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AIBU?

to expect clean sheets if invited to stay?

57 replies

baggyoldcow · 22/11/2013 09:41

How would you handle this?
You are invited by a friend to stay at their house, "please stay, please stay, we've plenty of room etc, etc". That's very kind of them, of course. So you go, and then they put you in the spare bedroom where the bed has clearly been slept in by someone else and the sheets not changed.
This has happened to us a couple of times (not with the same hosts). I find it very odd as I would never invite someone to stay if I didn't have the time or energy or inclination to offer them a clean bed!
Is it unreasonable to feel put out by this, given they are putting us up?
Is it unreasonable to say something? (Any suggestions as to what?)
Is it unreasonable to wash the sheets oneself while hosts are out?!

OP posts:

Report

FrauMoose · 22/11/2013 20:53

I'm quite princess-and-the-pea about manmade fibre. So although the ideal is crisp new ironed 100% sheets, I'd settle for ones that had been pre-used. Whereas on some freshelywhisked-through-the machine-and-tumble-dryer-easycare synthetic bedding, I'd be awake half the night.

But I would - I hope - be a polite guest. As long as there was a good book to read, I'd cope with the insomnia.

GuffSmuggler · 22/11/2013 19:35

Oh the memories as a student of being offered a sofa bed and then have it pulled out in front you with the sheet on it that is obviously left for every dosser that stays (boak).

Oh and when I was a bit older being invited to stay at a friends house and being told which room was mine to find a bare mattress and an old sleeping bag unzipped to sleep under (horrendous).

ProphetOfDoom · 22/11/2013 19:22

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

OrangeJuiceSandwich · 22/11/2013 19:17

Does this

OrangeJuiceSandwich · 22/11/2013 19:16

MIL does the. It's disgusting and lazy. If you can't be bothered to change the sheets don't have guests.

JapaneseMargaret · 22/11/2013 19:15

Hopefully you tell your host that as well, so they know exactly what they're dealing with.

FrauMoose · 22/11/2013 18:56

I'd rather sleep on pure cotton sheets that some other guest had slept on before, than polycotton bedding that had been put on specially for me.

JapaneseMargaret · 22/11/2013 18:53

Sometimes if I've had my friend over one night and then my mum over the next, I ask her if she minds slightly used sheets. Normally she's fine with it, but I'm always willing to change them if that's what she wants.

Normally she's fine with it. So sometimes she's not?

Surely, on that basis, she's really not fine with it, and is only being polite when she says she doesn't mind...?

daisychain01 · 22/11/2013 18:45

Rank

The smell ~ ~ ~

Heave

TheAlyssWithTheMewlingQuim · 22/11/2013 18:40

Sometimes if I've had my friend over one night and then my mum over the next, I ask her if she minds slightly used sheets. Normally she's fine with it, but I'm always willing to change them if that's what she wants.

BikeRunSki · 22/11/2013 18:25

FiL used to stay for a night or two every week or two. I didn't always change the sheets every time he slept in the spare bed. Although I did if someone else was coming in between FiL visits !

drspouse · 22/11/2013 18:17

I do the same as Asteria as my mum comes more often than anyone else.

She is here at the moment but a friend was here on Tuesday and my dad 10 days before that. It is definitely DH's turn to change the sheets now.

whois · 22/11/2013 18:00

I don't totally see the problem with leaving the sheets if there's been one guest one night - in pjs and after a shower, how much damage can they really do to the sheets?

UnicornsNotRiddenByGrownUps · 22/11/2013 17:16

Anything other than changing the sheets is just utterly rank!

SatinSandals · 22/11/2013 15:49

It has never happened to me so I am not sure how I would handle it. I can't imagine it happening.

baggyoldcow · 22/11/2013 15:44

ha ha good to hear I'm not alone! I love the dettol bath idea ancelyn

Just remembered that when I was about 10 we went to stay at someone's house while they were away for a week. I was put in the kid's bed and it had pee in it! It was still damp! Ugh.

Amazing the way people you think you know operate.

OP posts:

sandfrog · 22/11/2013 15:28

YANBU at all.

doodlyfiddly · 22/11/2013 15:18

Some people really surprise you don't they? This also happened to us - 'please stay, please stay' etc. until we caved.

We were given the bedroom of their 15 yr old son and, it was only as we got into the bed, that the rankness of teenage boy (still don't want to think about what else) leapt up to greet us. YUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

Asteria · 22/11/2013 15:10

I usually leave sheets on until just before guests come to stay, just in case it is the same person coming back! My DH also often ends up in the spare bed if he has had a bout of insomnia and doesn't want me to murder him wake up because he is thrashing about. I'm not going to put fresh sheets on every time he goes in there, but guests get the full pressed linen treatment!!

I once found a massive black pube in a bed I was staying in, I felt grubby for the rest of my stay.

tolittletoolate · 22/11/2013 14:08

My Mum stayed with my sister a while ago and was given a bed to sleep in that had no sheets at all, just a bare mattress!!
Needless to say she hasn't stayed there again.

fromparistoberlin · 22/11/2013 13:11

ewwwww

I have a mate that does this, I ALWAYS take a spare sheet and pillow case when I sat :-)

ImaginativeNewName · 22/11/2013 13:08

I wouldn't really care if if was just somewhere to crash for the night. Then again I have slept in cars, on manky student sofas, I'm not a fussy sleeper and shouldn't be listened to.

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DorisShutt · 22/11/2013 12:19

Urgh. Sounds horrible to me.

Having said that, BIL stayed at his parents the night before getting married (ex-SIL was staying in their house), we had booked a hotel as their house is tiny.

The night of the wedding we went back to PIL's and DMIL went to go change the bed - at 2am; we told her to stop and just crashed out.

WillieWaggledagger · 22/11/2013 12:15

yanbu

agree with trills though - i had my mum staying one night and then a few days later my dad (they are a couple but were staying overnight at mine on their own for work trips). i put clean sheets on for mum, and then just washed the pillow cases for dad and aired the bed in between. they share a bed normally so this i think is fine. would never do this for non-related guests or after people staying longer than 1-2 nights

ancelynthecraven · 22/11/2013 12:11

Stayed at a friends house and the place was a pit. Hair brushes on work surfaces in the kitchen had head lice on them. Cat food all over the wet room. Dead fleas in the bed we were supposed to sleep in.
My husband was ashamed of the place and his friend really embarrassed.
His wife seemed really proud of the fact that she was a slattern.
I had a detol bath when I got home.

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