Would you host a stranger if a family member asked?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With your facts? 1) young kids; 2) school day; 3) late arrival; 4) stranger; 5) weather was not that bad; 6) you have NO GUEST BEDROOM; 7) there are plenty of hotels in the area:

NO. I would not have agreed. This is an imposition on a family in a small house with existing obligations. Ignore the sanctimonious Grannies who have 24 hr/day spare time.

Uh, I'm the PP who said yes and I'm not an open door person. I have a 4 and 7 year old. I work full time, as does my husband. Do you really think a young woman minds spending one night on a couch? Who ARE you people?

+1 I'm another PP and I have two kids and two dogs in 1400 square feet and I'd even move the coffee table and plug in the air mattress for her!

1400 square feet is not that small. We have 900, I'll trade.

Well some advice for you. I was in 900 this time last year and thought 1400 would feel palacial. It does not. If you also have two children and two dogs and are considering an upgrade, go bigger than 1400.

[Anonymous]

Yes, in this particular situation, I absolutely would (snowstorm, female, vetted by relative, short duration of stay).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
As an introvert, I would absolutely hate to put up a stranger. I would have acted exactly like you, OP, and not felt bad AT ALL afterward.

I'm an introvert. I don't use my personality as an excuse for unfriendly behavior.

+1

Nor do I use my nature as an excuse for selfish choices.

Me again: I know, right? Gives us introverts a bad name.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This situation has been eating at me for a month. During one of our wet snow days in March, a close family member who lives out of state emailed to ask if I would put up the daughter of a friend of his because she didn't want to drive home in the snow. She's a young 20-something who lives with her parents about 90 minutes from me. I don't know her but I'm sure she's a nice person. She was working in the area and she didn't want to drive home in the snow just to drive back into my town again the next day. I talked to dh and he immediately said no and I agreed it would be pain because we don't have a guestroom and we'd need to rearrange kids or have this woman sleep on our living room sofa (not a sleeper sofa). We also didn't know if there would be school the next day because the weather really wasn't all that bad. (They cancelled school the next morning anyway.) I told my family member that we weren't crazy about it but to let me know if she had no other options because I didn't want her trying to sleep in her car or anything. He called me later to say that she had a place to go about 40 minutes away but it was clear he really wanted me to take her. He then dropped the fact that her shift ends at 10:00pm so she'd be arriving sometime after that. I told him the roads were pretty much clear by then and she would have no problem getting to the further location. Also, we are usually in bed by 10:00 and I really didn't want to sit around waiting for her to arrive so late. I didn't hear after that so I guess she took the further location.

The thing that gets to me is that I know so many people who fall over themselves welcoming anyone who asks. Even having my in-laws stay over brings me stress. I also can't figure out if this girl's original plan was to drive 90 minutes into town, work until 10pm, and then drive 90 minutes home late at night just to come back the next day for another shift. Would we become her defacto crash pad everytime she was working in the area? Dh was wondering why she or her parents didn't spring for a cheap hotel room. There are a lot of options around and the snow wasn't so bad that the rooms would have booked up.

So, would you house a stranger for the night because a friend or relative asked?

Your response was based on your gut reaction whiether you realize it at the time or not.

Logically, the request does not make sense and when you are presented with illogical scenarios one's gut reaction is to say no,

The 20 yr old has coworkers And she knows those coworkers. So logically, it would make sense in a situation deemed an emergenc wil at work that she herself would ask a coworker who are right here and know of the emergency for assistance. The logical reaction is not to have your parents reach out to a random person and ask on your behalf to stay with them

I doubt the 20 yr old asked that this be done or even wanted to stay with you in the first place and likely voiced the opinion. The person who called you was very likely upset bc they had already been so insistent to the 20 yr old that you would host them and it was the best idea that the person was upset they were wrong.

If the 20 yr old really wanted to stay and felt it was an emergency, he/she would have got your number and reached out to you,

Lastly, if coworkers were not an option, and there was a hotel within a short drive to the job, it would have made more sense for that to be offered first instead of the relative calling you given that the hotel would be a shorter drive.

So basically, it was a illogical and emotion based request and there is no reason to give it any more thought.

+1 YES. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

I probably would have very grudgingly done it, but been irked by it. Since it was a favor for a close relative, I would have obliged but considered it a one-time thing. If her shift ended at 10:00 pm, what time did her shift start the next day? I would not have wanted her hanging around the house until 1:00 pm or whatever.

I'm introverted and hate sharing bathrooms and losing my privacy. So this scenario would be bad for me. But I would have felt guilty saying no.

[Anonymous]

I probably wouldn't even have answered the phone. I'm a single parent and I only have a certain bandwidth every day. My house would not be guest ready and I wouldn't want to take that on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, in this particular situation, I absolutely would (snowstorm, female, vetted by relative, short duration of stay).

+1 I would hope that none of our daughters are ever in this situation but if they are then I hope that they are treated with more compassion and concern than this other young girl was. 40 miles, 90 miles. That is still a lot of miles in a snowstorm in the dark at 10 pm at night after a long day at work (OP said "shift" so I am imagining a nurse or something similar).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Im 72 years young. This is the type of thing "back in the day" NO ONE would blink an eye at. We always helped friends of friends or distant relatives or church members or whomever. We have become a very insular society and we only think of our own nuclear family. Yet we complain when our kids have no community and can't ride their bikes to the store anymore. Im not sure what the answer is. Its just something Ive noticed within the last 20 years. My grandmother, mom and myself always had a few "random" guests every year. It was a chance to get to know someone, learn about where they are from, and what kind of things they do. Now with the internet and everyone constantly traveling anyway its no longer considered an educational opportunity/fun surprise its just an annoyance.

You're a very nice lady. Sounds a little like Little House on the Prairie.

[Anonymous]

A friend of ours called and said that some friends of hers from Japan were stuck in DC because of a snowstorm and asked if they could stay at our house. We said we didn't have a spare room, but they were welcome to crash on the couch and an inflatable mattress. They were incredibly grateful. So, yes, I have and I would.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I would. We put up a college student we didn’t know for a few days when she was here to do work around the election. Wasn’t crazy about the hours she kept, but it was fine.

[Anonymous]

In the scenario outlined, no I wouldn't have. The roads would be clear by the time she needed to drive and she had people she knew who could put her up. Also, none of the snow days this winter were unexpected, they'd all been hyped like crazy for days in advance so why didn't this person do any planning for contingencies? We have snow enough around here that she should have a plan for what she'll do when it snows.

If it were a legit urgent situation (like this person had been stranded at DCA due to the storm and the hotels were booked or she couldn't afford them) then yes, I'd make room for her.