<p>Oh Barrons, I am just like you. I don’t like to have overnight guests and I don’t like to be an overnight guest.</p>
<p>As for the MIL who locks the kids outside all day, lately EVERYONE who has gone to see them at the lake has stayed in a hotel.</p>
<p>Like one poster above, I have a relative who displays her hostility & selfishness about her mansion lifestyle by demanding perfection (read, absence) of her guests, including blood relatives. Dare to leave one dish in the sink (rinsed) for half a second, while you finish the rest of your meal, & she goes ballistic & starts screaming. Dare to leave your unfinished plate for half a second while you use the bathroom, & she melts down. (Accusing you of treating her like a servant.) I could go on and on. Oh, and if you offer to be invisible & come & go silently, eat elsewhere, etc., she still makes up excuses about how your presence will cramp her 5,000 sq ft. lifestyle which includes 3 floors. Some people should NOT pretend that they welcome guests. Just come out and admit how selfish & antisocial you are.</p>
<p>OTOH, same relative, when staying with <em>me</em>, insists on maintaining her preferred lifestyle, in absentia, as much as possible, breaking my very, very few “rules” (requests). She moves the furniture around (!) to suit her preferences & comfort – failing to return said furniture to its previous location before she leaves. She insists on special lifestyle accommodations (no, she’s not in the least disabled), & complains about what she’s missing in her own home. We’re talking 1-2 nights, folks.</p>
<p>So what makes a good guest (besides the opposite of above)? For me it would be offering to help with dinner and/or wash dishes, but nothing beyond that (in terms of ‘housecleaning’). It would be maintaining one’s sleeping quarters in a neat & respectful way, such as not leaving wet towels on wood furniture or dry-cleanable fabric. That’s pretty simple: try not to disrupt the host’s lifestyle by extremely bizarre habits such as off-the-charts waking/sleeping/noise patterns, such as demanding silence at 8 pm so you can sleep early, & arising at 5 am & getting breakfast in close quarters when it is not a workday for anybody, including yourself. (Above relative also does all that.)</p>
<p>Blend in; don’t alter & criticize the host’s abode, neighborhood, zipcode. Or, with your abundant bank account, stay in a hotel where you have no need to adapt to any common lifestyle that doesn’t exactly accord with your own.</p>
<p>(End of rant.) :)</p>
<p>To summarize my above post, people who are extreme control freaks should neither have house guests nor be a house guest.</p>
<p>I so agree! I’m not an “extreme” control freak but I’m far enough down that line to be uncomfortable as both a guest and a host.</p>
<p>I had some company recently, it was a last minute surprise trip and it was during the work week, but i have a home office which is really awkward.</p>
<p>The told us where they were going and staying overnight, we thought we would see them one night at the beginning of their trek and one night on the end as the arrived south of us and planned to explore north.</p>
<p>Instead they stayed with us 4 nights and did not leave to go do touristy things early in the morning- so not just over nights, and not just breakfasts, but some days they did not leave until afternoon, leaving me unable to get to work and focus, and feeling rude to be in the house.</p>
<p>Also, leaving me aware of a teen sleeping until noon and watching cartoons all afternoon. I did not say anything, but the whole family was surprised when they did not stay in a hotel as they had planned for 2 of the 4 nights.</p>
<p>I think having an understanding of how the visit will go is paramount- every one is different, one family wants you to keep yourself busy, the other family is annoyed you are using them as a hotel, hard to know what to do, so the more communication the better.</p>
<p>Love the image of a horde of sunburned, hungry, crying grandchildren pounding on the door with Grandma on the inside ignoring them</p>
<p>They have a low budget and I am all for saving money, but I am lucky my DD was out of town or one of their kids would have been on the couch! </p>
<p>Oh, and if you have animal allergies, let the host know ahead of time, I had to change all the blankets, pillows and duvets, and figure out which room would have the least amount of dog hair</p>
<p>I live in a vacation destination. My family would come visit every summer for 4 days. I also have a sibling in town. Between the two of us we house the rest of our siblings and families. The two of us plan all the activities and meals. After a few years we started to at least assign the out of towners some items to bring for meals. For many years we did not ask them to bring anything and they didn’t nor did they ever offer to chip in for expenses.
Annoying things they did- Let their young kids walk around my house with food and juice boxes. The juice boxes would leak and the floor would get sticky. Guess who cleaned it up. They would help themselves to food which I don’t mind but would not clean up after themselves.
The absolute worse offense- leaving the dirty diapers in the garbage can in the guest room. Or changing the dirty diaper on my persian carpets.
I don’t care if they strip the bed or not. I just like it if they bring up whatever trash or cups that they have taken to the room back upstairs to the main level of the house.
My one brother wanted us to put our dogs away each time they came. His girls would scream when they saw a dog. If the girls wanted to go outside they wanted the dog inside. Then when they came back inside they screamed for us to put the dog outside. I would understand if the dogs even went near them but the dogs were old labs who just laid around. My brother never did a thing to try to convince his girls the dogs were fine.
This same brother is one that I have never felt welcome to stay at his house.
I have a couple of other siblings who are wonderful house guests. They also are great host and hostesses when we visit them.
My inlaws are neat freaks. When my kids were little they always feed us outside regardless of the weather. If we ate inside my FIL would have the broom and dustbuster out before the kids were done eating. They have lightened up in recent years.
Our last house guest was a pain. She was overly helpful and talked of wanting to not be an burden but had a way of making her opinion known. She offered a few times to bring home dinner. The first time she did pizza. But instead of picking it up at dinner time she ordered it mid day and then reheated it. The next time she ordered Chinese and also ordered it hours before dinner time. She asked me what we usually ordered. She ordered 1 dish my kids like but also ordered two dishes with seafood and mushrooms which she knows her brother (my husband) doesn’t eat. Some passive agressive behavior. The last was she stayed at our home when we were away. She let a friend stay with a dog. The dog scratched the paint on our door. She offered to replace the door. The door paint finish is a lacquer finish that can not be easily painted. We will live with the scratches but it is annoying.
We usually prefer to stay at hotels.</p>
<p>We have few houseguests and are only houseguests at families we know well. So far, it’s always been a pleasant experience from our perspective. We need to rest up when we’re having houseguests because they tend to be able to stay up later than hubby (he works pretty early in the morning). </p>
<p>It’s important to be flexible if you’re a guest or a host/hostess. Taking good care of property (especailly wood furniture) seems a priority–I got the coasters out when it appeared folks wanted to have drinks around on our wood furniture (we generally only drink in the kitchen & leave any beverages on the Corian).</p>
<p>Having some plans but setting some time aside to spend with the host/hostess seems like a good compromise. I never expect to be entertained but hope to spend some time with the family I visit when I travel and like it when they have similar plans.</p>
<p>One of our favorite houseguests fixed the flourescent light fixture in our home when he was staying at our home and taught us how to fix the others. My S (whose room he stayed in while S was off traveling) was overjoyed to have the improved lighting in his bedroom.</p>
<p>One of my houseguests also enjoyed driving while I navigated, leaving me free to converse on the cell phone/conference call while we were getting to & from appointments. Since he’s a very good driver, it was great for both of us.</p>
<p>With more and more people recycling these days, if you expect your guests to put the right trash in the right bin, be sure to make it clear and easy for them. My in laws have two different garbage bags in the kitchen and three different garbage pails out back and WOE to the guest who puts the wrong trash into the wrong (unlabled) container.</p>
<p>Funny how so many difficult hosts are the in laws- I hope by the time I am their age I have mellowed a bit 
Though with #3 leaving for university, I am beginning to understand why the old folks want everything in it’s place, they actually live that way, a new experience for us as we hit the empty nest.</p>
<p>A guest should be invited - or at the very least ask their host if they can come. (Seems basic - but apparently not 
)</p>
<p>Husband said that when his parents bought their lake house, they expressed hope that it would be a lure for the future grandkids. The first two of their kids to have kids abused it terribly. The moms would come with their kids for 3-6 weeks over the summer. By the time my husband and his brother had kids, I think the inlaws were sick of having grandkids around. The inlaws see my kids maybe once a year and that may be too often for the inlaws.</p>
<p>I’m with Barrons, I do not like to intrude in on my friends and H and I like to come and go as we please and not worry about the issues so many of you are having. We have stayed at very close friend’s homes for no more than 2nights. Usually we bring a home made dinner complete with wine and salad or fixings for a dinner for H and I to do. And we take them out for either a breakfast or dinner. If we arrive in early afternoon, we bring some hour doerves (sp) with wine. We don’t expect to be entertained. We help clean up. Staying only 1 or 2 days, to me is just enough time to spend and not be awkward or be in a position where the host may not invite you back.</p>
<p>Regarding food:</p>
<p>I think with this, and with all other issues, communication is key. As a guest, no one likes not to know what his or her boundaries are. It’s nice if the host is explicit: “We’ll be having a family dinner at ____o’clock & love it if you’ll join us. In the meantime, if you feel hungry & need to eat or snack, feel free to help yourself to [everything in the refrigerator except the dinner ingredients in the following location], etc.” Some households eat late; some guests have allergies or low blood sugar, etc., and need to eat frequently. </p>
<p>As to the houseguests treating the hosts to dinner, I personally as a host would never expect or assume that – esp. if I wasn’t informed first of that plan. That is, if I genuinely accept someone’s request for a brief stay, or if I invite someone, I expect to provide extra food & to cook a little extra as well. So if I went to a lot of trouble to buy perishable food & plan a festive meal, it might hurt the pocketbook a little, even though I do appreciate the gesture of a dinner out. (Note that when hubby & I used to do this, we always assumed that a guest is a guest and does not “owe” us anything; thus <em>we</em> expected, if we did not want to cook, or buy extra food, that we ourselves would treat the visitor to dinner out. That’s especially if the guest never suggested a dinner out under any terms.) Conversely, if the guest(s) want to relieve the host of such duties, it’s nice to announce in advance. (“Count on being treated to your favorite Italian restaurant you’ve been raving about to us; we insist on trying it also.”)</p>
<p>Communication is an ingredient of courtesy, & makes hosts & guests alike feel at ease.</p>
<p>epiphany good post Yes, I feel the same. If I’m the host I do not expect anything except my guest’s company.</p>
<p>I don’t like to be a house guest, and try to avoid it. We like to see friends and relatives, but a hotel is better for us. We like air conditioning in the hot weather, and not everyone likes it or uses it. If someone is displaced from their bedroom, I feel bad, and I don’t want this to happen. I also don’t want to sleep on a sofa bed myself. </p>
<p>As to all the food issues, I expect that if I have overnight guests, that I will supply all food, and even restaurant meals. However, I have never had the uninvited guest problem, and this is my full time house, not a vacation spot. As a guest, I suppose it would be nice to know if the hosts expected groceries or whatever. It is a habit of ours to ask if we can bring anything if invited to dinner at someone’s house, and usually we end up bringing wine or a similar type thing.</p>
<p>Recently, my D was displaced from her room for guests because we had no larger bed for a couple and hers was a double. I thought it was so sweet that they made up the bed so neatly when they left. BUT, since I needed to change the bedding back for my daughter, it went to waste. I generally immediately change sheets after guests so that the used sheets are not on the bed or sofabed.</p>
<p>When we go to the in laws’ lake house, they always make a big deal of saying that when their neighbors’ kids come to visit, they always bring a ton of food. Ummm…the neighbors’ kids drive between an hour and three hours to get there. We fly for a three hours then drive for three hours…am I supposed to put frozen casseroles in our checked luggage? Anyway, after a few of those big hints, now before we go to their house, we stop by the store and buy huge gorgeous steaks to grill and potatoes and snack food and beer and wine, and multiple pies from Baker’s Square. Besides the cooking, MIL expects the guests (their kids and their spouses) to do 100% of the clean up ahd they don’t have a dishwasher. So visitng them is actually MORE work than being at home.</p>
<p>Missypie, I think my in laws would like that too. The only glitch is that no one likes my cooking. If I bring a store bought dinner they don’t like it either.</p>
<p>The best houseguests I ever had were my brother’s in-laws from Ireland. They came for a week to visit a local doctor. I’ve never had such easy–key word–guests. </p>
<p>One, they were always cheerful. They were grateful for whatever we offered or provided, though not in a cloying way. I suggested omelets for breakfast one day. “Lovely,” they said. Then, after they ate, they said how delicious they were and offered to clean up. We worked on it together.</p>
<p>Second, they made themselves at home, but weren’t in the way. They asked about our schedules (we were working and our kids were in school). They entertained themselves during the day, then spent time in the evening with in pleasant conversation. They retired early, leaving us some time to ourselves. I asked what they’d like for during the day, they said they usually had sandwiches and tea, and I provided that. They made their own, and always tidied up.</p>
<p>Third, they cooked for us one night. They made a couple of suggestions, we picked one, and they grocery shopped and cooked. We did the dishes. </p>
<p>It was all about balance and being good-natured. They could have stayed with us forever.</p>
<p>I am surprised no one has yet noted that old adage: “Fish and guests stink after 3 days.” I don’t really believe it, but it is a funny…</p>
<p>Oh, Missypie, I can relate! My in laws also have a lake house, which they have owned since my H was young. They live in another state & come up for the summer. Before my FIL retired, my H & I took care of the place (we live 3-1/2 hours away), and the in laws were able to enjoy a week or two there each summer. After FIL’s retirement, though, it became “their home,” and we were guests who were sometimes allowed to come stay. Our kids were always yelled at for coming in wet or doing things wrong. Over time, we came to visit less & less. Recently, the in laws said something about us “not liking the cottage.” If only I could be honest … it’s not that I don’t like the place. We just have to walk on eggshells too much to enjoy it. It’s a shame, because H & I spent many wonderful weekends there in our younger days.</p>