charlotte

Hi all,
Has anyone got any advice about when visitors come to stay? We have had a few friends come over and stay for 2-6 nights and no-one seems to think anything of eating/drinking and having a great visit when we are on a tight budget to start with.
We are also building a bigger house and I am starting to think that new house rules would be good before more people decide to come and stay.
It sounds incredibly un-charitable especially at this festive time - but I would be interested in what other people have done or think!
Cheers
charlotte

carolinephillips

Welcome your visitors- if they are rellies then you shouldn't charge. Serve meals within your budget, lock away the spirits and if they notice then they could buy you a bottle or three. With others well it depends how friendly you are. You can always get them to bring a plate if they are dinner guests. Long stayers are tricky....some don't take gentle hints
Anyway you can always turn up and camp with them. (revenge???)

harrip

Perhaps folk who stay believe at some time in the future you'll go and stay with them and will think that you won't think anything of eating/drinking and having a great visit with them? Maybe they also think that if you can afford to build a larger house, money is not an issue.

Cheetah7

It is rude of them to assume money isnt an issue though, no matter where you live or how you live, you live within your budget.

A relative of mine wanted to spend a month with us, she wouldnt understand that when I get in at 6.30pm after leaving the house at 6.20am, that I wouldnt want to go clubbing.

She wouldnt understand that she couldnt eat us out of house and home, take god knows how many 20 min showers and bump up our consumption bill.

She still doesnt understand that despite having bought a house, we are living on a tight budget and sometimes have no money left at the end of the month.

Her attitude is 'I am family and you will find the money from somewhere'.

Well we dont have a 'somewhere', we can live OK, we dont have a car, we work long hours to pay the mortgage, have very little savings and cannot affort to be used as a guest house.

I believe if someone is going to travel to the other side of the world to see you, then they are not going to want any restrictions imposed on them. As in no smoking, respecting the fact we are in bed early, etc.

To me it is rude to assume you can stay anywhere, it is polite to be invited and I am totally mortified at anyone assuming they can stay rent free and that the people they are staying with have a bottomless pit for a wallet.

I like to pay my way, respect the rules of the house, but most of all it is polite to be invited.

Scrawni 2

Well we have a busy first part of 2009 as far as visitors are concerned!

We are booked out from March until June, I think I will have a few more grey hairs soon.

My parents and sister can't afford it and it's them that I really want to see

Petals

We always try to chip in when we stay with friends and family if they will not let us then we take them out for a slap up meal for something like that. Also usually buy stuff and bring it in.

That said as we are older now we prefer to stay independently and visit as we like our own space even if it does cost us more. Just the freedom of going back to ours wherever it is, is so much better.

My oh has many Aussi relatives as my mother-in-law from a large family and her eldest brother came here to build the Harbour Bridge in Sydney and hence she put up lots of Aussies over the years. One stuck in her mind, stayed for months and never gave her a penny, she never said anything but its wrong and we should bring our children up to know this is wrong.

Cheetah7

I think its funny how when you move here everyone suddenly wants to come and visit you.

It is exceptionally rude to assume you can stay, and worse still, it is common courtesy to abide by the rules of the house you are staying at, and to remember that the people you are staying with live there, it is their everyday lives, they are not on holiday.

Most of all, pay your way.

Dorothy

You lay down the rules before they arrive...
1 - You work daily, so will have to go to bed early and would appreciate if they could please keep the volume down on the TV, etc after a certain hour.
2 - You have to pay for food, so they will chip in an amount equal to their share of the weekly shop
3 - You have to pay for alcohol, so they will chip in for their share of anything they drink
4 - Dishes and housework do not do themselves. They will do their fair share of the clearing up and/or cooking
5 - Respect and treat my animals the way I would. i.e. Do not feed them anything, do not allow the dog on the furniture and if you see that they need out then open the door.
6 - No, you may not borrow my car, but I will give you a public transit map or drive you to the car rental agency to pick up your own car, whichever is easier for you

Those are the rules for visitors to our house and it seems to work out just fine. They're also the general rules we abide by when we visit other people. Generally, if visitors don't like our rules we will point them in the direction of the nearest B&B or hotel.

Nikki.P

I think PP and Dorothy are spot on, you need to have a very frank conversation before visitors arrive, being very nice but very honest about how things have to be. Might not be a comfortable conversation but a damn sight easier than either being frustrated to death and resenting them or getting so frustrated that it blows up and becomes a major issue. Depends who your visitors are though I would have to say, would never need to have that conversation with my parents or my OH's parents as I would give and do anything for them but they wouldn't dream of behaving like that anyway.

I would never ever stay with someone for any length of time without chipping in to food and bills, unfortunately there are always people out there who are willing to take advantage and act like its their god given right to bludge off others when they know damn fine how much it costs to buy food etc. You want to enjoy your visitors, not resent them and dread them coming because you know its going to cost you a fortune. It does always cost more when they are here regardless of them chipping in or not because you tend to go out more and do things you maybe wouldn't generally do yourselves but I don't mind that.

To be honest this isn't a problem I've had, my parents and my OH's parents are the only visitors we've had so far both have been here twice and they both buy shopping all the time.

calNgary

Visitors mean your bank balance has gone, all your holidays from work will be used but not on your holidays on driving them round the local sights, then they will drink all your beer. They will do shifts starting at 6am until about 8pm second shift starts about 10am until 1am or when your beer runs out,but you cant go to bed it would be rude so you are down to about 6hrs sleep a day. The good ones will get you fish & chips on the day they go home to say thanks.Think we are due mum & dad soon "its to hot" "its to hot" its all coming back to me now 4 weeks of it

lerato

Funny how since people found out I'm moving to Oz, I have an awful lot more friends than I originally thought. "oh laura we'll really miss you, but we'll come visit."

I say, ok but i'm not hotel...there are thousands of places to stay in sydney and i will not have the room or the money to put them up!! The only exception being close family, e.g my sister, my parents - but even they have offered to stay in a hotel so I don't feel like I'm a hotel.

My true friends wouldn't unthinkingly impose. My close family, I wouldn't call it imposing. Other people are not close enough friends to stay, and therefore I won't be letting them take me for all I'm worth!

lerato

charlotte

Hi - I think your rules sound perfect and I had thought that this was probably the way forward - but how do you let them know? My in laws have just left after 6 weeks and MIL replaced the empty bottle of lea &perrins and nothing else! At least this visit we wised up a little and didn't buy the booze too, and on a bottle of wine each for them a night minimum that was a good idea! I don't resent family so much as it is a long way and very expensive to visit, it's just so annoying to be the chief bottle washer and cook (and they just sit there and watch) when we all work really hard to afford what we want in life. I guess because we are building the big house it looks like we are ok, but that's not the case and it's our decision to put our money into bricks and mortar rather than latte's and paninis's!!

Thanks for the advice, I will need to sort something out, otherwise I will age even more!!
Cheers Charlotte

JenJen

I would say don't have ppl come and stay with you, point them to the nearest b&b
save your sanity and your pocket !!!

But then I've been singing bah humbug today too so maybe don't listen to me

Dorothy

When they say they would like to come visit you tell them you would love to have them stay, but there are a few house rules. Make sure they know what's expected before they book their tickets so there can be no misunderstandings.

sjo

We had relatives visit recently for 2 weeks - during that time they made 54 phone calls to the UK from our phone without asking and while we were at work. We didn't find out until the phone bill came in a month later. The buggers!

Since this, my hubby keeps saying he wants to turn our 4 bedroom house into a 1 bedroom house so that if visitors really insist on staying with us they'll have to sleep on the floor and hopefully wont stay very long.