Hosting an extended stay for relatives in your home can be...overwhelming.
Even when you try your best to be hospitable, there are always those family m who will take advantage your kindness. I'm sure we're all painfully familiar with the awkward family gathering narrative, but at what point should we demand more respect from relatives entering our home? We suffer at the hands of our guests things like disorderly bathroom usage, petty (and not so petty) theft, blatant disrespect for private space, etc. WHERE DOES IT END?
A recent Redditor asked the question, "What's the rudest thing a guest in your home has done?" people were ready to reveal their monster house guests for what they were. Hold on to your pearls, things are about to get messy.
Poop Quilt
“My cousin and her daughter, who has down syndrome, were visiting and staying with me in my home. Her kid pooped in a quilt, and for some reason my cousin rolled it up and shoved it in the closet in the guest room without telling me.
I discovered it after they left (it was rolled up pretty good so I didn’t smell it immediately) because my dog stood in front of the closet and barked nonstop until I came and found it. She was so offended by it and didn’t stop barking until it was completely cleaned up.
I called her and said, ‘I found the quilt from your bed rolled up with poop in the closet…what happened?’
And she said, ‘Oh, my daughter had an accident. Sorry!’
It blew my mind! Like, that’s all you have to say?
I ended up buying a new, nicer quilt and sent her the bill for it. Note attached: ‘Sending this to you since I had to pitch the one your daughter pooped on. The other receipts are for the curtains and throw pillows to complete the ensemble since I couldn’t find an exact match to the old quilt!'”
Who Invited Them?
“We welcomed my uncle, his wife and their kid into our home when they visited from abroad. The house we lived in then was a three-bedroom, so kind of big, but then we already had six people living there. The wife ended up bringing about a dozen of her own relatives with them, including a handful of young kids. And no, they didn’t tell us beforehand. We scrambled to set up beds and meals and prepare the bathrooms to accommodate them. Some people ended up on the sofa, a cot and some mats and sleeping bags laid out on the floor. We found out later that she was charging her relatives to stay at OUR house.
I was only like 7 at the time and didn’t really know what was going on. I found out years later when my dad brought up that one visit. How he found out exactly, I’m not sure, but the aftermath was a lot of mess. A couple of broken things at our place. We still see the family when we travel, but they (and their extended family, obviously) were never invited over again.”
Some People Should Not Be That Close
“Not in my house but my uncle’s. My brother and his (now ex) girlfriend were over at my uncle’s house watching a movie. From what I was told, my brother had his girlfriend laying down on his lap and he was plucking her armpit hair and putting it on the couch.
They were only around 14/15 at the time so they were dumb and in love, but she was very controlling of my brother. He basically did whatever she asked him to do and if he didn’t do it, she would always say hurtful things or try to break up with him. Unless my brother has some weird armpit fetish. I’m happy that he left her though. She was awful.
My brother pretty much did anything just to make sure she was happy. But apparently she wasn’t, because she ended up cheating on him with one of his best friends. And yeah, she tried to beg for him to come back.”
“She Just Thought It Was The Funniest Thing”
“My 10-year-old distant cousin unwrapped 3 new bars of soap and flushed them down the toilet on the 3rd floor of my house. That night, we returned from dinner to find water dripping from the ceiling on the first floor—the third floor bathroom had flooded and the water leaked through the floor, dripped from the ceiling of the second floor, and leaked though to the ceiling of the first floor. The whole mess cost thousands of dollars to repair.
The kid confessed everything with great glee and his mother just thought it was the funniest thing. This kid and his brother are the most spoiled-rotten kids I have ever interacted with. Every time I interact with them, I am reminded of how thankful I am that they live in another country
We sent the bill to them and if they’d balked, we vowed to take matters to small claims court.
Destroying someone’s home isn’t funny. Insurance is expensive and stupidity should be as well. Being family doesn’t excuse being a loser just because ‘family ties are important’ just like being old doesn’t excuse being a loser just because ‘we should respect our elders.’ The fact that they’re only distant cousins makes it even easier.”
He Had A Bladder Problem
“My grandfather’s cousin was staying with us a for a week; he has a bladder problem and would refuse to wear adult diapers! What followed was him leaving a trail of pee (sometimes poo), when he walked around the house. It didn’t take too long for my mother to ask his son to take him back home.
While it shouldn’t be embarrassing to be incontinent, it kind of is. There is certainly a stigma with having to wear adult diapers. So I can empathize with someone in that situation.
If you are self aware enough to know you need, but decide against wearing diapers, you should be self aware enough to know that defecating on someone’s floor is much more embarrassing.”
Grandpa Was A Huge Creep
“My ex-step-grandfather (twice removed) has spent the majority of his life in prison. Every single time he would get out, he would come knocking on my mother’s door and guilt trip her into staying with us. Well, one time when I was probably 14 and my sister was 11, he ended up staying like 9 months in our apartment and completely took over our living room day and night. He always had complete control of the remote so my sister and I would be forced to watch what he watched and more often than not, he would just channel surf for what seemed like hours. Whenever he would pass a channel playing adult films, he would literally stop and watch it until ‘the scene’ ended.”
They Didn’t Realize Until It Was Too Late
“I had both of my cousins staying over while their parents went on vacation, one boy and one girl. To accommodate them, my parents had them sleep in our respective rooms while I slept on the couch. No big deal, or so I thought at the time. Boy cousin, all he wanted to do from the minute he got up was play video games. While I had to go to school and work, my younger brothers were forced to sit and watch him try to beat one level for hours. When they finally left, I discovered the kid ripped all the rubber knobs off my PS2 controllers and stolen one of my Mac keyboards. My other cousin ripped up all the photos of my sister and her friends on her vanity in her bedroom.
They were never invited back.”
She Had Way Too Many Demands
“My aunt lives with my grandparents and takes care of them. My grandpa’s buddy from his home town came to visit every year since forever. Since he retired, he stays for about a month every year. My grandpa is in his 80s and this guy is his last surviving friend, and he’s actually a great guy to have around and always pays for his share of everything. The problem is he got married about 10 years ago, so now he comes with his wife every year. After meeting her, my grandma nopes outta there for their entire stay so my aunt has to take care of everything.
And this old woman is the most disgusting human being we’ve ever met:
She snores and coughs all night.
She doesn’t bathe often enough.
She has a rat problem in her house. It’s been going on since we’ve known her and she complains about it every year.
She eats olives in bed and throws olive pits wherever they land; even after every olive in the house was hidden away it kept happening. One year, my aunt made sure there were no olives to be found anywhere, so she did the same with plums.
She throws used toilet paper on the garbage bin on the bathroom. After the bin was removed, she started throwing it on the floor behind the toilet. And, after she was called on it, she started hiding it on weird places.
She requires meat to be the main component of every meal, and for some reason hates rice to the point of getting mad if there’s rice on the table.
She always wants to help in the kitchen and gets offended if she’s not allowed to help. She can’t be trusted around food because she’s extremely unclean, like making salad without peeling or washing anything.
To top it all off, this year she came over with a contagious infection on her leg, I was told the thing grew during their stay. My aunt disinfects the mattress every year after they leave but this year she had to replace it.”
What A Way To Spend Christmas
“The first happened before I was born, I think. My parents had Christmas dinner at the house and my dad invited his mom and step-sister (he doesn’t really get along with his family too well, and for good reason). Well, at the last second, his mom told him she was bringing over a friend of her’s from church. My parents didn’t think much of it and she came over. And the woman was actually quite pleasant and kind, as my dad would tell me. Well, right after dinner, she decides to go over and take a nap on the couch. And not the sitting up kind that old people do in their rocking chairs. I mean sleeping on the couch like it was a bed. And she snored, loudly. Needless to say, my dad didn’t invite her back.
The second was also at Christmas and my dad invited over my grandma and his step-sister, and she brought her son. And I don’t like to insult people behind their backs, but this kid was and still is a giant monster. Why, you ask? Well, after we had finished opening up presents and everyone started to leave, I decide to head back into the gaming room and play some more of a game I got that morning, Call of Duty: Black Ops. And I know I left it in the Xbox because my dad wouldn’t let me play while everyone was over. And my older brother had grown out of video games by that point
Well, I turn it on and – no game. I look all over my game shelf, under the couch, behind the tv, nothing. I tell my dad and right then, he gets a call from his sister saying that my cousin had it in his hoodie pocket and his mom saw him put it in. He stole it from me. She comes back and parks at the end of the driveway and my dad storms outside and starts yelling all sorts of obscenities and insults. But what stuck out to me most was him saying, ‘HOW COULD YOU STEAL FROM YOUR OWN FAMILY?! YOUR OWN FAMILY!’
Well, in the end, I got my game back and my dad went to bed livid. What a way to spend Christmas!”
Who Mooches Off Of Their Grandma?
“They said they were going to stay maybe a week on the couch. They ended up turning one of our basement rooms into a bedroom and staying 4 months and doing a number of incredibly rude things. Here’s a small list:
Complained that the food we bought wasn’t organic (yes, they ate our food that we paid for, they lived completely expense free); used more dishes than anyone but never did the dishes; complained about other members of the family who had helped them; and had loud lovemaking sessions in on of our showers multiple times a day. My personal favorite? They told me that if they had to get a job (which neither of them ever did) to help support the household, I should have to also. I was 16 at the time homeschooling myself, cleaning up after them, helping care for my blind grandmother, and dealing with multiple health issues including a heart problem.
By the way, this was my OLDER cousin and his girlfriend. They were both about 22 at the time, and we had not seen my cousin in years and also never met the girl. He had just shown back up when our great grandmother died. They only left because his older brother came and made him leave, mad that he was mooching of our grandma. Our grandma was too nice to kick him out. He hasn’t spoken to me since he left, this was almost 3 years ago.”
There Was No Way To Salvage The Relationship
“My biological father finally decided it was time to admit paternity and meet me when I was in my mid 30’s.
I was fixing up a small truck when he came to meet me for the first time and stay at my house a while – it was my first effort at doing mechanical work myself. I’d never driven it, it was a stick and I bought it so I could learn basic mechanical repairs and how to drive a stick once I’d fixed it up.
He offered to take it for a test run when I was done, and said he was going to my newly discovered brother’s house, which was half an hour away. I had stuff to do, and he said he’d be back for dinner, so I thought everything was fine.
That was in 2015. I haven’t seen him or the truck since – he drove over 3 state lines in Australia, back to his place over 48 hours drive away.
So he’s the worst, I think. Shot down any dreams I might have had of having a relationship with my dad and stole my truck before I had a chance to even stall it or grind the gears a bit, all in one fell swoop. Plus he didn’t help with the repairs or lift a finger around the house during the week or so he stayed, didn’t even offer to contribute for groceries.
Only silver lining I can see is I must have done a pretty decent job with the repairs if he made it all the way home without dying – most of the trip was through the outback. If the truck had broken down out there, he’d have been toast.”
Dad’s Girlfriend Ruined Everything
“I had chosen to stay home as my dad went to visit his girlfriend at the time, she had four kids and I hated going over because I had to sleep on an air mattress or more commonly a sofa. I have a bad back so I would wake up sore. Her two youngest kids would come in and attack me while I was asleep so they could play on the X-box. I was in my wreck of a room as I have severe clinical depression, so I do a clean out every few months which lasts less than a week. My dad had come back as he forgot somethings, and three of her four kids wanted to come along with him to emotionally manipulate me into coming (which was easy).
I didn’t expect anyone around and hated people coming into my room, as I know it’s a wreck and I’m embarrassed by it. Fair to say I was on my bed watching youtube when my bedroom door swung open and the three walked in. I had no clothing on and couldn’t move because I had no cover except a quilt which wasn’t fully covering me. They started a conversation and all I wanted was for them to leave.
After being utterly mortified and embarrassed, I was manipulated into being dragged to a place I didn’t want to be. It was the worst, and my dad got engaged to her. They split because she was too clingy and hated that I had split my weekends into a calendar rotation of being with my mum a weekend with my dad then going to hers with my dad. She hated having one weekend out of three without my dad. It didn’t matter that most of the time he went to hers during our weekend. I just was so worn out from school and depression I needed a break from other people.”