I asked my guest to leave my home.

[bubblesdrew]

We built a house a couple of fields away from some neighbours.

I met the husband at the local shop a couple of months after we got settled & after some chat asked if him and his wife would like to join us, friends & family for a New Years Eve dinner.

His wife and himself arrived that night and they were initially great. During conversation she asked for a tour of the house and I said no (not in a rude way). 20 minutes later she said again that she would like a tour of the house and again I said no. Then a THIRD time she asked and at that point my husband stepped in and said that there wouldn't be a tour.

She used the bathroom numerous times in the night which is located under the stairs. My niece was in our room at the top of the stairs past the closet which eventually leads into the master bedroom.

This woman had climbed the stairs later in the night when she asked to be excused for the bathroom went through my closet and into the master bedroom. My niece flew down and told my husband who marched upstairs and quietly asked her to leave. She claimed she was lost but, she had used the bottom bathroom all night!!
Should I have given her a tour or was she being completely unreasonable?

I think people should be tour ready at all times. Maybe keep uniforms handy and have a guide book so neighbours can marvel at your tooth brush holder and take the book home to browse through for inspiration.

Every single person who has come to this house for the first time has asked for 'the tour'. I thought that was pretty standard the first time someone came to your house. I try not to as i only tidy downstairs mainly. One person kept saying it, and i kept trying to change the subject but they went on and on.

Also some people I gave our new address to google earthed it and also found old pics on zoopla or something as they rang me up and started chatting about what it looked like and the garden before ever being here!

Nope. You're not being unreasonable, you told her no three times. She shouldn't have gone through your stuff. Good gracious, neighbours can be annoying can't they? One of my neighbours walked into my house yesterday morning with bags of shopping and started packing everything away (Without us knowing. Me and DH came home with food shopping ourselves. We had to ask for our key back, and donated the food she got us to the local food bank)

I can't believe people on this thread saying it's rude not to give a tour of your own house.
Bloody hell people, don't you have any boundaries? There's no obligation to show your house. It's not bad manners not to do it. If I'm in someone else's house, I don't expect a fucking a tour of it. If they offer, OK. If they don't, I just stick to where I am. Whatever happened to privacy and having your own space?

Your house and your rules. How rude of the lady. You did the right thing.

This thread is hilarious!

There are actually people on here who would feel generally put out if they did not get a tour of the someone’s house if invited as a guest for dinner.

Seriously, what are you expecting find? Why are other people’s bedrooms or airing cupboards of such curiosity? Why do you give a fuck as to what colour someone’s duvet set is, what photos they have on the wall or what shampoo they use?

I would not dream of asking for a tour of someone’s home, apart from being a very boring activity it just smacks of ‘keeping up with the Jones’s’ and at the end of the day quite rude and a bit pathetic.

“Oh no, she has Jo Malone candles in the spare bedroom and a Liberty cushion set on the bed.......I need to up my game”

pan

Absolutely and I think to actually ask someone to look round their house is quite creepy actually.

Why would you show randoms your kids bedrooms. Very strange boundaries.

@Fanofpotato

Your house and your rules. How rude of the lady. You did the right thing.

I agree with you 100%. Rubberneckers! No one has any business snooping around my house.

I don't have tourists round and am not a tourist guide so there are no "tours" here. I wouldn't ask to nose around someone else's house and certainly wouldn't think it strange if I wasn't offered a "tour"! Why would someone coming round for a cup of tea or dinner need to see other people's bedrooms, laundry bin, box room, study or anything else upstairs?

I find the tour thing odd, unless it's a historic house and they came on a day out why would anyone want to see over someone's house?

I agree. I find it quite rude if people ask to look round my house....and rather bizarre if people insist on taking me round theirs!

@Intercom
I don't have tourists round and am not a tourist guide so there are no "tours" here.

Same here. I was asked for a tour once by a former colleague of DH. I'd only just met him for the first time that day. I said no. Why would I?
It's just rude to ask.
He's never been back to our house since. Good. Go away.

You see what I'm getting from this thread are people who are incredibly uptight - all that "I'm such a private person" stuff - as if someone who is interested in the new build house as a building is secretly wanting to snoop on your bank statements and sex toys.

I think it is bizarre that so many of you think that , as someone pointed out, these neighbours across the fields who will have seen the house going up are weird to want to see the finished version.

All this talk of "snooping" and "nosing" and "rubber necking". Weird.

quite uptight

Nope quite the opposite but respect my own personal space, my children’s and other people’s.

I would also think looking around a general house pretty boring really, and I think to ask to look around someone else’s house totally rude and bizarre.

I live a long way South of Hadrian's Wall but would consider it quite normal to have a "tour" of a new house. Whenever friends or family move to a new house then the first time we visit they always show us around. In fact it would almost seem rude not to want the tour, as if you are taking no interest in their new home.

The same goes for renovations / major alterations. We recently had new bathrooms fitted and the first time my siblings visited they asked to have a look. Over Christmas we visited friends we hadn't seen in a while and noticed they had an extension. When we commented "Oh that's new isn't it?" their first reaction was "Yes do you want to have a look?"

I can sort of imagine asking for a tour of someone's new house, meaning it in a polite and friendly way - interested but not nosy. When you said "No" I think I would have been a little taken aback but I certainly wouldn't have persisted.

The woman was rude to keep asking and very, very out of order to go off by herself looking around. Having said that I think asking her to leave was a bit much. I think pointing out that you had said no and please don't do that again might heave been as far as you had to go.

It all sounds very strange to me.

@LassWiTheDelicateAir
You see what I'm getting from this thread are people who are incredibly uptight - all that "I'm such a private person" stuff

Yes, I am a private person. I see snooping around as an invasion.

Our house is not a new build, it's a very old cottage in desperate need of renovation and it's a money pit. Do you really think I enjoy showing people around rooms with:
peeling wallpaper
crumbling plaster
broken floorboards
dated decors????

DH and I have already spent a considerable sum of money restoring the the property because the previous owners were too lazy to maintain even the basics. We've run out of money for now.
I cannot and will not show anyone the spaces I don't want them to see.

What do people want from a house tour? Personally I couldn't give a stuff about Jo Malone candles or what's on the bedside table, but if someone's done a renovation, I'm interested in the layout, the design decisions, the light, that kind of thing. The same reason Grand Designs has been on TV continuously for 20 years! Really, uptight people, the people wanting a tour mostly are utterly uninterested in your personal life, they just have more interest in house design than you!

If respecting boundaries and personal space is seen as uptight then great. If finding other people’le houses not remotely fascinating then fine

Happy to be uptight.

But grand designs are just that. Interesting. Most people’s boring kitchen extension or loft conversion not so much.

Pax I love peeling wallpaper and crumbling plaster! You bought the house presumably because it had potential and interesting spaces. That's what people asking for tours are interested in as well, not the state of the decor. Fine to say you prefer not to, but you are misreading the reasons why people are interested.

All this talk of "snooping" and "nosing" and "rubber necking". Weird.

It’s all a bit ye’ll have had yer tea to me.

And usually I’m the ultimate stick-up-arse type when it comes to personal space/boundaries. Feels weird to be on the other side for a change.

Hatsoff its an extension (see what I did there?) of the same principle though.

But Lass, seriously, why do you feel the need to look around someone’s bedroom? I am genuinely baffled as to why you would find it interesting?

I live in a bog standard three bed terrace, I imagine it’s layout is virtually identical to the forty odd other houses on the street, it’s unremarkable. Why would you feel the need to have a mooch around if you were a dinner guest?

But Lass, seriously, why do you feel the need to look around someone’s bedroom?

I don’t let anyone “look around” my bedroom.

The door gets opened, with something like “and this is the bedroom”, and give them a few seconds or so to take a glance.

Then out and onto the next room. There’s an art to it.

@frogsoup
Pax I love peeling wallpaper and crumbling plaster!

Oh god, do you? Yes, our house is a very interesting old house and it has so much potential. We had a full survey done so we knew about any work that needed doing in future. But a survey doesn't reveal absolutely everything that is wrong. Some other things have come up that were equally urgent which means we ran out of budget earlier than expected.

We've lived here for over a decade and the house is only half finished. I'm embarrassed to show anyone the upstairs because that's the part of the house that hasn't been changed yet. That's where you would see the peeling 1970s wallpaper, the crumbling plaster and the broken floorboards. It just looks tatty. The thing is I have a vision in my head of how the house will look like when it's finished but we need to save up a bit more money first.