AIBU to charge my daughter's friend to stay?

[Bifflepants]

Never posted in AIBU before, but I am genuinely interested to know if I am being unreasonable. Mixed views amongst my real life friends.

My older daughter is at university studying to become a vet. I miss her very much and love having her home in the holidays. As part of her course, she has to do a number of placements - 3 weeks dairy, 3 weeks sheep, 3 weeks horse and various others, just to gain experience on farms with these animals. We live in a rural area and finding placements around home is not difficult. Last holidays she had a dairy placement, arranged by me. Her new best friend at uni asked if she could also do it with her, and so came to stay for over 2 weeks. I was told by my daughter she would cook for herself etc, but she arrived from a holiday abroad absolutely broke, bought very little food and discovered a love of my cooking (I'm a good cook it must be said). So she ate very well, and contributed nothing except one meal, which took her 5 hours to cook. We ate at 10pm that night. She was a lovely girl, very like my daughter in that she was socially a little unusual and quite clever. She was also quite messy and did little to help around the house unless asked. It was like having another daughter.

Anyway, she left just before Christmas, leaving her bed unmade and a pile of books and rubbish in her room. I breathed a sigh of relief. Now my daughter has announced that the friend wants to a lot more placements here as there are no farms around where she lives. So another 7 weeks this year staying at ours altogether. I said fine, but she would have to pay some board. Either $20 (10gbp) per week for just bills, $90 (45GBP) for dinners only or $130 (65) for all meals and board. As a family we spend a lot of money on food and eat well, so this was a fair estimate of what it would take to feed her in my view. She had a very good appetite.

Additional info: We are very comfortably off but not rich and generally run out of money just before pay day. We don't have savings. I am not the best at managing money but we are never in debt. The friend's parents are both very senior doctors and very well off. Neither my daughter or the friend can get part time jobs as the course is too demanding so both rely on student loans and parental handouts. My daughter has never really had a best friend before and I very much want to support the friendship. The friend has agreed to the dinners only deal.

My real life friends were a bit shocked that I had asked for money, and also thought it was a lot. What do you think?

Dont ask anyone else......you are right to charge.

Small is what you've said already By The Way.

Biffle I don't know why you need so much affirmation? You've made a sensible decision and should stick to it. She needs to realise life's not a free ride. And her parents might cough up?

Jesus, So, you're taking this personally! You appear to be reading way more into it than others are.

I have had paying students stay over the years. It's not a hotel but a family home. Most are clueless about a lot of household chores

Girls from the middle East have a good idea if what chores to do and wash their own clothes etc but girls from much further east are clueless, they are though very willing to help when asked, but its not often initiative is shown.

I have to tell them to hoover their room, even a suggestion of hoover can be meet with a "oh it doesn't need it" erh yes it does and your bedclothes need changing, here is a clean set

It is though our job to assist in turning these girls into being blind to seeing what they need to do and helping out.

What is most infuriating is my own DD is blind to so much, yet at work her boss sings her praised for showing initiative and great work commitments - why can't some of this happen at home!

Expat....if you saw this thread as the girl....you'd be upset and not want to stay there again.'

Actually, no. I'd be embarrassed at how lazy and thoughtless I was.

What Expat said.

She's an adult. If you are a guest in someone's house you clear up after yourself - especially in the room she stayed in.

She should be embarrassed. However, as she's asked to stay again, clearly she's not.

OP, what did your daughter think of her behaviour? She should have had a word with her really.

Hic fwiw, I'm not kiwi but I'm not english either.

And I still think that an 19yo should be expected to look after themselves and help out re housework if they are invited somewhere. That's common decency, even in other countries than Britain.

I mean, if the OP's house wasn't in that perefect location, she would have had to find somewhere to stay, let's say a room to rent where she would have had to do all her own housework and cooking. And she would have done it on the top of her placement (which is not even working a normal full day on the farm anyway).
So why on earth should the OP babying her and doing the cooking and housework and whatever for her? She isn't a child anymore.

For the record - I am neither a coward nor a keyboard warrior. I am assuming the coward comment was directed at me as I've been reasonably vocal with my opinion. I would say the same in person - if op was on South Island anyway. I travel to north island as rarely as I can manage.

NZ is not shockingly expensive. You can choose for it to be as you can with anything.

Disagreeing with the majority is not cowardice, it's disagreeing. I wouldn't charge anyone for staying in my spare room and currently have someone there for 6-8 months. Not a friend initially but a friend of a friend who needed somewhere local to stay. Now a friend too which is always good.

OP asked for opinions. I gave mine. It's not the same as hers or yours. I wasn't rude, I didn't pour vitriol, or slate her. I simply said I wouldn't charge and it would feel all kinds of wrong. Especially a student with no income.

For the record (& for your stats!) I'm also English. I just live here.

ok, ok, I've calmed down. Thanks Miscellaneous Assortment. I shall stop asking. I will stick with my decision. I will try to get a good night's sleep. Thanks for all your opinions and taking the time to post. Good night.

She was also quite messy and did little to help around the house unless asked. It was like having another daughter. Anyway, she left just before Christmas, leaving her bed unmade and a pile of books and rubbish in her room.

After this ^ I wouldn't have her back - but that is because I wouldn't want a guest in my home to treat me like a maid.

But if you want to have her back you should charge her and should not be left out of pocket. I would not be including maid service either - she must tidy up after herself.

(I'm a kiwi if that makes a difference though a UK based one)

I thin it's a sensible decision, OP. She may have more respect for your home if she has to make a financial contribution.

OP, as almost everyone has said, YANBU! Please ignore the crazies who think it's remotely normal to put up another adult for 7 weeks, cook and wash and clean after them, and not receive any recompense at all. Bonkers.

I asked my Kiwi friend about this (she lives in Christchurch), and she says it's astonishing that the girl didn't expect to pay, and that what you are proposing is fine and actually very cheap.

7 weeks is a long time.
i wouldn't go into the detail of "all snacks etc..."
just say you're welcome to stay but i would appreciate £500 contribution towards your stay for the period to cover the increase in food costs and bills etc. (just round it up, no need for options or a breakdown, you don't really want her taking over your kitchen for 7 weeks trying to cook for herself if she isn't efficient, tidy etc...)

i'm sure her parents would be happy to pay and grateful she has a placement if difficult to come by. they really should have offered already!

FFS. Expressing an alternate opinion doesn't make some a "crazy" either.

HicD, I hadn't really taken much notice of your opinion. But now you come to mention it .... You weren't being nasty from what I've read just giving your opinion. Am sure if you and OP met up you'd get along just fine

Sleep well Biffle, I think your hosting sounds great. We're foodies too and love to cook. My dss are 15 and 18 and do a few chores and cook, especially older one. They need to be able to do basic tasks to cope with the real world imo.

'Such a lazy teenager! For shame she cant cook for a whole family without it taking hours.'

It's pretty standard on a farm. As a teen, I lived on a farm in France. We worked 5-8 out, then 9-noon in the factor, 2-5 in factory (it was a vegetable farm) in the family I was staying with, and meals didn't magically appear on the table, nor clean dishes and clothes. Surprise, surprise! We all had to muck in and do other work on top of the farm. And everyone was still alive! No one died from it. In fact, the farmer, a women in her 50s, also went out till 10pm during Summer into Autumn to do more work outside. I either went with her and her sons or took over the housework. Her sons and DIL did work in the home, too.

Working the farm did not mean you were exonerated from doing anything else. In real life, most people have to do lifework on top of their jobs.

It was unbelievable! As a 15-16-year-old I asked what I could do in the home/around the farmhouse (it was an 18th century farmhouse in a square shape with barn attached, then quarters and yard in middle), what other chores there were for me because everyone else was busy doing something - sweeping the yard, hoovering or polishing, or just picked up something and got stuck in.

When you stay with a family it's different from a hostel, B&B, dormitory or the like.

At the leaving her bed unmade when she left.....why would you make a bed you'd slept in for a week? For the next guest to sleep on the same sheets. I would have stripped it and left my used sheets in the laundry basket or whatever. But I guess that's slovenly too.

Should offer to strip it wash the sheets and remake it with new ones maybe.

expat, that sounds like a lovely thing to have done as a teen. Much better than skulking around drinking cider and smoking fags like some me. Although I was working at 16 so wasn't that bad.

It was awesome, Freakin. One of the best years of my life and I am still in touch with the sons and their families (the lady of the farm sadly died a few years ago in her late 70s). It was a lot of work but being outside so much of the time was amazing. She did have a cleaner come in once a week but the day-to-day stuff still had to be done. Everyone was busy. It's a farm, not an office. I was a total city slicker when I arrived, too.

NZ is not shockingly expensive.
It is a lot more expensive for things like food/electricity than the UK

Great to have memories like that expat. So many dcs nowadays never seem to be outside never mind on a farm. My first boyfriend (at 17) was a farmer. I loved visiting but wasn't so keen on the early rising. I remember the first time I turned up at the farm looking like a barbie doll. All high heels and big hair His parents were rather posh and must've been gobsmacked. Mind you I did end up getting on well with his dm. Df was never around as he was a professional, dm ran the farm.

It's reasonable to expect a student to pay the costs incurred for extra food and bills- she'd have to pay on a placement elsewhere.

why would you make a bed you'd slept in for a week?
Well you wouldn't but surely most people would strip the bed, put the dirty linen in the washing basket (or ask host where to put them) and leave bedding folded on the bed?

This is what I've done every where I've ever been a guest. Never realised it was probably one of the reasons I get invited back! :)

Sounds very reasonable - I paid £45 a week bed and laundry (and bought and cooked my own food) back in 1994/5 when I was in student lodgings.

I was only there Monday - Friday and there was no wi-fi back then and it was still a good deal so your 'fees' sound fine.

Do charge, its the right thing to do.
Had it been a single night, you wouldn't have charged.
Moving in for weeks on end requires some contribution to costs. A b+b would cost her more for a night than you want to charge for a week.