<p>
To me, this is enough to just let it go. It’s a pretty long stay, really. There doesn’t have to be any other reason.</p>
<p>Just let it go. You don’t know what 's going on in their lives. And it’s up to each person how to act on these things. </p>
<p>I rarely,if ever ask about things like that. I will let the person know the situation and what is needed and if they will step up and offer, it’s great but if not, then, oh well. I don’t like getting rebuffed so I avoid situations where it can happen.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The thing is your D is an adult. If she wants to indulge her whim she should be doing the legwork of finding housing, figuring out how she will support herself, etc…</p>
<p>Why are you still doing this sort of thing for her? When my kids graduate they can live at home if they need to do so, but starting their life in another city will be up to them. Your D needs to learn to stand on her own two feet.</p>
<p>The thing that made me uncomfortable was stalking the house online and passing judgment on how another family uses its space. That’s not your business. It would have been perfectly fine to ask the mother for suggestions in the area, but not to go as far as you did.</p>
<p>I have a big house in NYC and people do ask me to stay but I always say no. Even family. The reason is that we have a dog who bites. I wish he didn’t bite, but he does, so we don’t have overnight guests. Who even knows what their reason was other than the fact that the request was really quite nervy.</p>
<p>While I generally agree that the D needs to take the lead,and have said so, people ought to realize that people with connections ROUTINELY use them to help their kids. You know, the whole “born on third base, thinks s/he hit a triple” thing? Apparently it is only hoi polloi who think that kid should be totally on their own and it is a mark of shame to rattle the branches and see what fruit falls. :)</p>
<p>We live in LA and H is(or was) in the film industry. I get at least one request each year from mothers or fathers of kids who we barely know if H would help them out with connections or could their kid stay in our guest room while getting settled. It’s almost always people we hardly ever hear from. They always seem more than a little miffed when I tell them no without even consulting H. I know what H will say to these requests, so I feel perfectly comfortable saying NO up front. Your “friends” response does not surprise me at all.</p>
<p>Expanding on my previous comment and echoing many similar comments, there’s two other factors to think about.</p>
<p>One is one’s living space is very personal and a private sanctum to many people. There has to be a close enough relationwise to even cause the original resident in question to risk allowing someone else inside…especially if it is for longer than a day or two. </p>
<p>Second is the idea that if someone has a lot of room that they should feel obligated to help someone else on that front. This is a variant of feeling entitled to someone else’s stuff because they have more of it…except IMHO it’s worse precisely because it does involve someone else’s personal living space and all the inconveniences/possible hassles which come with it…including the possibility of going to court to evict a guest who has overstayed his/her welcome and refuses to leave days/weeks/months after the agreed time period has lapsed. </p>
<p>Moreover, your daughter needs to prepare for the possibility that your very asking the mother of the casual acquaintance about her large home has already caused such awkwardness/ill-feeling that it burned a bridge. Especially considering your daughter wasn’t the one asking and it bypassed the primary person who should have been asked directly…the D who actually lives there. </p>
<p>A reason why in such matters among adults 18+, parents should NOT be involved…especially if it cuts out those who are/would be directly involved in the transaction.</p>
<p>Cobrat that was a brilliant post. I hadn’t thought about the burning bridges issue but you are absolutely right.</p>
<p>Connections or networking or nepotism…it is the most likely way of getting a job these days; a recommendation from a friend or co-worker gets you the foot in the door when the job may not even have been advertised yet…but housing while you are looking for a job has to be at your own expense I think. We have been going through this in a city far away too…can’t get a job without living there…can’t get an apartment without a job…it has been stressful to say the least. And…as someone else mentioned, perhaps we should all factor into our college budgets, the after graduation expenses for a certain period until they find jobs.</p>
<p>OP, I think you are missing the point a little bit. You keep mentioning how that’s not an unusual request in your area, etc. Whether the request is reasonable or not (it may be an OK request if made to the person who is actually the resident - the daughter) doesn’t matter as much as you recognizing that the response was not in ANY way unreasonable. What’s unreasonable is you thinking that you have any right to be annoyed/miffed/hold it against the people.</p>
<p>If you like roommates, house guests, etc. That’s fine. That’s you. A lot of people that age live with house/apartment-mates because they can’t AFFORD anything else, not because it’s more fun for them. That’s why they have TINY studios in NYC, because there are plenty of people who would rather have next to no space than have roommates. My point is, your request is a burden. If it’s a really good friend, they might make a sacrifice, but, in most cases, expect the answer to be ‘no’ and keep in mind that it IS a sacrifice to let someone, you didn’t specifically invite, into your personal space, no matter how many rooms you have. And it’s a big enough sacrifice that there is no way you should be expecting random people to make it for you or your daughter.</p>
<p>My observation is that whenever anybody asks a question like this, there is sort of a bell curve of responses, ranging from “what you did was fine and I agree with you,” to “how dare you even consider doing such a horrible thing.” I think if you find yourself at one end of the curve–as I’d say OP pretty much does here–I think it’s worth taking it to heart and considering whether you’re overreacting. I’d say the middle of the curve here was essentially: “Not too horrible to ask, but no reason to be annoyed at the response.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Disagree if it’s a casual acquaintance/stranger. There’s too many unknowns about the individual and real substantial risks…especially when it comes to something very personal like one’s own living space. </p>
<p>There’s a good reason the few friends I knew who were free about allowing casual acquaintances/strangers to stay in their homes ended up living to regret it. Having to launch eviction proceedings to get them out does tend to do that. </p>
<p>Only reason I never had an issue with this is that the only guests I’ve ever allowed to stay at my place are older/same aged relatives and close friends(known for 5+ years) I get along with who are extremely respectful of others’ property/living spaces. </p>
<p>Considering the way the OP went about making that request, I wouldn’t be surprised if that mom and possibly her D have serious doubts about the OP or her D on the the respect aspect. I certainly would if someone’s parent went around me and asked my parents whether their kid could stay in my home.</p>
<p>I offered to put up a CCer’s recent graduate during the search for more permanent housing. Said graduate already had a job offer in hand, I knew the mom well and I brought up the idea. S2 also invited a friend from school to come stay with us while he was in the area to do research on a project. S did talk to us first before extending the invite, and it worked out fine. The young man was very nice and was an excellent houseguest, but after ten days, we were still glad to have our house back to ourselves.</p>
<p>Also agree with Cobrat on burning bridges. </p>
<p>S1 went out to CA with a job in hand, but no apartment – found a hostel that puts up folks in his industry and stayed there til his corporate housing reloc kicked in. He also had friends in the area who offered him floor space – but he arranged for everything, not us.</p>
<p>OP, don’t be surprised if you have to cosign a lease if your D decides to stay out there and finds a place – even with S and DIL earning two software engineer salaries, we nearly had to cosign. It wasn’t because of income, but due to lack of rental history. S had always lived on campus, and DIL’s rental history was overseas and could not be easily verified.</p>
<p>We squeezed more out of our regular budget so that the guys could have their UTMA accounts as “transition money” for post-graduation expenses. We didn’t plan it that way, but realized that those funds were probably more valuable to the guys as launching money than reducing our share of COA by a small percentage each year. </p>
<p>The accounts were not large (think book money), but enough for initial apartment deposits and some basic IKEA furniture. If they got a place with roommates and got furniture from Craigslist, they <em>maybe</em> could squeeze a downpayment on a car out of it, too. For S2, who will have a tougher time in the job market than his brother, that account lets us step back from being the Bank of Mom and Dad and lets him decide what his priorities are.</p>
<p>Oh, for goodness sakes. She asked, the person said no. End of the matter move on. Now OP knows that there are folks out there who look at these things differently than she does and there may other issues a family has that makes the react differently. I wouldn’t dwell on this an instant. </p>
<p>Your daughter went to school with a bunch of kids studying the same things and probably going the same path. If any of them are in the LA area, they may let her stay for a while. That’s how it’s usually done.</p>
<p>Because we live in the NYC area, we host a lot of people, but had to draw some lines when we were become a boarding house for young starving actors. But I know my son seems to have guests at his place all of the time including some resident hoboes. It’s not unusual fo them to have friends stay. In fact, when he did his college tours, he rarely stayed at a hotel but stayed in a dorm or apartment of someone he knew from his high school that was at the school. But he asked, not us. I wouldn’t feel comfortable asking a parent if a kid of mine could stay in the parent’s kid’s dorm room while visiting the school, but the the kids have no such compunctions. My college son currently hosts kids he knows and his brother will be staying with him for about a week while visiting the area. </p>
<p>But just drop it and move on.</p>
<p>2 summers ago my son was bicycling solo across the US. As he approached Fargo ND, my wife reached out and contacted a friend of hers who used to live in our town in NJ. We have been exchanging holiday cards for years - ever since they moved to ND. This woman has a son who for a while was good friends with our older son. My wife only wanted our younger son to stay with these old friends for 1 night on his journey. As soon as she picked up the phone, this woman launched (unprovoked) into a political rant. I am not sure if my wife had a chance to voice her request. Never mind… son stayed in a motel that night.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s not an unusual whim, but it’s certainly worth considering what happens to most of the people who do the same thing - they’ll wait tables for a few years, become very bitter when nothing turns out for them, and then they move home (or to a different area) to do something else more realistic.</p>
<p>Your D is not unusual for wanting to pursue her dreams or as you say indulge her whim.</p>
<p>But really, if you are going to get involved, don’t rely on the kindness of others. My involvement cuts to the chase. I gave D permission to take an unpaid internship in the entertainment field (after having years of other unpaid internships already on her resume) with the understanding that we would help her out financially by paying her rent.</p>
<p>That is the reality of most entry level jobs in film, tv and theatre. At this point, I think of what we are paying as “graduate” school. I encourage her to be independent and I support the road she is taking–but that support comes in the financial form as well, at least for now.</p>
<p>On the other hand, one of son’s college friends found a well-paying job at a Madison AVE ad agency through LinkedIn. He’s smart and charismatic, but I doubt he had training or experience or personal connections. sometimes these things do work out.</p>
<p>But I agree with others that this was an ill-judged request. I would only ask something like that of really close family members and even then, maybe only if I had hosted them or their kids for extended periods. My family lived in a lake home for much of my childhood. It was amazing how often people invited themselves for vacation visits. I realize it is different from offering to pay rent, but both things can be very awkward and it can be hard to say no.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Probably hard to dissuade a young person from experiencing the glamour of “Hollywood” but if I were trying to break into that very competitive business I would try some place that is active in TV and film, but less competitive than LA, like for example Wilmington NC or Atlanta GA. There is a lot going on in both places.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree with zoosermom. That was an odd thing to do. I hope you didnt mention that while you were asking for a favor. If it were me I would have regarded you with suspicion.</p>
<p>When my H and I were in our mid-20s and bought our first home, friends, acquaintances, college friends, HS friends, close relatives, relatives, that you didnt know were related to you, were always popping in for a visit. Once, a relative that wasnt even close to us just appeared at our front door unannounced saying she had a reunion in the area and felt that our house would be a more comfortable place than a hotel. Say what?! Back then it was very difficult for us to say no. Now, in our current home I always have some excuse unless the person is very close to us. </p>
<p>OP, you said 2 to 3 weeks but your D hasnt even found a job. Based on our experience those weeks turn into months even a year! Visitors always have an excuse to prolong the stay. I, too, dont think your D should move to LA unless she has a job lined up unless you have the money to shoulder the worst situationno job even after a year or just a minimum wage job. </p>
<p>I find it amusing that you are miffed. Whats next? If your acquaintances D just for example has a bf who is a film producer will you get upset too if your D isnt given a gig by the bf?</p>