Received a strange request in the post

[tmreunion]

I received a letter yesterday in the post to the 'current owner'.

We bought our house 15 years ago from a normal family - mum, dad, teenage daughter and younger son. Been very happy here.

I received a letter which reads -

'Dear current owner,

This is a very odd request and I completely understand and respect if you do not feel comfortable with this and therefore, there is no need to respond if that is the case.

I grew up in, what is now, your home. I experienced a lot of trauma in the home and have been working through this for the last few years. I was wondering if I would be able to come and see the house again, as part of my healing. This was suggested to me by my therapist and I feel it would be beneficial. However, as stated, I understand this is an unusual request and my healing is of no importance to a perfect stranger, so please do not feel pressured to agree to this.

If you were to kindly allow this, I would of course expect to be accompanied round the house and this would take no more than ten minutes.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter and if you would like to contact me my name is 'name' - 'contact number'. If not, I wish you and your family well.

Best wishes,

Name'

I added the number and it is indeed the teenage daughter who was part of the family we bought the house from. She is now in her 30s. I feel really odd about it and almost distrustful. I also don't like the thought that she experienced trauma in our home, almost like she's trying to taint it.

My husband thinks that although it's odd, she is clearly doing some inner work and why wouldn't we help someone who is in need?

What do you think? WIBU to ignore or should I text and feel it out from there?

@tmreunion

I also think the letter writer could feel extremely traumatised walking round the house, and may need support. If they came alone, and reacted badly to seeing your house - I don’t think it’s fair/right that you might have to support a bad response/reaction . Again - I’m surprised that a therapist would advise this officially. I think the therapist would need to plan how to facilitate this carefully.

It's highly, highly unlikely that a therapist would suggest this.

There are a lot of extremely naive posters on here

We have had historic owners knock on our door before and have let them in for much less good reasons. She sounds thoughtful and understanding, and it would be kind to say yes. I do understand your feelings about the trauma linked to your house, but now you know about it, her visiting can't make it worse, and may even help

I would absolutely agree to this - especially as you know that it's definitely the person you bought from, not a scam. If you don't feel comfortable with being present during her visit, I would perhaps ask trusted friends who have some experience handling difficult conversations (eg social worker/doctor/minister of religion/etc) to handle the visit (you could ask a couple/two people so that in the worst case scenario nobody is alone with her), and you could conveniently be out of the house at the time.

Also wondering this!

Any therapists out there?

@SerafinasGoose it's up to me what to post, where

And I mentioned men

So what! 🤷‍♀️

How breathtakingly selfish. And "allegedly"? Bloody hell.

Indeed!

A therapist would never suggest this.

Make of that what you will

I'd help

I am by no means an expert.

But this was one of the first 5 google results when I googled "visit + past + trauma"

How Visiting Past Trauma Helped Me Let Go (themighty.com)

Which leads me to conclude that visiting a place (or places) connected to traumatic experiences most likely isn´t particularly unusual...

That conclusion seems to be supported by the posters on this thread who apparently had someone visit their house for this precise reason.

Not selfish at all. Absolutely sensible and, again, everyone saying they'd accommodate this have a woeful, and frankly worrying lack of awareness around PTSD.

Would a therapist really suggest contacting perfect strangers, telling them how vulnerable you are and asking to visit your home from 20 years ago? It seems like this woman is raking quite a risk too.

Far too many wannabe rescuers on this thread.

People wanting to be the one who would want to make the difference to this person’s life but with absolutely no idea of what’s involved here or any therapeutic background.

I suspect that most of the people saying they would absolutely let her come round would be making it more about them and their fuzzy feeling of being the one to help this woman through her trauma.

And I suspect that there are many others who are just virtue signalling and who wouldn’t agree to it in rl.

Either way, there is no way a reputable therapist would suggest it, so any therapist who did should be struck off. But I imagine that they didn’t suggest it at all.

Oh and for those who say it sounds genuine so probably isn’t a scam. The fact that so many scams come across as genuine is why so many people are taken in by them. Seems there are a number of people on this thread and mn in general who would be just ripe for the picking.

I would allow her under the condition that I could speak to her therapist first to verify that this is real.

I would also ask her therapist to come along in case she has a mental breakdown during the visit.

I grew up above a business my parents ran, and my brother died whilst we lived there (illness, nothing frightening happened in the space!). We moved away shortly after when I was very young and I revisited a few years ago, as it’s still open as a business. It felt amazing to be in that space again, and feel the memories of him come to life in ‘3D’! I would have loved to see the living area but felt too shy/awkward to ask, as wouldn’t want to impose on current owners. But if I had asked, and been welcomed in, I would have been elated at the chance to relive that precious part of my life. I understand the person contacting you has mentioned trauma, but if you could offer a cup of tea and a visit in a way you feel comfortable with it could be a really powerful moment for her.

This thread is reminding me of the friends episode where Phoebe and Joey argue about why they do good deeds

If people in this situation genuinely wanted to help the person, rather than stroke their own ego and give them something to talk about for pats on the back, they'd not touch this potential disaster scenario with a bargepole and leave it to the qualified professionals.

I'd agree to her coming but with a weeks notice so I could have a massive tidy up and clean first. If you don't feel comfortable doing it let your DH dhow her around.

Put stuff out on a public forum, you also open yourself up to a response. It's a discussion forum. It does sort of go with the turf.

Post your repetitious protestations of 'what about the men' with all the tedious regularity you please. The site is used to it. But you can then hardly be surprised when someone points out that, even on a thread which makes no mention of male conduct, still someone pipes up with the everlasting bleat: 'but you're all maaaaaan haters!'

Knock yourself out, but it will still look ridiculous.

It reminds me of the video from Miranda Lamberts song 'the house that built me'

Except it's the U.K. not a cute U.S house

She isn’t trying to taint your house why would you even think that?

You clearly don’t want to that’s why you’re saying it in this way, personally I would let her what’s the harm in it for you?

It’s not strange at all it’s a very respectful letter and she clearly doesn’t want to alarm you.

Sorry @SerafinasGoose I don't really care enough about your campaign. I've been here since 2008 so I know this site well enough, but as I said. I don't care, I will post what I like ...as you were..

Next time I read a thread asking what is wrong with society today, why is everyone so self absorbed etc I'll be linking this. I can't believe anyone would be so bad minded as to refuse this simple request.

I'm just wondering two things on reading this thread:

People saying it's a scam, have you just not noticed the part where OP has verified her identity? What kind of scam relies on the owners of the house you used to live in being kind enough to let you into the house, and what would the next step be? You'd have better odds with a lottery ticket.

Also there are a lot of people saying "no therapist would ever suggest this", is that coming from actual therapists or is just people talking out of their bum?