. She waves this wand at me, no, no gas there today; then proceeds to run it around every wall in my house and in every drain and pipe. Upon completion she has me print my name, sign, and write my phone number on this form. Now she calls me once a week. I say "English" and hang up.

There were two other instances that happened with different people when I answered my door. The last one was someone I think trying to proselytize. I again answered the door and did not understand a word that was said so again I bowed and said thanks and closed the door. They knock again and kept screaming something. Eventually they left. It took three times for me to figure out that if I don't answer the door they will go away. I even asked my co-workers if they answer their door and they said "nope, what's the point if I don't understand."

The gas sniffing lady did come back today. I just quietly peered through my peep hole and watched her move on knocking at all the other doors, waiting three seconds before moving on to the next until she found a sucker that answers the door. Today my neighbor downstairs was her victim.