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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

I asked my guest to leave my home.

999 replies

bubblesdrew · 02/01/2018 22:44

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?

OP posts:
Hatsoffdear · 03/01/2018 18:10

curry

I go to spend time chatting to my friends, talking politics, news, family stuff everything snd anything but going upstairs to gawp at a bathroom or bedroom? Na boring

Original poster
bubblesdrew · 03/01/2018 18:10

@shockthemonkey the location is very rural and a few fields away. Just a dirt road so they couldn't have walked it. In terms of the 'no' it wasn't harsh. It was just a simple no.

@user1499333856 The house was designed for a few years and (if I say so myself) is really nice. It's unusual in terms of design and I had someone external come in and do the interior. I would understand why she wanted a tour but, I just don't ever do it!

OP posts:
womblinglove · 03/01/2018 18:10

" Bottom line, I think there are a lot of introverted, socially anxious, awkward, unconfident people on MN who find socialising very, very difficult. With that goes a preoccupation with privacy (and judgement) that I haven't encountered in r/l.
"

Yup.

A huge number of socially difficult people who don't seem to have or be aware of many social and cultural norms. And not just this thread, either.

NinonDeLenclos · 03/01/2018 18:11

He asked them to leave because of the previous exchanges. I clearly said no. We all agreed. Nobody but, us & them know! Suppose Mumsnet too...

You can be sure the whole village knows by now.

womblinglove · 03/01/2018 18:13

In our social circle if people are invited into our homes, they are in our homes and trusted.

Call me weird but I wouldn't actually invite someone I didn't know or like well enough to let them have a neb around my gaff over for dinner, let alone on NYE!!

Hatsoffdear · 03/01/2018 18:15

Ninon

I expect we all socialise just as much as you dear but we don’t feel the need to gawp and compare each other’s bathrooms and then go home and plan a better one. Wink

Quite happy with my social circle.

Hatsoffdear · 03/01/2018 18:17

Oh wombling seriously that was very very funny and I have loved this thread.

Hatsoffdear · 03/01/2018 18:17

Your one at 18.10 btw

GoldenBrows · 03/01/2018 18:18

NinonDeLenclos your contradictions are rather amusing

ProperLavs · 03/01/2018 18:19

hatsoff and what an interesting social circle that must be. The mind boggles.

NinonDeLenclos · 03/01/2018 18:20

we don’t feel the need to gawp and compare each other’s bathrooms and then go home and plan a better one

Neither do I. This peculiar inference this speaks volumes about how you see other people - very paranoid and competitive.

Willow2017 · 03/01/2018 18:21

What utter tripe on this thread.
You dont want someone walking through your bedroom closet and checking out your bedrooms so you are socially inept, weird, rude, uptight and culturally backward.

Op invited the couple over to get to know them not to show off her house. Why is this so freaking unusual?

Just because someone doesnt do the same as you do doesnt give people the right to criticise and insult them. Your home you say what happens in it, which bits are accessible and which bits are private. Its perfectly reasonable.

I am perfectly happy socialising but that doesnt mean i have to let some stranger into my bedroom if they come to the house. How bizzare!

FaithHopeCharityDesperation · 03/01/2018 18:22

it strikes me as a bit Hyacinth Bucket-ish to give tours of normal houses, or to expect them

It's the complete opposite of hyacinth bucket!!
Numerous posters have explained it - it's not in the least bit show-offy, it's just the norm.

GoldenBrows · 03/01/2018 18:24

Ninon You have created quite a scenario there!

noun
plural noun: privileges
1.
a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.

My point is, that the neighbour in the OP and subsequent posters have made it clear that a tour is expected as they are a house guest and have been invited to a special Nye dinner don't you know and therefore they want special privileges that go against the hosts ideas of privacy and appropriate-ness. Noone is having a panic attack or wittering, we'd say no and by the looks of it, it would be some of you wittering at home at being denied a nosy round

shockthemonkey · 03/01/2018 18:25

The thing is, bubbles, a simple "no" IS harsh, that's the point I'm making.

GoldenBrows · 03/01/2018 18:28

Sorry but it is a privilege to go into my bedroom, not because it's special or a throne room, but it's because it's where I sleep and it's my personal space - I'm not saying no one shall enter or ye be locked in the dungeon - I'm saying it is bizarre for a near stranger to want to see it because they watch house renovation programmes.

womblinglove · 03/01/2018 18:32

So how about, " yeah of course- we can certainly have a tour downstairs but kids are asleep upstairs/its a tip /delete as appropriate "

They're called reception or public rooms,for a reason ;)

Bluntness100 · 03/01/2018 18:32

Bottom line, I think there are a lot of introverted, socially anxious, awkward, unconfident people on MN who find socialising very, very difficult. With that goes a preoccupation with privacy (and judgement) that I haven't encountered in r/l

I think there is something in this. Why people do it has been explained many times. I personally have explained it a couple of times, that it's social nicety when your friend invites you to their new home, they show you round and you say how fab it is. Many others have also explained it also, from sharing the new owners excitement to showing interest onwards.

There are a lot of socially awkward people on mumsnet, many threads from people who neither like to be a guest or have them, who won't host, who don't even answer their doors, some even lock their bedroom door in their own home, one poster on here locks all her upstairs doors when she has guests, others live in terrible disarray and filth and openly discuss it on here, and some have no friends or social circle, so I can see why the thought of having friends round to your new house and being asked to show them round would be horrifyingly incomprehensible for some people.

But the explanation has been given. Some of us are not messy, we do not see our upstairs as private and we are ok with showing invited guests round our new home and would think it the norm to be shown round our friends new home and share their excitement and happiness.

mewkins · 03/01/2018 18:34

But the OP's house sounds lovely! If you were in a specially designed kitchen, wouldn't you want to see the rest of the amazing house?! I love houses and interiors so would love to look round. (People round here have also been known to knock on neighbour's doors and ask if they would mind if they looked at their extension. No blood has been shed....yet)

Hatsoffdear · 03/01/2018 18:35

It’s not the norm in my social circle. The neighbours behaviour would be seen as rude and intrusive.

Someone asking to look around my house would be seen as rude and bad mannered but obviously others feel fine with it.

proper if your idea of a great dinner party is looking around each other’s pretty normal houses and talking decor all night and clearly all competing to have the best house in the group, because obviously that’s what this is about then, what a shallow bore fest of an evening.

ItsNYlyme · 03/01/2018 18:36

I would never ask anyone if I could look around their house.

Totally weird.
And no-one has ever asked to look around mine.
I'm not Scottish though!
But Northern and friendly in most ways
Just not nozy I suppose.

GoldenBrows · 03/01/2018 18:36

I'm getting tired of explaining this - noone is discussing friends and family nor are any of us saying that you not seeing your rooms as private is bizarre - what people are saying is bizarre is people expecting to be able to look around the upstairs of a near stranger's home and when people have said that they'd decline this request being called rude, uptight, socially inept etc.

GoldenBrows · 03/01/2018 18:38

Bluntness100 you seem a little preoccupied with making a point to really understand what posters that are offering views against yours are really saying. Because you have completely missed the mark.

Hatsoffdear · 03/01/2018 18:42

Honestly if someone was insisting I see their bedroom, excepting something spectacular like s windmill etc I would think they were strange.

Our bedroom is our private sanctuary. My dcs rooms are private to them.

Still each to own.

However if the non tourers are seen as socially inept, wothdrawn, too private and unconfident then I have to say my view of habitual tourers are they are shallow show offs who clearly judge their friends by wealth and house value and like to feel
Superior in their social circle.

Bit too Cheshire wives for me. Wink

NinonDeLenclos · 03/01/2018 18:44

My point is, that the neighbour in the OP and subsequent posters have made it clear that a tour is expected as they are a house guest and have been invited to a special Nye dinner don't you know and therefore they want special privileges that go against the hosts ideas of privacy and appropriate-ness. Noone is having a panic attack or wittering, we'd say no and by the looks of it, it would be some of you wittering at home at being denied a nosy round

Sigh. This is the interpretation of someone who doesn't really understand the practice. Even after pages of explanation. A more nuanced summary is not that every time someone goes to a new house they expect a tour and the host is deficient if it is not offered. But that the offer to show around is considered normal, and the request to see around is considered normal.

No-one is saying that anyone should be forced to show their house if they're not comfortable with it, but that some people come from worlds where being comfortable with it on both sides is the norm.

It's not seen as a 'special privilege' by either party as a) it's commonplace and b) it's not particularly special. See my earlier comments about 'privacy'.