Did theyhave no other choice of lodging? I mean, guests get sick and things happen. I wouldn’t have turned them out but I would have kept my distance. And a “how are you feeling, we have it ourselves, now” is a fine low level way to let them know.
If I were the guest, I would have found a hotel.
At a bare minimum I hope they wore masks whenever they ventured outside of their room into the rest of the house. I agree with those who say you should tell them that you became sick after their stay…same symptoms for 5(!) days. How they react will be telling of their character. What you do about it is up to you.
I would query anyone before they left home to visit me, but i am immunosuppressed. They should have gone to a hotel.
Actually, I would tell them that I got sick. It’s not fair of you to host them, care for them, and then contract their illness. The scarier thing is my daughter flies out left and right, everywhere, because she now has a job where she can take a lot of time off. if I were to put her on a plane, with sick people, and she got sick I would be furious!
The actual opposite thing happened to us. Our daughter invited a college friend to stay with us because we were having sunny days. We all got Covid! Runny nose and cough. That’s it. We tested and found out that we had Covid. Two weeks of being ill. My husband, my son, and I wore a mask all week while she was in town. We put up the girls at the local hotel in a tourist area, for a week explaining that they could leave their stuff here, and come back whenever they felt the need to use the house. We just hibernated in our rooms and used Lysol wipes on all of the door knobs. I changed the bathroom hand towels, hourly, when they were here.
We get visitors all the time but it’s family and we’d have no problem telling them “we can’t house you”. Since we have lots of hotel points, we would offer to put them up. The difference is that our family contacts us in advance. They let us know “we’re stopping by February 14 to the 21st. Can you put us up?” I know for sure they would not get on a plane full of people if they were sick.
I got Covid from a friend who knew she was sick, but decided not to tell anyone. She stayed at our friend’s apartment, went out to dinner with us and attended a party at a bar. Our relationship has changed since the incidence.
I can understand sometimes people may not know when they are sick or contagious, but knowingly infecting other people is pure selfishness.
You never know when your “mild” illness may cause another to be hospitalized or worse and suffer permanent harm. Knowingly showing up at someone’s place ill and expect to be accepted as a houseguest in that condition is selfish entitlement, plain & simple.
My wife just had the opposite thing sorta happen. Went to a friend’s house in Florida and he became sick. So she forced herself to lay outside at the pool all day… Lol. Seriously. That is what she did and came inside to eat and go to bed. Lol.
But, my friends would never do that to us. They probably wouldn’t be on my friend list after this.
I think this is one of those things that has changed since the advent of Covid. Before Covid, if you had a cold, you went about your daily business. You went to work, socialized and did all the things that you usually do.
Now there is a big difference in how we handle being sick. We stay home, our employers let us work from home.
Not everyone got that memo. Not everyone is as turned into the new way of not going out when sick. I would say that there are those who think even covid is just a virus. Why worry? I’m not one of those people btw.
And I think it depends. Our granddaughter goes to daycare. She constantly has a cold. If you don’t want to get a cold, don’t visit them.
My husband had a cold right before we went to our daughters last summer. He went to the doctor and asked her what she wanted. We still went and she didn’t get her cold. It was a mild summer cold. Her fiance on the other hand brought Covid home from his work. That was interesting. Daughter needed help, we stayed, he wore a mask and we didn’t get Covid. It was a difficult choice.
I think for the OP, it depends on the guests. It would have been nice for them to let you know. They didn’t, they may have thought it was just a cold and why worry. In that case, it’s your choice to host them again.
My BIL and wife were supposed to stop here the Friday before Christmas. DH was away that week. I did all the holiday decorating so the house would look nice (no one else was going to be here for the holidays).
Well…the night before, BIL and wife called me. They both had very bad colds, and were coughing a lot. They just didn’t feel comfortable stopping here and spreading their germs.
I really appreciated their thoughtful call, and said I hoped they felt better soon.
I was very glad they had the courtesy to call.
Prior to COVID I remember people coming to stay with us while on vacation being sick, and when we were on vacation with those same people my husband got sick, and nobody thought anything about it. COVID has changed things for us.
I would likely not turn someone away at the door, but I would expect people to decide they shouldn’t stay if they were sick.
Not everyone gets it though. I have a relative that wanted to go on a trip to NYC with the rest of the family, even though she had COVID, and went out with friends while she still had a fever with COVID. That was not cool, in my opinion. This same person flew home from vacation after testing positive, but I’m hoping she masked the entire way. I didn’t ask.
I’ll be frank: I would be pissed off.
I’m the guy on the plane who writhes in inner turmoil when people around me are coughing. I will actually “blow” outwardly to (I’m stupidly thinking…) get the germy air out of the area of air in front of my face that I’ll be breathing. lol. Somewhat less ridiculous, I wash my hands immediately after getting back to the airport terminal.
For the next couple days, I am paranoid at the thought of oncoming illness/symptoms. I’m not sure I have ever become ill after a cough-heavy flight, but I expect to every time.
To me, it is the height of selfishness and bad manners to willfully subject someone to your illness.
Had I been that guest, I would have called to cancel and – presuming I decided to continue the trip – gone to a hotel.
I really appreciate this thread. I now know what to do if this happens as I was really clueless. I’m planning on offering a hotel close to us and meet outside. H has an autoimmune illness and heck we are old, so plenty of reasons.
Every time I see the grand kids they are either getting over a cold or starting one while we visit in the detached granny flat or at our house. I use a mask on occasion and try to visit outside. We have dodged covid from them by pure luck on timing.
My favorites are the folks who are making diagnostic and risk assessment decisions for OTHER people. “Oh, I know you have MS and need to be careful, but I’ve had this hacking cough for weeks- I’m sure it’s just an allergy and you’ll be fine”. Or “My sister is nuts. She won’t let us visit her when she heard we’d been exposed to Covid yesterday. My brother-in-law is done with Chemo so what’s the big deal?”
I think it’s rude to show up at someone’s house ill-- at least a phone call that morning “hey, we’re under the weather. Do you want us to reschedule?” is common courtesy. And keeping your mouth shut on OTHER people’s risk assessments/protocols is the only way to preserve those relationships down the road.
I have a friend (much younger than I am) who lost several family members to Covid AND had long Covid with weeks in the hospital. There’s a whole group of people she no longer speaks to… between the ones who claim “you don’t need PT to regain your ability to climb stairs, you should get acupuncture, I saw it Good Morning America” and the ones who insist “I don’t need a vaccine- I eat clean and raw foods and run 20 miles twice a week” it makes you realize how many insensitive slobs there are in the world! This is what you tell a formerly healthy person who is highly compromised- and lost family members- to a terrible virus?
When my daughter visited me a couple of summers ago, she was coughing. Her Covid testing came back negative. I didn’t think too much about it. It turned out to be Covid. I got covid a few days later. I am still glad she and her friend came. I was happy to see them. No way I’d put them up in a hotel. I wanted them with me. Covid was a non-event for me. A little sore throat for a few days.
I also went on a cruise and roomed with a friend who had a cold. A few days later I got a cold. We are still friends,
Everyone should have the right to make their own assessment. It shouldn’t be imposed on them. Covid was a non event for you, but it may not be the case for others. It’s is only right to let your host know when you are sick and let him/her decide if they are comfortable hosting you.
To me the guests of the OP sounds like what my in laws did for many years.
Every year they would drive to Florida and visit numerous friends. Spend 2 weeks going from house to house.
This was a few years ago but they never stayed in hotels, I’m sure it never occurred to them to do so.
It sounded like the sick guests were in the middle of a round of staying with friends.
Doesn’t excuse what they did.
Assuming they knew they were sick with more than a very mild cold, they should at least have offered to leave. I always find it difficult to say to someone not to come if they are sick, but I will do it, especially if I have something important coming up. My DH is the opposite, and would not have been too upset.
If someone becomes sick while visiting I would not send them away since we had already been exposed.
I would hope your friends reached out to ask if you got sick and were concerned. I would definitely tell them and tell them they would only be welcome next time if they were healthy.
Thanks to all who have helped me out with this. We were so surprised to have to walk the line between being welcoming and avoiding getting sick. We are not going to throw away the friendship of decades but will be more cautious. These friends have been less cautious than us since the pandemic started and we have tactfully avoided some times with them. We are very careful, well vaxxed, wear masks on planes and such, and have pretty much isolated this week, even as we are getting better. We don’t want to share this illness. If we had had an upcoming visit with young children or immune compromised people planned we would have been more likely to have sent them on.
We think there is no way we would have stayed at friends’ homes sick as they were, and did once get a hotel room instead when one of our kids was slightly sick several years ago.
Today we decided if this happens in the future, unless it is our kids or grandkids, we will ask guests to stay in their room, and we will serve food in their rooms or outside, and wear/offer masks. We will be more prepared to do that. We likely will ask these friends if they are healthy before getting together next time(s).
I had texted to them yesterday that we were sick in a 5 word simple message, in a moment of frustration, after they texted what fun things they had done since they left. I am glad that many of you did not think that was out of line.
Thanks again for your ideas, insights, and opinions. We will be fine, and are well on our way back to being healthy; it’s just been a short term, kind of big “price” to pay for their visit. We realized we needed to have a plan in case this happens again.
Were your friends sympathetic/apologetic? 
I’m so sorry this happened to you -
I wouldn’t have let them stay, I’d have offered to research a nearby hotel, I’d have even ordered food for them, but nope, not hosting sick visitors -
And 100% I’d let them know the household is now sick.
In this day with Covid and worse, I don’t think they were very considerate. I suspect they’d be the same folks who would get on a cruise ship, or airplane, sick, because hey, it’s my vacation too.
Rude and inconsiderate.
For the record my dearest friend of 49 years thinks nothing of trying to keep plans even if she’s sick, I can’t count how many times I’ve said “not on my watch!” and rescheduled.