Anonymous wrote:If your house didn't have empty rooms, your guests wouldn't be clamoring to stay there.

That's one reason I love living in a small house. Sure, hotels are expensive, but in the end, someone will have to pay for something, and that someone will be the homeowner who buys a more expensive house to provide free room and board to grandparents, siblings, in-laws, etc.

I actually don't like staying in a hotel when I visit people. Lots more freedom in a house and we can eat together.

Both DH's and my family live far away. If everyone stayed in hotels during visits, we'd hardly see each other. None of us have budgets that would easily accommodate the cost of a hotel. With parents in their 80s, we'd be giving up precious opportunities for our children to spend time with their grandparents.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd love to say no overnight guests. My ILs invite themselves and the one time we already had guests so no spare room and they had to stay in a hotel they complained bitterly about every aspect of the experience. Shock of all shocks, they also complain bitterly about every aspect of staying with us. They are miserable guests no matter where they stay.

Do we have the same in-laws? After they invite themselves for 4-5 days ("Great news! We'll be in your area! Can we bring our puppy too?) do they refuse to help with cooking and clearing up on account of some bogus principle that "guests should be pampered and shouldn't have to do any work"?

So sick of using my annual leave to play hotel maid to them. Wish DH had a backbone. All I can ever manage to do is reduce their stay to 2-3 days.

Yes. We just finished up a 6 day visit. And they treat us like we are servants and they are on vacation in our house. I'm still finding dishes they just left around the house. So for those that would say don't do things for them....well, that's nice if I want bugs/rodents in my house because they simply leave things all over, spill stuff and don't wipe it up and if we dare ask/tell them to pick something up they huff off as if were some huge offense. I'd say we have the same ILs, but their other child lives very close to them, so they don't stay there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd love to say no overnight guests. My ILs invite themselves and the one time we already had guests so no spare room and they had to stay in a hotel they complained bitterly about every aspect of the experience. Shock of all shocks, they also complain bitterly about every aspect of staying with us. They are miserable guests no matter where they stay.

What exactly did they expect you to do if your guest room was already taken?

I think they expected us to tell that guest to stay elsewhere even though that guest was much younger and still in school and had no money for a hotel at the time. And arrived 2 days before the ILs got in to town. Because they should rank highest, clearly.

When we didn't, it became a topic of conversation for going on 5 years now.

~ I wasn't directly responding to the previous poster