Helpful hints for houseguests:

[lovelybertha]

1. Take care not to make the assumption that because your host lives in a seaside town, they want to be running a guest house.

2. If you'd like a clean towel, ask. Leaving wet towels in the bath/on floor of bathroom will not provide a signal for housekeeping staff (see point 1).

3. Attempt to keep your belongings as contained as possible. Hanging your manky dressing gown up in the living room is neither appropriate or necessary.

4. Take care to remove any pubic hairs that might stick to the communal bar of soap. Particularly if their colour makes them very distinctly yours.

5. If breakfasting extra specially early in a household with pre-school age children, note that it will be much appreciated if you don't eat the last banana and drink the last of the milk.

6. Leaving mugs and inadequately scraped plates in the sink is not as helpful as putting them in the dishwasher. Running a bit of water on to them is not the same as washing up.

7. Bags of bread are to be opened from the top. Ripping a hole in the side and taking slices from the middle, is quite simply, really fucking annoying.

8. If you offer to 'treat' your host to a 'night off cooking', they will assume you are offering to either cook a meal yourself or take everyone out. A ready meal from Asda will underwhelm.

9. If your host is providing you an alternative to hotel accommodation whilst you work (and earn loads of money) in their home town, failure to note the above hints, and going on about how much money you're saving will be interpreted as 'Taking The Piss'.

10. Following from point 9: It's nice to say 'thank you'. Gifts (ie. bottle of wine/ flowers/ chocs) will be gratefully received by your host.

guests are like fish, after 3 days they start to stink and should be thrown out.

Yep, well we've done 3 nights and 4 days and they've finally gone. Woooohooo!

Oooh - thought of another:

11. If you consider the area that your host lives in as 'a bit rough', don't go on about it. Better still, don't mention it at all.

Don't leave skiddies down the toilet the brush and bleach is there for a reason.

When will you be going to stay with this person, and can you time it for when you all have chicken pox/diarrhoea/lassa fever?

1. When you're offered a shower in the morning, take it. I don't want you hanging around in my house stinking of last night's hangover.

2. Know when to LEAVE. We have had to resort to making up stuff we need to do so that some of our friends leave. Otherwise they have been known to still be sitting on my couch at 10pm on a Sunday night when I've got to be up at 6 for work.

3. If you have a chest infection, don't sit next to your pregnant friend coughing your guts up all day. Go home instead of giving it to her when she can't take anything to feel better.

These are all for the same 'friends'

Fabby - it's funny you say that. DS commented this morning that '[houseguest's-name] has very dark brown poo'.

Helpful hint for hosts: if you don't want to find guest's pubes on your soap, don't expect them to wash with a communal bar.

I agree with the other points, but would definitely leave a hirsute tablet of Imperial Leather in the soap dish if I thought it might force the rest of the people in the house to stop rubbing it all over their bodies.

I think there should be a separate sub-section of the handy-hints manual for the utterly self absorbed bastard house guests of pregnant/recently un-pregnant hosts. Probably starting with: If you are 'here to help out', then BLOODY WELL HELP!

1. Don't impart advice about child rearing when you have no children yourself and KNOW that the child in question has mental health problems.

2. Don't hide mugs and glasses all over the house - please rinse and use again or put them in the dishwasher.

3. Bear in mind that the host has no washing facilities and don't use all the towels in the house.

4. Try interacting with the hosts dcs if you can't cook for her or set the table or do the dishes or walk the dog...

Hmmm - fair point about the soap. Maybe. Although I wasn't exactly 'expecting' them to use it. Can't say I use the soap on the side of people's baths when I go to visit, but nor do I expect to be provided with my own personal one.

That's what wash-bags are for aren't they? So you can bring your own wash stuff. If you want individually wrapped complimentary guest-toiletries then surely you need to fork out for a hotel?

I like this thread.

1. If your host has a loo that's been functioning fine until you got there, chances are it's still fine. Do not say 'I wasn't sure how to flush your loo, can you do it'. (Thanks Mum and Dad, it's that handle job. Right where teh handle is on yours.)

2. If the place you're staying in is much smaller than yours, do not comment on how every single thing in it is also smaller. There is a reason why that is so.

3. Do not expect your house rules to apply here. Yes, maybe you don't get up until 11 on Sundays, but do not expect your hosts to know this by telepathy.

4. Don't wander around the house looking in closed drawers and reading mail!!! Especially if it's bank statements.

FIL uses my Lush soap that is for hand-washing (i.e. next to the basin) in the shower. I find this deeply gross (and it uses it up really fast! That stuff's expensive). Bring shower gel or use one of the 135 bottles of shower gel we have next to the shower.

coast - my dad nicks my washing-up liquid to do his hair with. I'd rather he used soap!

Just thought of another one: do not rearrange my toiletries into patterns/rows by size. I can't say why this is so annoying but it fucking is.

LRD Ha! Know about the 'small' thing. DH's posher-than-the-Queen (but otherwise absolutely lovely grandmother) stayed once and commented "Oh, isn't it terribly clever how you manage in such a small space. Rather like a caravan, or a boat or something. Isn't it fun!"

Yes. Terribly fun. The fun we have.

bertha - oh, god, yes! That's exactly it ... the 'fun' comments. My parents enjoy telling me that 'once you have children, you will have to move out of there' ... because apparently no-one In The World has ever had a baby in a flat/terraced house and the world would implode if my neighbours had to hear the screams.

Ooooh, this is a great thread!

Do Not take charge of the remote control in hosts house for the full 3 days and watch only ITV3 at max volume, leaving no chance for the host to reclaim the tv remote because you haven't moved your arse off the sofa and your grip from the remote since you arrived. Its rude.

Do Not moan about having to sleep on the 'bloody airbed' knowing the host spent £200 on said airbed especially for you so you didn't have to sleep on the perfectly adequate but 'too low' £80 airbed previously used... its rude.

Do Not tell host 'amusing anecdote' about how much DP sweats in the night and thats why he has to sleep naked in their living room and walk upstairs to the bathroom without even putting on a dressing gown... Its disgusting and rude.

Ahh.... that feels better!

Good thread OP.

Seriously, people open bread in the middle of the bag? I've never heard of this. It's making me quite cross thinking about it.

Agree with loads of the above:

1. Don't claim repeatedly that you think things are broken just because you are incapable of using anything but your own things. e.g. ' RHP I think your shower is broken, it just won't work?' 'RHP, your taps don't seem to turn off properly'.

1. On the same note, don't just leave things that you are too dense to work out: e.g. 'RHP I couldn't close your front door properly, so I've just left it open.' GAH!

1. Don't bring ALL YOUR OWN THINGS with you and then spread them all over the house, because you are very particular about your own cushion/teabags/cutlery (I shit you not!). If you are that particular, stay at home!

1. Don't wait until the DCs are running around naked (including nappy wearing DS) to announce that you'd both like to use the (only) bathroom before the kids go in there for their bath!

1. Don't be ridiculously noisy getting up to use the toilet at 5.30am, waking up all the DCs, whilst you go back to sleep for another 3 hours, and we don't.

Don't manfully and with deep sighs 'politely' twiddle some exotic spaghetti around your plate, and later apropos of nothing steer the conversation round to proper dinners made with proper potatoes.
Eat the fucking bolognaise. And say thanks.

Oh, Good Lord! Do NOT, please, arrange to fly over to see your new grandchild less than three weeks after his due date. As I tried to explain a number of times over the 'phone, he MAY arrive late, and as you are planning on being waited on hand and foot your presence two days after mother and child return from hospital will not be appreciated.

Nor will deciding that the sole reason newborn babies cry is wind and proceeding to burp the baby continuously for two hours, triumphantly crying 'see' every time the poor mite obligingly emits gas :-(

Do not complain about the spare bed. It's enough of a pain having a bed in the study instead of storage space I really need.
I know it's a bit hard because it's the sort with a trundle under it, BUT the DDs friends use that a lot more often than you come to stay.

Please learn how to lock the front door properly. This is particularly useful when you come staggering home drunk at 2am and wake the entire household in your attempt to do so. Then, once you and your partner finally get to bed, please do not shag loudly so that everyone can hear you. Especially when the pair of you are sleeping in my bed and I am having to sleep on the couch directly in the room beneath you