apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Nothing new to contribute, but I've found that requiring a financial contribution works wonders.

THIS BALL OF TENTION JUST BUILT UP UPON SEEING THOSE IMAGES....... AHHH

Those aren't "bad house guest" photos ... those are "hoarder" photos!

My roommate's former boss came to stay for a weekend, and a month later was still there. Luckily our lease was up at the end of the month, forcing an end to the situation. At what point do you start asking for rent?

They are def. not hoarder photos. There is empty storage space under the bed in the second one.

Those aren't hoarder photos, they are slob photos. I should know! (takes one to know one!!!)

the underbed is a bunch of crates (the base)

they are slob photos

6 adults, 4 kids (ages 2-16), 3 bedroom Boston apartment for 2 weeks in August heat w/o air conditioners. My own personal hell.

Please take down those nasty pics.

For a hilarious take on the horrible houseguest theme - watch the Bette Davis film "The Man Who Came to Dinner"

http://www.moviediva.com/MDJr_root/MDjr/ManDinnermdjr.htm

(It's one of the TCM Essentials - and a great Christmas movie!)

My wife and I created a three day rule early in our marriage. It has saved us from having either set of in-laws here too long.

My husbands cousins wanted to come visit from Australia. To set the scene - We were in the middle of planning our wedding, had just graduated from college and were barely into our first jobs. To make the whole thing more stressful we were staying with my In-laws to save money for the wedding. My husband's grandmother was diagnosed with cancer and we were helping with the 45 minute drives to doc appointments every few days.

We called the cousins and said "this probably isn't a good time. Things are crazy and it would be best to wait a few months until things slow down."

They came anyway, and of course expected to stay with us. We tried to be hospitable under the circumstances, but they made all kinds of ridiculous demands such as "Take tomorrow off of work and take us to Sea World." (2 hour drive). They were generally snotty the whole time, and complained continuously about their accommodations. Not to mention one of the cousins is mentally disabled, and required constant supervision.

They complained about my cooking, they left their things all over the house, and I'm pretty sure someone used my toothbrush.

I find that the best way to get someone out of your house is to tell them that someone else is visiting and they need to use the spare bed/ sofa bed.

Unfortunately I thought of this excuse too late.

So I had one of my ex-work colleagues stay at our place while we were on holiday. The only rule was don't use our bed. Upon our arrival home two hand towels were missing, one hand towel had a massive shit stain (an expensive white $50 hand towel), two wine glasses were missing, and he was sleeping in our bed. Worst of all it looked like someone in high heels had been standing on our bed because there were pulls in the mattress protector. Our suspicions of having a prostitute in our apartment were confirmed when I took a look at the pictures on his camera. They definitely weren't of his wife! I don't normally look brought other peoples possessions but I had already been far too violated.

Now I only allow very close friends and family to stay with us.

Don't live in an interesting area and no one will want to visit.

It is actually quite a coincidence that this article came up today. I am attempting to keep my in-laws at bay. They want to stay for a week!

I have enough horrible house guest stories to fill a book, so I now I only allow select people to stay over, and have a tight time limit on their visit. No kids (no exceptions), no pets, and we eat every meal in a restaurant instead of me (or them) cooking. Much, much better.

My mom always used this saying, it's in Spanish and goes something like this...

After 3 days the dead reek.

In other words 3 days is too long a stay.

I guess I'm lucky in that I've had lots of houseguests for various amounts of time and with varying degrees of pleasure, but I've never had the issue of someone staying for an undefined period of time and worrying about how to get them to go. Perhaps this is because I'm at the stage in life where none of my friends has the freedom of time or income to visit without specific constraints like plane tickets back home on a set date, needing to return to work/school and all that sort of thing.

The only person I've ever had stay with me for an undefined period of time was my sister while she was looking for an apartment prior to moving here. I may end up having a friend do the same thing. But I cannot imagine allowing anyone to stay like that unless we are close enough that I can say, "Okay, since I made diner here, do you mind doing the dishes?"

Wow, I love having guests. Noone stays longer than a week usually, maybe once my mom stayed for 2 weeks, but my guests are typically respectful and neat. I do have spare rooms and an extra bathroom so everyone has their own space...I think that is a big factor for happy guests and happy owners. Also I have visitors mybe 4 times a year, so that really isn't too bad.

Slowdown has a point, about not living in an area that people want to visit. The ex had family from New Jersey wanting to come out all the time and do the most excruciating things, and having us drive them there to do it.

"The Price is Right"? check... ( UGH )

Universal Studios? check....

Disneyland? yup....

While at Universal Studios I mentioned I wanted to see something there, and the ex said "we're not here for YOU."

Wthout missing a beat, I mouthed a noiseless "F.U." that nobody else saw, but resisted the urge to drop kick his ass back to River Edge.

Some friends of mine were in town for another friend's wedding and I had offered up floor space to crash on (not glamorous, but several of them didn't have great jobs so it beat paying for a hotel downtown). Well my friend's boyfriend whined CONSTANTLY the entire time--my place was too small, too hot, too loud, it was ugly (*fumes*), the floors were uneven (it's around 100 years old), the city I lived in sucked, etc etc. He even called up other friends of mine and complained to them over the phone while I was right there...gah. And THEN he scared my cat on purpose. He is no longer allowed to set foot inside my apartment ever again.

When I was in college I had a 370 square foot studio. My former roommate was in town for a concert (with 5 additional friends) and I let them camp on the floor for the night. Yes-7 kids in a studio. It wasn't so bad, as I was 20 and just didn't care.

However, one of the kids kept making racist comments, until I jumped in with "Hey, my mom is a (insert racist slag word here) and you're in my apartment". (Which wasn't true...but it shut him up and taught him a life lesson about the value of hospitality.)

I can't imagine a more cramped, socially awkward scene.

I agree with Jane, those are hoarder photos.

We've generally had very good luck with houseguests, but I do remember my brother-in law once accidentally letting our cat out, despite my warning to keep the door shut. The cat was recovered within a week and the brother-in law has long since been forgiven.

I'm sure I was a poor houseguest in my youth. Age and motherhood has helped me to appreciate how much effort goes into being a good host, and now I tread lightly as a houseguest.

Yikes! This post has made me remember an incident I'd forgotten from years ago. My ex-boyfriend's two brothers came to visit us one summer in Boston. My ex and I set out to show them the town, but every time we got somewhere (after a long, hot train ride), one brother would announce that the place we'd taken them to was too expensive and we couldn't go in! After the third time, I left the boys alone and told my ex that they could all continue their tour of Boston mass transit without me.

Also during that visit, the other brother, on learning that my ex and I were having problems, told me that all I needed to do was lose weight, get a tan, and grow my hair long and I'd find myself another guy, no problem.

I was really happy to lose contact with that whole messed-up family. :)

These stories make me grateful for my family and friends.

My theory is house guests are like garbage, after three days they need to be put on the curb.

I must be crazy, but I love having house guests. Admittedly, some are much better than others, but over all I really like when someone comes to visit.

We have a good set up for it - our bedrooms are on the top floor, and the guests have their own bedroom and bath downstairs so it's easy to get away and not be on top of each other. That said, I am always encouraging friends to come visit (I moved 5 hours away from my home town) for as long as they can, because otherwise I don't get any quality time with them. This way, I can cook and enjoy long dinners, have conversations, and get to catch up. This is something I don't get to do at all now that I have kids, so when I travel home it's virtually impossible to have any meaningful time with anyone I care about. Plus, I'm the kind that likes to fuss over people with food and little touches. I must be crazy!

I had a 'friend' who was staying with me for two weeks between leases. Two weeks turned into four, but finally she was leaving during the week I went to visit my parents. I came back to guess who? Plus a mama dog and her many pups. Shocked I asked how soon she could get moved out. The end of the week -- that's why she picked up her dogs, in preparation, ha. End of the week of course came and went. Sensing my displeasure she relocated the dogs and requested a little more time. I locked her out (she didn't have the toplock key) came home and she was sitting in the living room. She told the neighbor that she forgot her keys and crawled from their window into mine. I went out and rented another apartment. I was only 21 at the time and had not yet found my spine.

When I am a houseguest, I clean the kitchen, offer to vacuum, buy groceries, and typically offer to cook at least one big meal for the family. Somehow, I've been blessed with guests who do all that right back to me. (Or folks who decline the offer and stay in a hotel.)

Be a good guest, get good guests. Karma?

Bee - I really don't think karma has anything to do with it. In fact I think sometimes the nicer and more considerate you are the more you can open yourself up to a terrible houseguest (i.e. feeling badly about saying no when some friend of a friend asks to stay with you). I think lurker is right, lifestage does have something to do with it too. When I was 22 and in my first apartment I was much more open about letting friends of friends stay with us while they were trying to find an apartment, find a job, get their life together - sometimes these guests were responsible and considerate, other times not so much.

Now I am much better at not extending these offers to people unless I know them very well and actually want to spend a lot of time with them; but that's also because we have a small one-bedroom, so I don't feel that badly saying that our space just can't accommodate guests for more than a night. Friends of mine that have larger apartments often feel more pressure to offer up their space to visitors for extended periods of time.

My bf's parents were horrible. We were both traumatized by their visit. His mom kept hinting that she wanted certain things and insisting that my perfectly slender pit bull wasn't running around the dog park because she was so fat she couldn't move well (it was over 90 degrees). She confessed that she almost aborted my boyfriend, and then cried about it. His dad hit on waitresses and joked that we would need a new mattress because he sweated so much during the night. They only wanted to watch romantic comedies, hogged the bathroom, and ate all our food. Then they said we were going to hell for living together before marriage. Charming!

WOW. I thought having my mother's cousin get toxic-drunk, walk right through our screen door and vomit all over the dining room table was bad. I mean, she used to leave a thick coating of baby powder all over the entire bathroom when she finished her shower... but these stories really suck!

When I was younger, my family and I were out camping for a week and when we got back home, we found out that my uncle and his family had let themselves into our house, ate all our food, slept in our beds, etc. etc. for the majority of our being gone WITHOUT EVEN TELLING US. They had decided to make a "surprise" trip from Pennsylvania or Ohio (can't remember which, they moved a lot) all the way out to Iowa without so much as a call and invaded our house.

So it was really awkward trying to find space for their family of five in our house/kicking my cousins out of my bed, which they had come to think of as "theirs". Also, I can't help but hold a grudge towards my uncle and his eldest son for taking the liberty to download several viruses, games, and other shit onto my computer. From that week on it had nothing but problems, and I was forced to eventually get a new one. Asshats.

Since then they have done several surprise trips (don't people ever learn?!), the most recent of which made my parents ditch a visit with me. I only see them a few times a year now that I live away from home for college, but they were forced to drive back home asap so that they could visit my uncle. Learn to use a phone!

Move to North Dakota--your guests won't be able to get out fast enough--especially in the winter!

Sometimes you just have to be mean to mean people. Once a guy left his little girl with us for a visit with my child, we agreed she could stay the week. He came to "visit" her and brought gifts just for her, and expected her to stay another week as he had a party to go to. So I told her to take her daddy to see the skydivers nearby. While they were gone, I put all her belongings on the front porch nice and neat and didn't answer the door when they came back.

There's always the direct and honest approach of asking them to leave.

Wow - my family or I has never had awful problems like this. No horror stories here...It's hard getting any of our family to come visit in the first place. i wish they would come!

Try living in Orlando--not only do people want to visit, but they want you to accompany them/take them to every wretched theme park in the vicinity. They never believe that locals.don't.go.there.

Or it's "Hey, the beach is only fifty miles away! You must go there all the time! Let's go!"

I'm usually very tolerant to guests, and try very hard to be a good guest when it's my turn, but sometimes enough is enough. I can't do EPCOT one more time.

My brother lives in Orlando and he has one rule about houseguests: He'll take them to Disney, but he won't go near "It's a Small, Small, World" until the end of the day because can't get the stupid tune out of his head!

When my husband was in college we had a "guest" who came needing sanctuary after being mugged and severely beaten. He stayed for 6 months, gave up his apartment, quit his job (to find himself) sleeping in our living room late into the day (he was, at first, understandably depressed).
We had two young children and a full and hectic life. He never contributed a dime but had lots of free advice to give and had many special food requests. I ended up finding him an apartment, paying the deposit and one month rent in advance and moved him out of my place and into his. We were a struggling young family with limited resources but this was actually the cheapest way out.
Never again, 40 years later, I have a well-developed reputation for establishing a firm expected time of departure before consenting to any visit. The night before the ETD I plan a lovely good bye dinner and help my guests prepare for their imminent departure.
I have a saying that I use and say playfully and with love, but as everyone knows, I mean it, including my beloved grandchildren - "you don't have to go home but you hafta get up outta here" It works.