Am I being unreasonable to want our house guest to get up before 10am?

[katsh]

We are a family of 5. 2 of us work at home. 1 dd is home schooled and has GCSE's starting next week. Other 2 dc at school. a 30 yr old Aussie friend has moved over to the UK on a 2 yr working visa. She has been with us 8 days so far, and the arrangement is she is staying until she finds work and accommodation in London. So far she has made no efforts to do either ( but jet lag - so fair enough). However - she is sleeping in the room which has our family computer, my work desk etc, on a fold up sofa bed. I've told her that i usually start work at 9am. She hasn't got up before 10.15 yet. Do I just need to suck it up or do I say something to her ? It sounds like a little thing, but life if fairly stretched and strained already and not being able to work except with my laptop on my knee is feeling a bit annoying. How would you handle it ?

[RunRabbitRunRabbit]

No! Don't suggest that she goes to bed earlier! That is RIDICULOUS.

She is 30 years old. I assume she does not have severe learning problems.

She can make the connection between time of going to bed and how she feels in the morning.

If you start carrying on like she's an idiot and you are her mum then you become her carer and she can stay for as long she wants and be as feeble and infantile as she likes.

Stop being cowardly and start being stroppy. She's taking the piss out of you in your own home. Call her on it. Give her an chance to get her act together, apologise, behave like an adult. If you don't the friendship will definitely be ruined.

[Costacoffeeplease]

Well I wouldn't have let her stay in the first place, in the circumstances - but as you have you just have to be more explicit about the arrangements

[HermioneJeanGranger]

I think the houseguest should be bloody grateful she's getting free accomodation, tbh. I think if you're staying somewhere for free and sleeping in someone's work-space, you're pretty rude if you then sleep in all morning, therefore stopping your hosts from doing their paid work.

[Willow2016]

She is acting like a teenager not an adult.
Make sure she knows that you START work at 9, not around 9, not after 9 but AT 9

Point her in the direction of local paper shop to get papers to look for job vacancies, places to rent, online sites etc.

Sounds like she thinks she can doss at yours until she has had a little holiday before starting to look for places to live/jobs. That wasnt the agreement.

Yep and also ask her to do some housework, when you are doing some ask her if she could help do such and such with you, ask her to cook a meal (flatter her, ask if she can do something typicaly Oz for everyone )

I couldnt stay at someones without offering to do stuff, wash up after meals, help with meals, run round with the hoover etc. Its just too selfish.

[OnceThereWasThisGirlWho]

Katsh I know if I was a guest somewhere else I wouldn't behave like that, but because of the way she is behaving...

Is it just the sleeping late, or other stuff too?

[RunRabbitRunRabbit]

If she is normally reasonable and this is out of character then I suspect she is overwhelmed by the task of finding a job and accommodation in a new country. She may welcome a bit of a boot up the arse from a good friend.

[museumum]

Saying "I usually start work at 9" is way too vague. She's flown halfway round the world on a massive adventure with loads of new experiences. Picking up on your subtle hints is maybe not foremost in her mind. And Aussies are often more direct.

Be more direct: "I need into that room at 9 in the mornings to start work at that computer".

[Tonis2297]

Oh no youv got to say something that would drive me insane
I had a friend once that got kicked out from his parents (we were 16 at the time) my mum gave him our spare room he stayed 3 months then she chucked him out he was lying in bed till 12-1 pm every day

[katsh]

Thanks all. She's now up and I'm at my desk. I did say to her at the outset that she could sleep in the study but I needed it by 9am. I don't think we were vague and she is very aware of all the pressures on us. I have just said to her that form tomorrow I need to be at my desk by 8.45am. All she needs to do is get up and put the sofa bed away. I don't care whether she sits around in her pjs all day after that. She is the daughter of friends of ours and so we are trying to help them out by helping her. However there may be limits !
I do just need to get a bit more brave. This has encouraged me so thank you. ( and in the rest of my life I am extremely brave and resilient, but I think this just took me by surprise and in the midst of everything else we are dealing with it was one thing I couldn't really handle very well).

[Iknownuffink]

You have told her you start work at 9 am.

If I were you I would go into the room and start working, forget the softly softly wake up cuppa.

She either fits in around your routine or finds alternative accomodation.

[Willow2016]

andintothefire: but she is staying in someone elses house, its obviously her work room - desk and computer is in there, she has told her this too and that she starts at 9am. Its not rocket science to think a 30yr old woman could get herself out of the way for 9am in the morning. She isnt 14!

And to laze in bed over an hour late is past a joke.

She isnt here on holiday she is here to find accomodation and a job not on a gap year! The whole point IS that she finds somewhere else to live. Time she got looking and helped in the house a bit. IF she wants to live with a family then she should be doing the same as the rest of them. Its not a hotel, op has enough to do without having to work around or be running after a grown woman.

[someonestolemynick]

I sympathise with her in that I'm a night owl. Typing this from bed before I start work properly around 11.30/ 12...ish.
But if someone out me up in their home office which they said they'd meet every day from 9 I'd be out by then (clinging to a cup of coffee ).

But please don't tell a 30-year-old woman she needs to go to be earlier. Tell her when you need the room from and let her work out how she'll get there.

So give her a deadline to move out as well.

[andintothefire]

Thanks all. She's now up and I'm at my desk. I did say to her at the outset that she could sleep in the study but I needed it by 9am. I don't think we were vague and she is very aware of all the pressures on us

If you were clear from the start then I totally agree she should be out of the room by 9 and I retract my previous message!

[IceMaiden73]

I would sit her down, give her timings and tell her you can only accommodate her until the end of the month

[CruCru]

I don't want to be snippy but - you have a child due to start her GCSEs next week and a houseguest? Why did you say yes to the houseguest, given the timing?

[katsh]

crucru I guess partly because her parents have been incredibly supportive to us over the years, and we thought it would be easier (and she would be more thoughtful), than it actually is. She also suggested that she'd got accommodation lined up and it would only be for a couple of weeks. not so.

[CruCru]

Fair enough. You know them, I don't.

[LaGattaNera]

YADNBU if I was staying as a guest at someone's house I'd fit in with them and be grateful. I'd also offer to help around the house and a week in I'd have started looking for work and accomodation. Even looking at it from the guest's perspective she is out of order!

[girlywhirly]

Yes, I agree that you need to start being more pro active about what you expect of your guest. She's had her rest now, she should be looking for jobs and helping around the home. You could quite reasonably ask how the job hunt is going so far. Decide how long you are prepared to house her for and make it clear that she will have to have found somewhere to live and a job by then.

[RunRabbitRunRabbit]

Oh dear. She is 30 years old and her mum and dad had to find her a place to crash in the UK. She isn't even your friend. She is being a bad guest with her parent's friends who are doing her a massive favour. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

So many red flags for epic brass-neckery.

Please keep posting I have a feeling this is going to be good for us, not you

[LaGattaNera]

Just find it so strange that she will take free board and lodgings and not offer to help out around your home but of course if she finds paid employment then she will work. She is 30. Even as a young teenager I would have been offering.

[Branleuse]

Have a chat with her about how her hunt for accomodation is going because realistically youre happy to help out on a short term basis but youre a working household with not enough space and you wonder if maybe her parents werent clear about that

[Smurfnoff]

She took up your offer on the basis that you use the room as an office after 9. If she didn't like that she could've found somewhere else. Be polite but firm.

[specialsubject]

Ah, the dreaded independent traveller....

Sit down with her and the hostelworld site and help her make a booking to start her adventure in London somewhere that she can network and jobhunt. Time for her to get going.

[Janecc]

How have you not bashed her round the head by now? Metaphorically anyway. I hope your DD gets on well with her exam. Yes, I know. It's tough to address things with other people. I'm a coward too. RL and what I'd actually want to do are worlds apart.