Anonymous wrote:I'm one of the less protective parents on here, but let me run this by you. Responsible 11 year old stays home alone for a few hours as needed. Husband scheduled some in-house painters to come by to do some painting at the same time. I'm not comfortable; we don't know these people. Thoughts?

No way! Make plans for child to go to friend’s house.

Yup. Hard no. Not fair to painters among many other reasons.

i am also super not over protective but this is a HARD NO.

OP here, thanks. I would never buck a rare DCUM unanimous thread. Didn't think about the painters; that's a good point. There's not really anything worth stealing, so not concerned about that so much..

Hard no. Not in a million years.

I actually don't think the painting company would be cool with this either. No adult (male) wants to be in this position, OP.

Also no.

Nope. Not okay.

Hard no. Would never do this.

I wouldn't be concerned about risk to the child but what is more likely is the painter (if not a good person) stealing stuff due to no adult at home.

Also the painters may have questions and it would put the 11 year old on the spot about the job.

Reschedule. There's the safety of the 11 yr old, but also it's not fair to the painters. I do some contract work and would be angry if parents set me up to be in a home with a child that age and no other adults. There are false accusations made all the time.

This is a hard no. Do not want to scare you but look up the Goff murders Potomac .

I’m not an overreacting parent either. This one is a no brainer. It's probably one in a million but no reason to risk.

Hmm. I nearly left my young teen to open the house for the chimney cleaning service, in our absence, with check in hand, but ultimately it got rescheduled and I happened to be there.

I don't know, OP. If I didn't routinely hear of sexual assault cases, I wouldn't hesitate to do this, but I would never forgive myself if there was a crazy person on this staff of painters. The risk is minimal. But...

I also tend to be on the more relaxed side, but I wouldn't be comfortable with this arrangement.

I'm one of the less protective parents on here, but let me run this by you. Responsible 11 year old stays home alone for a few hours as needed. Husband scheduled some in-house painters to come by to do some painting at the same time. I'm not comfortable; we don't know these people. Thoughts?