Guest staying free - house rules?

missbiggles1

Torry_Quine wrote: »

I do think you need to give them a key.

I rthink the convenience of doing this (for everybody) would outweigh any slight risk.

ThumbRemote

Personally I would give them a key too, but explain very clearly what needs to be done for the animals.

Timpu

I'm genuinely interested to know why people think a key needs to be given to the guest? For convenience, to show trust???

IMHO this person is a stranger and OP is doing them a huge favour. Therefore I'd expect the guest to fit around the OP. If I were the guest, I wouldn't expect a key.

hollydays

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I rthink the convenience of doing this (for everybody) would outweigh any slight risk.

I think this post explains the point of view

Malthusian

I wouldn't even consider giving them a key. They're only here for a week. They're here for a conference so they'll be leaving in the morning and coming back in the evening. They're travelling from a different continent so they're not going to have sports clubs, hobbies, people to meet etc in the evenings. Unless you're going to be out of the house for more than 24 hours I see no reason why they would need a key. They're going to be leaving in the morning and coming back in the evening and that's it. If they finish their day earlier than you, and have to go to a park or a library to read while they wait for you to get home, that's not much of an imposition.

If it was me staying with a stranger in that situation I would never expect to be given a key to their house.

*edit* I would make extra sure they understand the rule about meat though. Your guest was clearly a total !!!!. But they wouldn't be the only ones to be taken aback - for some people it simply wouldn't occur to them that you might object to them cooking and eating meat in your house - they weren't asking you to eat it. Obviously it's your house and it's entirely your right to say what people do with your cooking equipment, but some people simply wouldn't think of that.

In addition, there are people who simply don't know how to cook vegetarian - saying they can't cook with meat is like telling them they can't cook. So I would make sure they understand in advance - if you've been planning all day on having X for dinner and suddenly you find out you're not allowed to cook X, it rather spoils the evening.

missbiggles1

Timpu wrote: »

I'm genuinely interested to know why people think a key needs to be given to the guest? For convenience, to show trust???

IMHO this person is a stranger and OP is doing them a huge favour. Therefore I'd expect the guest to fit around the OP. If I were the guest, I wouldn't expect a key.

For convenience - the OP's particularly.

Otherwise s/he has to get back from work at the expected time (no standing around chatting or popping into the pub on the way back) - if s/he goes out during the evening then the return from that has to be syncronized with whatever the visitor's doing and, if she stays in, she may even need to stay up to let the visitor in on return.

Too many possibilities for misunderstandings and inconvenience all round, to my mind.

Torry_Quine

missbiggles1 wrote: »

For convenience - the OP's particularly.

Otherwise s/he has to get back from work at the expected time (no standing around chatting or popping into the pub on the way back) - if s/he goes out during the evening then the return from that has to be syncronized with whatever the visitor's doing and, if she stays in, she may even need to stay up to let the visitor in on return.

Too many possibilities for misunderstandings and inconvenience all round, to my mind.

That's what I was thinking.

firely2327

Mojisola wrote: »

Are you in direct contact with your visitor-to-be or is everything going through your colleague?

So far only via colleague. Apparently she's waiting for some funding for the flights.....before she gets in touch.

firely2327

pollypenny wrote: »

Surely you'd give a guest some breakfast, not much trouble in a bowl of cereal or porridge.

If you have free calls at anytime, what's the problem in using the landline for a quick call.

Access will have to be by negotiation.

Breakfast isn't the problem, it's the evening meal. It'd be a bit cruel to subject someone to my cooking for a week first off (seriously!), plus in the summer I don't tend to have much of an evening in terms of food, a light salad perhaps, which may not suit the guest.

No calls with my package, it's internet only, in fact I don't even have the phone plugged in. I skype or use the mobile.

firely2327

dealer_wins wrote: »

Personally I would never allow a stranger to stay in my house and/or hold a key to it. Sod that its just asking for trouble.

It could invalidate my home insurance and these days you can trust NO ONE!!!

Exactly. Apart from the great unknown about who's in and when, and the safety of the animals, it's the home insurance I'm worried about. Can you imagine a claim for damage etc, where you admit to the insurance company that you gave a key to a complete stranger .:eek: