Care to share the oddest thing house guests have done in your home this festive period?

[CharlieWeasleysWife]

We've had many guests over the festive period and most have been an absolute delight. However, have just waved off a few of DHs friends and they:

Removed phone chargers and toiletries left in the guest room/bathroom and taken home

Used (a used!) dish cloth to wipe their face then replaced on the sink

Complained we won't allow scary/violent TV until our young children are in bed

WTF?

Edited for typos

Not house guests so much as visitors.

DB’s wife and kids have pretty extreme untreated OCD, which he has been conditioned to accept as normal.

When they come to ours they bring their own food, cutlery, sponges and tea towels. (For some reason our plates are deemed acceptable).

SIL measures out their kids’ food and stands over them hectoring them to make sure they’ve eaten enough of each food group, and keeps checking their water bottles to make sure they’re drinking enough.

SIL has also developed a new thing where she cannot eat in proximity to Christmas trees. She behaved as though we should all have known this, even though she had never told any of us. So she was quite agitated that there was a Christmas tree here at all, but eventually settled for having us shut the door to the living room so she couldn’t see it. She would ask again and again for someone to check the door was shut, as though the tree might be trying to escape and sneak up on her.

It was pretty sad and disturbing all round, and the kids are growing up extremely anxious.

But my brother is a big shot finance bro with several multi million dollar properties and a whole staff of people to run his house and regular holidays to Turks & Caicos, etc - so to his mind this is proof that he and his family are a living formula for success and nothing whatsoever is dysfunctional about the way they do things.

I need to know how this was an honest mistake!

I think it’s likely that he was just going through a list of polite interactions and asked how your mum was without thinking. It’s something I saw happening once and like your dad the person was mortified about his faux pas. He was elderly and there was absolutely nothing wrong with his memory, he was just nervous in a social setting,

I hope your FIL is well and there’s nothing wrong with his memory. And I’m sorry you lost your darling mum.

I’ve had them in hotels. I also provide them for guests along with full sets of towels.

Oh gosh, that reminds me of my SIL.

She came to stay one night two days a while back. If I say she never stopped talking from the time she woke up to the time she went to bed, I would not be joking.
In the morning we had croissants for breakfast at about 9
At 11am, she was still sat with it in front of her, not eaten because she couldn't stop yattering. (I offered to get her something else, but she wanted it she said)

Lunchtime, I did a roast. Exactly the same. It was stone cold because she sat with it in front of her for over an hour, talk talk talk. She eventually ate it cold and said it was delicious

I have never been so exhausted in my life than listening to all these ramblings about people neither me or DH knew
When she left, I told DH not to talk to me for half a day, I couldn't even stand the telly on!

Me too. Every hotel I stayed in in 2025 supplied flannels.

Are you Mrs. Phillips entertaining Mr. Collins? :)

She sounds like a smack in the gob waiting to happen!

Every house I’ve ever stayed in… how else would people wash their face and take off their makeup? And you can’t take your own because then if you use it the morning you leave it’s wet in the suitcase.

My in-laws sat at my kitchen table with TV on full blast for 3 days straight. I try to encourage them to the many other rooms available but nope, the kitchen table it always is😫

Me and my ex once stayed with my brother and his wife for the weekend. My sis in law had a dressing table in the spare room she used to get ready in the mornings. Upon leaving, my ex thought id left stuff on the dressing table by accident and packed it! She'd taken most of it into their room but my ex still managed to accidentally swipe some moisturiser and a few bits of makeup

@MannersAreAll I’m very impressed that you can fit 26 people in your house for lunch. The only way I could fit 26 people into my house would be if some were standing in the bedrooms, the bathrooms, on the landing etc!

am cleaning my skirting boards as we speak. xxx

Ooh I’m here at a nice hotel in Stockholm with lovely soft fluffy flannels

Oh I really hope she’s on here, reads this and realises she’s busted! 🤣

Oh my god!! I’d be raging! Was your little one ok?

My MIL was very miffed that after she'd asked to bring her dog on Xmas Day, we said probably best not to. We had a bit of sulking and passive aggressive comments throughout the day. I ignored but seriously who asks to bring a bouncy, hyperactive sausage dog to a household where there are cats and and us trying to have a nice time eating canapés and champagne?! Mind boggling. It was clearly more important than us being the hosts and providing a gorgeous lunch, nibbles, drinks and good company as well as being with her grandkids!

BIL spoke not a word to any of my family all christmas day including not saying thank you for his presents (exactly what he had asked for and even if not you still say thank you) then hid upstairs from my parents the rest of his stay
Visitor who sat with his coat on saying to his partner it was freezing when they had descended on us last minute and we had cranked the heating up high and were all sat in t shirts

I provide flannels for guests. As well as little pots with cotton pads, cotton buds and cotton balls, mini soaps, mini toothpaste and shower hats. Because those are the things I always forget when I’m going away for a night!

This! I can’t think of a scenario where I’d take a screwdriver in my overnight bag and do some accidental unscrewing in someone else’s home

Have you watched Colin from Accounts? I'll have to try and find the episode but they go in a double date with the main characters best friend and new girlfriend. It sounds exactly like you describe, though you managed not to crack unlike in the show!

Edit - found it!

Every hotel I stayed in in 2025 didn't.

Not something to boast about. So wasteful.

@oriel2013 Oh my GOD! It was completely like that. It was totally exhausting. Just watching that made me shudder. I've no idea how we'll cope if we have to do it again.

Of course you can take your own! Just put it in one of those resealable food bags when you're done🤷‍♀️