to ask not very close friends if I can borrow their house

[agnesf]

DP's brother and family want to come and stay over Xmas (they have to travel north and we are the logical stopping off point). We have major building work going on and half our house is out of action so it will be quite a squeeze (3 bedrooms/ 1 living room floor/ no operational shower - 10 people).

We have lived here for a couple of years and have made some friends but none that I would call particularly close. (We've been out for dinner a couple of times type friends).

Brother and family would probably be ok to stay in hotel (they did this before when we first moved) but I feel bad about that and know that if it had happened where I used to live I could have asked friends if I could borrow their houses for a night for family to sleep in if they were away over Xmas. Obviously we would provide bedding etc/ tidy up/ give them a present to sya thank you etc.

But I'm not sure if it would be appropriate now as friends don't feel close enough. WIBU to ask - how would you feel if a not close friend asked you for such a favour

agnesf Did they ask you, or your husband? And what answer were they given?

I would be amazed if anyone asked me to put up their relatives because they didn't have the space to do so themselves. Especially 6 people, that is a lot to ask of someone who doesn't even know them. Have them at your own place, tell them it will be a squeeze and people will have to bring sleeping bags and camp in whatever empty corner is available. They can then either realize they are putting you out (which they are) or else accept.

It would be extra work for the person leaving the house. They would want to leave the house tidy, leave instructions on how to work things e.g. turning hot water on, heating etc., clean bedding. Also the question of insurance is an important one - would you be covered if they left a bath running and a room got flooded or for breakages? Hiding all your personal info and other stuff.

It's a different situation entirely being asked to have someone stay in your house and house swapping. The latter you go into consentingly, the former you're being pressed into doing it.

How would I feel if somebody who I wasn't close to asked me if their family could stay in my house whilst I wasn't there?

I would feel that they were strange.

YABU.

Kenndodd You don't sound like a nutter, you sound really nice

If one of my friends asked, I'd say 'Yes, no problem - can you just check when they leave that it's locked up properly. I'll put clean bedding on before I go and leave a spare set if one of you could make the beds up again after that would be great (just stick the 'dirty' stuff in the laundry - no need to do anything with it)'. I hate coming home from a holiday and having to make up the beds, I always change them before I go so there's fresh linen on them. I'd leave milk in the fridge & they'd be welcome to help themselves to tea/coffee/breakfast etc.

Friends of people I don't really know... I have to say, it would completely depend on the person asking, total judgement call on whether I thought they'd be the sort to look after the place or not. I realise this is the BIL so it's not really any indication - but hey ho, that's what I'd do.

When I'm here - lots of randoms end up using the spare room - clearly I'm a soft touch

If anyone asked me this it would be greeted with an all mighty fuck off, I can't stand the thought of mil staying in our house to watch the dcs when dc3 is born, because is MY house.

agnesf your brother and family have put you in a difficult position asking so late in the day and with your own house in chaos, and all you are doing is trying to pass on the stress to some other poor family! Just do what someone else said, be very honest and say, we have having building work done and can put up 2 people (or none if you feel none) and the rest will have to go to the Premier Inn.

You are not to blame for this, it's too late to make last-min arrangements, and you can't expect people to suddenly put up lots of people at Christmas so if they have to fork out, that's their issue really.

If we were at home and it was a last minute emergency then I wouldn't mind a bit.

But in these circumstances- hell no, and I'd think you were a bit odd for asking. If that means I'm not a 'nice person' or makes anyone else feel all dreadfully sad and shaky-head-at-nasty-world, fair enough

NO way ask your friends to do this over Xmas.

Xmas is complicated enough without you having to ask on their behalf, and expect the friendship to be somewhat awkward afterwards. I would think, wtf if someone asked me to do this, and I am usually very kind and considerate - just not today unfortuately

Your DP's brother is capable of sorting himself out surely! He's a big boy!

Sorry but i would think you were weird and feel very uncomfortable if you asked. I don't think its that people are mistrusting, its just that the whole situation would be uncomfortable.
Imagine 6 strangers turning up at your house?
And i would really stress about cleaning and what these strangers would think if my house, i would probably start decorating, buying new bedding, towels ect!
I think it would a bit different if we were really close friends.
Also i think your inlaws are being a bit rude. You are not out of order to say your house is like a building site and its just not practical to have people staying.
As some one has suggested, say that the kids can stay and parents get a bnb, 1 double room won't be that much and its not your problem anyway.

They want to 'stop off' (so presumably only for one night). You have major building works going on.

On being asked, I think I would just have pointed out that the house is upside down right now and that whilst they were welcome and you would love to see them, you can't offer them the comfort they would get from e.g. a Premier Inn and you would understand completely if they would prefer to stay there instead. It would not occur to me to start coming up with elaborate plans of borrowing someone else's house to accommodate them.

The fact that you ARE so unwilling to point out the difficulty to them intrigues me. You said "Yes I could say no but we had a bit of a situation last Xmas due to lots of circumstances out of everyone's control and I'm trying not to appear inhospitable." How bad was this situation that you feel the need to bend over backwards this year?

Ken - no you don't sound mad, you sound very nice!!

I dunno, I am a real home bird and would not feel comfortable putting up a family I don't know. I would find it a real cheek if someone I just know from school/bookclub or whatever asked me and I would think they were a bit wierd.

Wow no, if you were my friend and explaining it to me I'd never even think you might be hinting you could use my house. Don't people have enough stress before Christmas without having to worry about a bunch of randoms in their house. Are you thinking you'll strip the beds and do all the laundry before and after Christmas? Also I don't like people other than me using my bed. It's a massive intrusion and just looks really cheap. Surely your brother would understand if you really can't fit him in.

I think if you do hint, YOU should be the ones to go to the other house - at least they know you (ish) and they can trust that you will look after the place and be around and accountable for anything. Call it housesitting.
Your guests can have your house, or a hotel.

Gosh have been out and came back to all these replies.

I'm glad that someone like kendodd has posted otherwise I'd end up feeling like a loony.

Obviously based on these replies asking outright is not an option. TBH I hadn't really thought of how to pose the question or how many of them should stay there - clearly not all of them as we have got 3 functional bedrooms.

I wasn't going to ask people who would be in residence - just people who'd be away on the basis that house would be empty anyway. I too would think that actually having someone around to check on their house might be helpful - esp if its cold and pipes might freeze.

I'm a bit surprised at people who are worrying about my BIL & family searching through their private belongings - my not very close friends know me well enough I hope to know that we are 'naice' people and not really interested in stealing their passports.

OK I take the points about potential breakages - hadn't really thought about that. Also hadn't thought that people would worry so much about cleaning everything up - if it was me I'd just leave the house how I normally do. Whenever I've lent my house to people the experience has only been good.

As several people have said that if they were asked about a B&B they would take that request at face value I think I'll do that and maybe someone will offer.

My reluctance to suggest B&Bs is partly based on the fact that I think it would be nicer to stay in a home and also because of the fact that there don't seem to be any nearby.

Very, very awkward situation, this.

The thing is that it stems from your reluctance to say no to your relatives, given what happened last time with the situation at Christmas.

But asking not-very-close friends to put them up actually just transfers your situation to them - they're now the ones who would have to say no reluctantly. Which would actually leave you in the same situation as before.

I would explain the situation to your family in full and then work out what to do together. I don't think there are any easy answers here.

When I say the experience has been good I mean that the house looked nicer than when I left it. They have probably gone off saying that I'm a complete slattern and how could I have expected them to sleep in such a pig sty .

Yabu

I would be horrified if someone asked this of me. It would be an outright no.

OP - you know your BIL wouldn't go rooting round or stealing stuff, or breaking things, leaving stains on the carpet, would clean up after themselves etc, but if you were asking someone who's never met your BIL they don't know this.

To put it another way, if family were staying here without me, I'd want to tidy away things like financial paperwork (just don't want other people knowing what DH and I earn, or the size of our mortgage, what shares we've got etc), I'd have to clean the house from top to bottom, move the "posh" wine out of the main wine rack and only leave out ones I'm happy for them to help themselves too, make sure the beds were changed and there was enough clean bedding to change it again when I got back, sort out clean "guest quality" towels, make sure the dirty clothes basket wasn't overflowing, leave out instructions about how the heating and the burglar alarm works, where the stop cock is etc - it's a lot more work than just shutting the door and walking out - and if these people are away, they've also got to pack and prepared for their trip. I'd do it for family or a close friend, but a random stranger who just happens to be related to a friend I'm not that close too, why would I want to do that?

(And don't say they wouldn't have to do that, because they would feel they had to)

But I do'nt understand why you are reluctant to tell your BIL to book into a B&B? Wouldn't you want to offer some money/buy a gift/pay for a professional clean of the friend's house anyway so it wouldn't be 'free' anyway.

Crikey dontmindifido - maybe people have got wrong end of stick about how much borrowing of the house is needed. I was only thinking of asking if someone could sleep in their house - i.e go there about 10pm get in bed, clean teeth etc, go to sleep, get up, tidy up and come back to our house for breakfast. We could go over and change beds etc.

I wouldn't expect them to provide towels/ sheets etc. We can do all that. Not sure why they need to know where the stopcock is

Do you know anyone with cats? You could in exchange feed the cats while they were away, would avoid putting cats in cattery (which cats hate). I might be happy to do this in those circs (although live in rented house I'm not very precious about!)

I'm not expecting it to be free of effort - its just that B&B options are pretty limited round here and the idea of staying in a house seemed more homely to me than having to drive around the countryside to a B&B. Why would friend's house need to be professionally cleaned????

OP - if you are going ot let someone else stay in your house, it needs to be clean! If you are going ot have someone sleep in your beds, you want to make sure there's clean sheets - then Id want to change the sheets again because I wouldnt want to sleep in a bed that someone else had been sleeping in. So even if you did the bed changing, they would have to make sure there were clean spare sheets for you to change it into laid out.

You of course would want your house to be 'guest presentable' - some people live with "show home standards" every day of the week, most people don't so would have to do a special clean and tidy - saying they wouldn't need to isn't the point - I'm sure my friends if asked would say "oh, don't bother cleaning because I'm coming round for a drink" but I still would because I don't want people to know I'm a slob

It might be ok to have close family "take us as you see us" but not a stranger, which is what your BIL would be to them.

(And yes, after a friend calling my DH in a panic because she was house sitting another friend's house for a weekend, the kitchen tap had broken at 11pm and she couldn't find the stop cock, I would always recommend making sure anyone staying in your house when you're not there knows how to use it, and on a cold winter, I'd want them to be able to put the heating on if they wanted too)

you can't ask people you vaguely know to let complete strangers stay in their home. if someone asked me to do this, answer would be no, bog off!

and i'd think they were totally inappropriate for asking.

There are millions of things to think about when you go away from Christmas, leaving the house empty.

Your valuables - ensuring they are kept securely.
Bank statements and personal information, as above.
The fridge - is it empty
Timer Switches - are they all set so that the lights go on and off at the right times to ensure the house give an impression of being lived in?
The back door - is it closed, and locked?
Window locks.
Burgler alarm - SET.

Preparing for a stranger to turn up, stay a night and leave will mean that all of the above will need to be rethinked, and a stranger given the run of the house, and you need to rely on said stranger to ensure that house is locked up again.
And end up spending your Christmas away worrying about all of the above.