Guests and disturbing them

[shellyleppard]

Just a curious one. If you have guests using the sofa bed what time do you get up yourself??
I need to go downstairs and sort out the cat box 🤢 and get on with my day but worried about disturbing them 😞😍

Your update changes my initial opinion.

Just do what you need to. This might become a regular occurrence so they need to know that life goes on around them and stuff needs to be done, so they are fitting in with family life, not the other way round.

I think it's more if they used to live there and have come back to stay for a bit then they're kind of slotting back into the family. When DD finishes uni and moves out permanently I can't ever see a time that she'd have to be invited to come and stay like a guest would. She'd just let us know she was coming back for a bit.
Your mum visiting might be different if she's never actually lived in your house so doesn't have a defined space there. Hope I've made sense there.

Is this meant to be ironic? I would leave home after this!

Yes, and I understand what you mean. I have a married DD and if she came to stay I wouldn't view her as a guest as such, but she isn't a regular part of the household anymore. She'd also slot in with the family routine more. My mother has never lived here and I think the expectations are different. When she's here, the whole routine shifts (unlike with my child) and we spend the week taking her places and making her visit interesting. To me, that is a guest.

In my house, if the cat uses his litter tray, the smell wakes up anyone in the sitting room!

Sorry, but it will most definitely smell. You're just nose blind to it. My sister has a cat and a litter tray. It literally blasts me in the face when I visit her if she hasn't cleaned it up right away.
Thankfully, we have a cat flap so don't need a litter tray.

Omg, you’ve given me the rage just reading that, if you actually said it to me in real life you’d be told where to go 😂 please tell me you don’t do this!!!!!!

You don’t have WhatsApp, so you don’t have to worry, do you?

If I was in the situation that I needed to disturb my guests in order to go about my day then I would give them my bed and take the sofa bed. In your situation I wouldn’t walk into a room knowing my guests could be sleeping so I would wait until I hear movement before going down.

So you’d turn the feature off then wouldn’t you? 🙈 why are you getting so het up about something that doesn’t, can’t and won’t affect you?

I think 7am is reasonable if you have things you need to do. Guests staying on a sofa bed in a busy part of the home can't expect lie ins.

I would have had this conversation back when you said they could sleep on the sofa bed.

'Yes, that's fine but obviously I will need to get up and see to the cats/get ready for work etc etc at 6.30/7am so bear the early start in mind.'

I think if you're staying at someone's house it would be you as the guest who would be told where to go. A hotel maybe?

Unless it's 6am in which case you have every right to be annoyed!!

Well, to prevent the situation she has posted about?

Give guests a bed. Even the other son's bed and he sleeps on a airbed in the op's room?

I can't think many peope would be thrilled at being disturbed at 7am even if they were on their phones.

I have regularly stayed at a family member's house on their sofa before they moved away. I respected that I was in their home and that they would pass by (I slept fully dressed with a blanket over me).

If I was you, I'd just go in, try not to make too much noise if they are still asleep and sort out the cat litter. If say the litter box drops on the floor, makes a noise, just apologise for waking them. Don't stress. One has to expect disturbance when staying in someone else's home.

@BigFatBully they were sitting reading a book when I went downstairs 😁

I don’t mind someone waking me up, but you don’t just barge in opening curtains shouting “chop, chop!”

Incredibly rude, and I’d be more than happy to leave as you’d be no friend of mine after that!

exactly this - but no wonder some people find it so stressful to host or be a guest when they don't.

When I have guests, I give them a room where they can stay as late as they want but other people can have a normal life and get on with their life.

It's normal to take the sofa bed and be free to do whatever you want to do in your own home, and they can stay in the bedroom. I also put an alarm clock so I am up early enough.

They can still go in the kitchen

It's not just me, everywhere I stay, friends or family do exactly the same. I can't imagine someone waiting in their bedroom for their guests to wake up.

I wouldn't be rude about it, but everyone would think you are completely unhinged and I would never ever come to visit you 😂

What a rude behaviour, why inviting guests if you don't want them?

I think guests should fit in with the timings of the house they're staying in (within reason: if your guests are sleeping in the living room and you habitually get up at 4am to hoover then you should at least give advance notice).

It doesn't tell anyone whether you're awake. It only tells them - and even then, only if you have that feature enabled - when you last looked at WhatsApp.

Unless the OP's guests are in the habit of checking WhatsApp the moment they open their eyes in the morning, checking their 'last seen' will not tell her whether they're asleep or not. I've been up for two hours today and I haven't looked at WhatsApp since early evening yesterday. And in any case, you can disable the feature so people can't snoop.

You'd tell someone 'where to go' in their own house?

It's OPs house though.

This was my mother's approach to getting my brother and I up in the mornings. She'd breeze into our room, whip open the curtains and say 'breakfast is ready!'

The only real problem was that she was a chronically early riser and would put breakfast on as soon as she was up, so it would be about 6.30am. My stomach hadn't even come on-line yet.

We were NEVER late for school though.

It's incredibly rude to tell someone to behave in their own house.
I honestly don't think the chop chop PP was being serious though.