Visitor Overload

[Danmar]

I'm suffering from too many visits right now! One set of family came for a week, then three days later a second set arrived for a week. Only three days to go.

It was/is the first visit to the area for each group, so of course they want to see the major attractions. Unfortunately, they want us as guides. After two trips in eight days through the historical area of Philadelphia, I think I'm ready to be hired as a park ranger. I wish the current visitors would accept our offer to borrow a vehicle but they don't feel comfortable driving in our "city traffic".

Did I mention they leave in three days?

Sounds pretty rough. Good for you. Our problem is we drink/eat too much when we have guests. Extremely tiring but mostly our own fault.

 

[O2Bfree]

My biggest peeve with guests is not being able to go to bed at our usual time. For some reason, many of the people we've had over seem to feel obliged to talk and talk and talk late into the night. DH and I are used to hitting the hay around 9:30 and my interactive motivation tends to taper off before then. Staying up until 10 or so is ok, but too often it stretches until 11 and beyond. We like to maintain regular sleep hours, and wake up reasonably early to start our day.

Perhaps the guests feel they are repaying us for our hospitality by entertaining us with their stories. Once they get revved up, it's hard to interject with, "Well, we're going to bed now" even though we've warned them ahead of time about our early turn-in hour.

 

[athena53]

Unfortunately, they want us as guides. After two trips in eight days through the historical area of Philadelphia, I think I'm ready to be hired as a park ranger. I wish the current visitors would accept our offer to borrow a vehicle but they don't feel comfortable driving in our "city traffic".

My parents used to live in Orchard Park, NY, near Buffalo. They got SO tired of being tour guides to Niagara Falls, although my mother did enjoy it when I brought a guy from Italy, who was even excited over the stamp they put in his passport when we crossed into Canada at Rainbow Bridge.

They retired to Myrtle Beach but were always very gracious about taking in family. When DH and I were dating he stayed at a local hotel and Mom felt bad, till I told her we liked having a space for some "privacy". The subject did not come up again. After we married, I spent the nights with DH in the hotel instead of with my parents. Even in their 80s, they welcomed everyone. My brother and SIL, AND two of their adult kids plus one spouse and 3-year old twins would show up- it was fine. (SIL was an excellent cook and my brother was handy around the house and liked to fix things.) The year before last, DS and DDIL came in from Des Moines with their 1-year old. They were to stay with my parents till DH and I got there, and we had a hotel room for them after that. Turned out they were having so much fun that neither Mom and Dad nor DS and DDIL wanted to use the hotel. We lost the deposit. I didn't care. Mom's gone now and I'm glad they had more time together.

This does remind me of a story in the London Times real estate section I read years ago (I always enjoy the paper when I'm there on a Sunday). The woman and her family bought a house in the south of France. They had an endless stream of visitors who would sleep late, wander in dripping beach water all over the hardwood floors, head for the wine rack and ask what was for dinner. The owners were exhausted and broke from continuous shopping, cooking and cleaning. They sold the house. They needed to learn to say no!

 

[Blue Collar Guy]

My parents used to live in Orchard Park, NY, near Buffalo. They got SO tired of being tour guides to Niagara Falls, although my mother did enjoy it when I brought a guy from Italy, who was even excited over the stamp they put in his passport when we crossed into Canada at Rainbow Bridge.

They retired to Myrtle Beach but were always very gracious about taking in family. When DH and I were dating he stayed at a local hotel and Mom felt bad, till I told her we liked having a space for some "privacy". The subject did not come up again. After we married, I spent the nights with DH in the hotel instead of with my parents. Even in their 80s, they welcomed everyone. My brother and SIL, AND two of their adult kids plus one spouse and 3-year old twins would show up- it was fine. (SIL was an excellent cook and my brother was handy around the house and liked to fix things.) The year before last, DS and DDIL came in from Des Moines with their 1-year old. They were to stay with my parents till DH and I got there, and we had a hotel room for them after that. Turned out they were having so much fun that neither Mom and Dad nor DS and DDIL wanted to use the hotel. We lost the deposit. I didn't care. Mom's gone now and I'm glad they had more time together.

This does remind me of a story in the London Times real estate section I read years ago (I always enjoy the paper when I'm there on a Sunday). The woman and her family bought a house in the south of France. They had an endless stream of visitors who would sleep late, wander in dripping beach water all over the hardwood floors, head for the wine rack and ask what was for dinner. The owners were exhausted and broke from continuous shopping, cooking and cleaning. They sold the house. They needed to learn to say no!

Sorry to hear about your Mom, glad you could share this great story, And thanks about the London story, i was laughing at that part.

 

[iloveyoga]

My biggest peeve with guests is not being able to go to bed at our usual time. For some reason, many of the people we've had over seem to feel obliged to talk and talk and talk late into the night. DH and I are used to hitting the hay around 9:30 and my interactive motivation tends to taper off before then. Staying up until 10 or so is ok, but too often it stretches until 11 and beyond. We like to maintain regular sleep hours, and wake up reasonably early to start our day.

Perhaps the guests feel they are repaying us for our hospitality by entertaining us with their stories. Once they get revved up, it's hard to interject with, "Well, we're going to bed now" even though we've warned them ahead of time about our early turn-in hour.

This is one of the main reasons I like to get a hotel room when we visit family and why I don't really love company. We get up at 5:30 or 6, they sleep until 10 or later.

 

[Moemg]

It depends on the visitor . My daughter can come anytime with or without her family . We usually stay up late watching chick flicks and drinking wine . My Mom or Sister are also always welcome but I appreciate when they go to bed early and give me time to decompress .Other than that I am not interested in visitors .

 

[Texas Proud]

My biggest peeve with guests is not being able to go to bed at our usual time. For some reason, many of the people we've had over seem to feel obliged to talk and talk and talk late into the night. DH and I are used to hitting the hay around 9:30 and my interactive motivation tends to taper off before then. Staying up until 10 or so is ok, but too often it stretches until 11 and beyond. We like to maintain regular sleep hours, and wake up reasonably early to start our day.

Perhaps the guests feel they are repaying us for our hospitality by entertaining us with their stories. Once they get revved up, it's hard to interject with, "Well, we're going to bed now" even though we've warned them ahead of time about our early turn-in hour.

One of my BILs said that a friend of his solved this with a comment to his DW... 'Honey, lets go to bed so these people do not feel obligated to talk to us all night'....

 

[Sangiovese]

DW's siblings live 5 hours away. Each of them has a habit of inviting themselves to our home on short notice, or no notice. They often drag along extended family or friends. They expect to be waited on and served the whole time, as if we were a B&B. DW cannot say no and she cannot direct them to a local hotel. It is against her culture. Mi casa es tu casa.

An an introvert who values his privacy, I dread these sudden, unplanned home invasions. It is inconsiderate at best and rude at worst. I make the best of it to keep marital harmony, but it's draining.

 

[Fedup]

One of my BILs said that a friend of his solved this with a comment to his DW... 'Honey, lets go to bed so these people do not feel obligated to talk to us all night'....

We told people the truth. We were so used to go to bed early because we had to get up early. My husband and I just excused ourselves at around 10ish when his roommate from college came and wife came and visited us.

 

[Carpediem]

An an introvert who values his privacy, I dread these sudden, unplanned home invasions. It is inconsiderate at best and rude at worst. I make the best of it to keep marital harmony, but it's draining.

Couldn't have said it any better myself. Having people in our empty nest house for more than 5 days drains me. It usually takes us 1-2 weeks to recover afterwards.

Our first year in our new vacation destination resulted in 5 different sets of visitors with the longest (DD) staying almost 2 weeks. We were exhausted at the end of the year.

 

[Teacher Terry]

There are good guests and there are bad guests. If your guests are considerate it can be a ton of fun. We alter our routine when we have company. It is no big deal. I also make sure they know to help themselves if I am sleeping or not around. I make sure I have plenty of stuff around for them to eat. Then I just relax and enjoy their company.

 

[iloveyoga]

Our kids come and stay and this is it for us. Others make me feel panicky and anxious and I learned to say no and then I felt much better.

 

[kcowan]

It amazes me how people expect family to visit when they buy a snowbird property. They pay for that guest room all the time for a few one week stays? Our friends here built a huge house to handle visits by both sets of parents at once. The trip from Charlottesville and Toronto is not exactly drop in territory. They got one visit each! Still have the huge house.

 

[Teacher Terry]

We have small house (1400 sq ft) and our guest room is also my office. We also have a RV that we have used more as a guest room then we do taking trips.

 

[athena53]

There are good guests and there are bad guests. If your guests are considerate it can be a ton of fun. We alter our routine when we have company. It is no big deal. I also make sure they know to help themselves if I am sleeping or not around. I make sure I have plenty of stuff around for them to eat. Then I just relax and enjoy their company.

Fortunately, that works for my son and DIL and the 2 granddaughters (aged 3 years and 8 months). My house has a lower level that was used by the elderly parents of the previous owner. It's got 2 bedrooms, windows and a porch facing the lake, a living area with TV, and a mini-fridge. I love it when I'm the first one up and the older granddaughter comes up into the kitchen! They're very laid-back visitors and DDIL is very organized- they rarely leave anything behind and she gathers up linens that need to be washed and brings up the sack of used diapers! DS always wants to prepare one dinner- unfortunately he's not interested in cleaning up afterwards but that's OK! They're welcome any time.

 

[Scuba]

For us, it's not that our guests are rude or that we don't enjoy their company. The problems we have with longish visits (more than 5-6 days) are that:
- Most visitors don't rent a car and won't drive our car in LA, so we have to chauffeur them everywhere
- They want to do stuff while they're with us, not just sit around and visit. We prefer that too as there is so much to see and do, but several days in a row can be quite draining.
- As danmar mentioned, we always gain weight when people visit us as we tend to eat and drink more when guests visit. This is partly because we eat out more often with guests, and partly because they're in vacation mode and we want to spend time together having fun, which tends to involve more eating and drinking.
- We live in a 1600 sq ft condo. While we do have a guest BR and BA, it's still not as private as more separated guest quarters. When our MIL stays with us, she likes to eat breakfast very early on our balcony, which is adjacent to our bedroom. Sometimes we wake up and realize we're naked in bed and she's 10 feet away from us.
- We are much wealthier than any of our relatives, so when they visit we feel obligated to pay for most of the entertainment. We're fortunate to be able to do so, but it can add up to quite a bit. Our nephew was with us for 8 days and I think we spent over $2K on dining out, entertainment and day trips while he was with us.

Having said all of this, we do get more "quality time" with people who stay with us because of the breakfasts together at home, after dinner chats, etc. If we put them up in hotels, we'd see much less of them. So we just accept that visits will be 1-2 weeks instead of 5 days, and appreciate the relationships we have. We don't have casual friends visiting, just family and close friends.

However when we visit others, we often stay in a hotel, or if we stay in someone's home, we limit it to a few days. Recently made the mistake of staying with my sister for a week. By Day 5 we were going out on our own so we could all have a day to ourselves.