<p>Epiphany says it well regarding food. When I have guests I do not expect them to bring food or take me out.
In the case of hoping my siblings step up with food is due to the circumstances. They are my guests but they are at my house for a sibling annual reunion that happens to seem to always occur at my house. I have a pool, ping pong table, large yard and close to the beach.
If one of my siblings and family come another time I am happy to host them. I do wish they would be more considerate of my house. Note I do have two siblings who are wonderful guests and wonderful hosts.</p>
<p>Hmm, we rented a lake house once and I recall some family who came and my DH took the guy to get a fishing license, DH paid, to get beer, DH paid, then took their kids out boating & tubing and put gas in the boat, DH paid. Grrrr. They did go to the store and buy and make dinner after I told them that once of the nights was their turn for dinner, not sure if they would have offered otherwise and I don’t think I would have asked, but gas & beer & fishing, hmm, what are you thinking? I don’t mind sharing what I have got, as long as I have enough, but when something is purchased especially for the guest it would be polite to pitch in.</p>
<p>Isn’t is funny how many different ways there are to look at these situations; it would be interesting to hear the bad guest/host’s viewing of the situations.</p>
<p>I guess so much of it is with communications (or lack thereof). In the past when we visited the inlaws at the lake, we stayed there because husband was afraid of offending them if we didn’t. But I think that by locking the kids out, expecting us to provide the food and expecting us to do the clean up, they’re more than telling us that they’d like us to stay elsewhere. I guess that since everyone stays at a hotel now, we’ve all taken the hint. (But we still get the privilege of buying the food and cleaning up.)</p>
<p>best of both worlds, Missy! :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I totally agree with epiphany about food. When I have guests, I assume that I am providing all meals. And most people I stay with assume that they are providing food.</p>
<p>For example, my college friends, for the past 30 odd years, have all stayed with each other numerous times. We all assume that the host provides the food and that’s fine, since eventually the guests become the hosts. </p>
<p>The family that said we were rotten guests for not doing the laundry also complained that we didn’t pay for every meal – even though we did bring little gifts and contributed toward take-out food. As I said, we never stayed there again.</p>
<p>I love having house guests, but I guess I’ve been lucky because I’ve never had any problems. And I have no in-laws to worry about.</p>
<p>Definitely important to know if it is a what goes around comes around situation- if you go to both places then things ought to work out. If you have a destination home or are the sibling near mom & dad, so every one stays with you, it may never work out- then it is nice to pitch in. Bringing a husband who is a contractor who is bored and does minor repairs is even better than buying groceries</p>
<p>Don’t put anything metal in their microwave. And if you do, don’t just stand there and watch the sparks fly. Turn it off.</p>
<p>Examples of bad houseguests -</p>
<p>We had a relative from the opposite coast stay with us. He (& his family !!) maintained the 3 hour time difference for the entire 7 day visit. They didn’t want to get jet lag. They wanted the entire Thanksgiving menu changed b/c we weren’t serving their favorites.</p>
<p>Also, if you are a relative, find out discreetly before you arrive how old, and what grades, the kids are. It is not amusing to a child when Grandma walks in the door & does not know ages or grades - it just reflects how little Grandma cares. Even if they don’t show it, the kids are hurt & disappointed.</p>
<p>Nobody cares about the latest research on teen sleep patterns, and how they need to sleep later, & go to bed later. It is not convenient to have teens sleeping until 1:00 PM, and staying up watching TV & playing video games loudly until 2 AM when you’re trying to plan activities, or go to work or deal with younger children. </p>
<p>This is true for NYC & Wahington DC, and probably all places, I guess. If you want to do sightseeing, the kids have to get up & moving, quickly & early. The free tickets to some of the DC attractions are distributed on a daily business, and are gone quickly. If you want to go in the Empire State Bldg, or Statue of Liberty - you need to go very early. If the kids want or need to sleep in every day, then be realistic about what can be accomplished.</p>
<p>“Bringing a husband who is a contractor who is bored and does minor repairs is even better than buying groceries.”</p>
<p>Not always…when we had baby # 2 (21 months after baby #1) husband told me that his dad was bored when they came to visit when we had baby #1. SO, he planned all these PROJECTS for he and his father to do when they came to visit baby #2. So MIL was trying to keep up with the 21 month old, I was upstairs all alone with baby #2 after a c-section, while husband and FIL in law tore the house up doing projects to keep FIL amused. People would come by to see the baby and the downstairs was a construction zone due to the projects.</p>
<p>More on the microwave: Do not put an entire pound of bacon in the microwave to cook without the benefit of any kind of pan or even any paper towels.</p>
<p>My future MIL is the worst. This is mainly because she still wants my fiance to be her little boy (he is a grown man) and he has no interest in a close relationship with her which puts me in the awkward middle. When she visits us (opposite coast) she insists on re-cleaning our already immaculate apartment (“her johnny needs a clean home”) and re-grocery shops because she “hates our brands” (ketchup is ketchup). She also requires constant entertainment.</p>
<p>If you are a guest, ask before you open a bottle of wine. In our house we have the $8 wine from Albertson’s and the expensive bottle from Europe that we’re saving for a special occasion, and just about everything in between. Sorry, but Brother Who’s Crashing at Our Place Because You Got Evicted, the expensive wine is not for you.</p>
<p>I have a friend whose mother in law re-did the guest room while they were at work - new curtains, bedding, etc. I guess it’s a sweet idea but it was not to their taste but they felt like they had to leave it.</p>
<p>Why we stay at hotels. The last time–about 10 years ago I decided to stay overnight at a good friend’s house said friend neglected to inform me that two kids had a raging case of the flu. I was trapped like a rat in a bad lab experiment. Needless to say a few days later I came down with one of the worst cases of flu I have had in years. Also as I work on a production basis, the missed work cost me thousands. Now when I visit the hotel is booked and if I hear as much as a sniffle I run back to the hotel ASAP.</p>
<p>If you are from a tropical state, leave your bugs home.</p>
<p>Don’t get in family arguments while you’re staying at someone else’s home, and prompt your kids to be on their very best behavior, particularly when it comes to fighting with mom or other siblings.</p>
<p>On the other side of the coin, neither guests nor hosts should parent the other people’s children! Different families have different rules and values. As long as everybody is being respectful, there’s no need to tell someone else’s kid to finish their meal, go to bed at the same time other kids go to bed, etc. </p>
<p>We’re from a very touristy location and have guests all the time during peak season. There’s often one group followed by another followed by another for weeks with only a day or two in between each group. If you’re visiting someplace like that and have a flexible schedule, ask the hosts for a good time to come visit.</p>
<p>These posts are illuminating to me. So many different opintions!</p>
<p>Here I thought I had it all figured out what made a great guest. But now I think it’s all a matter of perspective. </p>
<p>Okay some things I think we’d agree on, like say not criticizing your host or not causing damage to the house you visit. But many things I took to be the ‘right’ way to be a guest seem to vary from person to person. It actually helps me feel so much better about my “not so easy” guests: I think they probably just differed from us in their understanding of what a good guest should do.</p>
<p>If your hosts are going to work during your stay, do not get up at the same time as them in the morning to prepare your breakfast whilst they are trying to prepare theirs. Do not at the same time try to engage them in long winded conversation when they are busy in their morning routine before leaving the house.</p>
<p>Boy, lots of things I never thought of here.</p>
<p>We have a lot of guests; we are also often guests ourselves. Most of us in the family, as well as many of our friends, do not have money for hotels, and live pretty far from each other. Plus, we’ve lived in a few places that people either like to visit, or use as stop-overs. I’m generally thrilled to see folks.</p>
<p>There is a difference in my expectations of those who are there primarily to visit the hosts, and those who are using the house as a hotel. Both are fine with me, as long as we understand the difference. As a hotel, I expect you to entertain yourself, feed yourself, keep your own schedule, pay your own way, and do not take over the “common areas.” </p>
<p>If you are there for us, then I expect to feed and entertain you. However, if we are doing lots of touristy things, I do expect you to buy your own admissions tickets. (I’ve never had anyone expect otherwise, though.) </p>
<p>The biggest problem I have personally is those guests with children who discipline their children differently than I do; especially when my own children were smaller. We had different rules at the table, for example. I can’t believe how many of our relatives’ kids are allowed to load up their plates with lots of expensive food when they have absolutely no intention of eating any of it. And then demand another meal 45 minutes later because they’re hungry. And the parents let them. And how many parents expect me to provide a separate meal for kids who decide they aren’t hungry for what I’m offering.</p>
<p>As far as parenting other peoples children, I have to, if no one else will! No, you have to eat the food in the kitchen, sorry. I need you to put those toys away if you are done with them. If you’re going to run, scream, fight, etc., please go outside. No, that isn’t a toy. No, you can’t play games on my computer. Please don’t bang on the piano, throw balls in the house, use my clothes to play dress up (yes, that’s happened), help yourself to whatever looks good in the pantry, 15 mintues before dinner is on the table, etc.</p>
<p>My H found my 6 year old niece in the pantry, opening packs of snack foods and sampling them. He told her that wasn’t okay, and she needed to get out of the pantry. She ran to her mother (my sister) in tears, who comforted her, saying, “Oh, did Uncle X scold you?” Never once asked why, just made dagger eyes at H for making her child cry.</p>
<p>Wow, different perspectives – & I guess terminology or semantics, too. In my area – maybe because of the elevation of personal lifestyle to social status – too many people wear their ‘lifestyle freedom’ as the equivalent of a civil right. The example I gave of the female relative is only slightly more extreme among other patterns I could relate, showing that few upper-middle-class people discern the distinctions some of us have pointed out.</p>
<p>Personally, I do not feel comfortable with either extreme in my house: the guest who views my abode as a hotel, or the guest who treats my abode as a mere annex of their own (including giving themselves actual proprietary rights over mine). The ‘hotel’ types, (said female relative has alternatively done that in the past) have an utter disregard of the host couple/family. They believe they should be free to come & go at any hour, regardless of the needs of the hosts, to cook/eat at any hour, to shower at any hour, etc. That works when you stay in a hotel, not when you stay in a private home. The other extreme resembles some stories in this thread, wherein the guests virtually ‘move in’ & become passive burdens, at the least.</p>
<p>The guests who know how to do it resemble, i.m.o., the Irish guests described, and the babysitter I once had: they know how to blend & accommodate & show gratitude first of all by their <em>behavior</em> more than by their words or gifts brought or cash offered, etc. They bring sunshine & acceptance into your abode. </p>
<p>I don’t mean to be stuck on food, either, but food/meals can be an indicator of that. (The Irish example above is one example.) For my own example, said babysitter of mine is one I hired for a length of time to coincide with our dinnertime, as I was taking some early evening classes. We ended up therefore having an early dinner. I was so flattered when, instead of watching us eat, she joined us at table without being asked. Most babysitters assume (probably correctly!) that they are there to supervise meals (some might even help cook or wash up), not share them. She did not do it in a presumptuous, offensive manner, but in a celebratory & open manner. I considered it a compliment. It said to me that while in the house she considered herself part of the family in the sense of commitment, and that she intuited a level of mutual trust.</p>
<p>(EDIT: It’s not really in the same category as ‘houseguest,’ but the behavior of the babysitter patterned that accepting & grateful middle-ground that many of us would like to see & be.)</p>