Find your diamond
Find your jewelry
shape
carat
color
clarity

Strangers in your house?

S

somethingshiny

Ideal_Rock
Joined
Jul 22, 2007
Messages
6,746
On the heels of the "stranger ride" thread, have you ever hosted a stranger in your home?

When I was a kid, my dad would often bring home friends, acquaintances and even homeless strangers. The homeless strangers were always more polite and kind than the friends. One of the acquaintances actually pulled a knife on my dad in our own home. One of the friends brought his entire family to stay with us for a several months and then they left in the middle of the night taking a bunch of our stuff including most of my mom's clothes. My dad brought home one friend who never made it into the house, he died in the backseat of our car.

When adding it up (to the best of my recollection), I think we had people living with us for an approx total of 3 years.


As an adult, I have allowed my sister's friends to stay with us, but I guess I don't consider them to be strangers if they know her.

So, what are your experiences?
Do you regret doing/not doing it?
 
My gosh -- those are horrible stories, SS!

We've had people living with us before but no one was a complete stranger (at my parents' house, when I still lived at home and while at college). We've offered a bedroom to different family friends or work acquaintances when they needed it for an extended period of time. My friends would always joke that they never knew who would be at my house: "So, who's staying there now?" I can see how odd it might be for someone outside our family but to us, it was perfectly normal.

My parents' house also has an in-law apartment attached, and for the first ten years or so, my mom's sister lived there. When she moved out of state, my parents rented the apartment to various people over the years, until they got a permanent tenant about 5 years ago.
 
I wouldn't. My home is my space, and I'm a bit OCD, so I like everything to be neat and in its place.

But in this vein, have you heard of couchsurfing.com? My ex is doing it while traveling in Europe - you basically crash with strangers (and allow strangers to do so if they're in your city). I could never do that - crash or host - but I'm a scaredy cat girl who's only 5'1". At least the ex is a guy so he stands a better chance :P

SS, omg, that's horrible about the acquaintances.
 
I'm struggling with the question of whether I would ever give a stranger a ride, which is why I haven't responded to that thread yet. But I can definitely say I would never, ever invite a total stranger to stay in my home. It's just too unsafe and risky. the person could be a criminal or mentally unstable. I would never risk my family's safety that way.

The wife of a co-worker of my husband let a homeless man live with them for 2 weeks! I can't believe they risked their family's safety like that. They have 3 kids. I don't understand how her husband could have allowed this. He seemed, according to my husband, proud of her for helping someone out. they eventually had to ask him to leave. Quite frankly, I really don't think they "helped" him that much and they took a big chance by having a stranger in their home.
 
Zoe~ Some of our friends weren't allowed to come over because their parents never knew who might be there with us! We had a family friend stay with us for a couple years and then another friend stay with us for over a year. I didn't count them because they were more like "family" than friends. Actually, when we moved from TX to IL, one man was still living with us. He thought he was going to move with us! We ended up dropping him off with another friend in another state.


BEG~ couchsurfing! I swear one of the men who lived with us could have been the creator of that site!! That's living on the edge!!

june~ My parents were always quite proud of themselves for "helping" people too. There were 4 kids in my family (3 girls) and I still don't see how they could have allowed ANY man who wasn't family to live in our home.


I didn't mean to post "horrible" stories. I was just illustrating the fact that hosting strangers turned out better for us than making room for a pal.
 
Yikes, that's nuts, ss! I have never and would never, ever let a stranger stay with me. Honestly I don't even like it when people I know really well and/or are related to stay with me. I can't even begin to imagine letting a stranger or acquaintance stay with me. I like having no guests ever!
 
As adults DH & I are pretty private about our home, so we haven't let anyone we didn't know stay with us except for one time that I can recall.

His parents are pretty political and during the WTO riots in Seattle (we lived near downtown at that time) we opened our home to a bunch of Evergreen students we didn't know. I think we had about a dozen people packed into our apartment that night. Mmm teargas. It was fun.

Everyone was totally polite though. And we were at the "dead broke college student" phase too, and had, you know, The Hideous Giant Green Velvet Couch We Found By the Curb in the living room, cinderblock bookshelves and other Goodwill Chic going on, so nothing really to steal yanno.

Before that, when we were in our early 20s we had a roommate who constantly had sketchy people in our apartment. Many things disappeared; pretty much every CD ever, any electronics even worthless ones like ancient walkmen, etc. The most hilarious item stolen: a giant acrylic block with tiny bits of shredded cash in it. DH's mom had purchased it secondhand somewhere- it was originally sold by the US mint when they shred bills, I guess they made these huge acrylic paperweights with them. The bitty bits of cash were like, tiny. Big enough to know what it was, but millimeters basically.

I always picture the dumb@ss that stole that thing cussing at it and doing a zillion different things trying to get the money out. Heh.
 
SS -- I didn't mean to be rude when I said "horrible" but yeah, having someone do something like what that guy (I'm assuming) did to your dad is horrible. Stranger or acquaintance -- that shouldn't happen, no matter who you are. I hesitated posting because no, we've never had a total stranger stay with us for any length of time.
 
Come to think of it, we did have a few strangers stay with us when I was a kid. We had 2 extra rooms in our basement. My dad was a diplomat who "hosted" college/grad students from Taiwan who were accepted for Universities in the US. They'd stay with us for a few days to a couple months while looking for more permanent lodgings. My brother and I were quite young, around 6-8 so I don't know what my parents were thinking. I doubt there were background checks on these college-age students. They were mostly male too! I know I'd never subject my kids to that.
 
I am actually living with my parents right now (moved to another city briefly for a job, but hated it, so came back, and am now looking for a job here). They have never been the type to entertain guests much. We rarely have guests here, although we used to have family and friends come by where we used to live - they never stayed overnight (other than my cousin when I asked to have a sleepover), but they would come for dinner or to just hang out for awhile.

Since we have been here, we have had few guests. I continued to have friends from school over when I was younger, and someone will occasionally stop by - but my parents definitely like their privacy, and in most cases, so do I. I am currently having a conflict with my mom, though - she doesn't like it that my FF visits so much (it used to be almost every night), because she wants private time to kick back and relax.
 
No way would I let a stranger stay in my home! I think it is too dangerous and I have a young child. I remember when I was in elementary school my mom and dad let one of my mom's long lost relatives (a cousin maybe) stay with us for a night. Apparantly he was too drunk to remember his own address but somehow knew ours :confused: He was gone before I was even up in the morning.
 
Well, I gues my age is showing because i would NEVEr, EVER let a stranger stay with us.

Having said that, I did let a student who was ina horrible home experience stay with us, but i had to swear him to secrecy because i could have been arrested for custodial interference. I wanted to adopt him but my husband wasn't so inclined......
 
I actually stayed at a strangers house, I am a member of a fan club and the artist was having a concert in MI and I couldnt afford to stay in a motel, but this women I talked to on the message board invited me to stay with her and her parents, it went just fine, other then they were awful housekeepers, the house reeked of cat pee :errrr:
 
Wow, I can't imagine letting total strangers stay in my home when there are children in the home, especially given some of the experiences your family had.

The closest thing we had was exchange students now and again, though I did kind of "adopt" a homeless man who was living in the woods behind our home (way behind). He was a lovely older man who was always kind and polite to me (of course, my Mom nearly had a heart attack when she heard that I was bringing him blankets, food and clothing. She and my Dad immediately came with me to meet him. Once they did, they felt a little better about my being out there. My Mom even started driving him places when he needed to get somewhere. He died while I was in college.

I'm not sure how I'd react if my kids wanted to bring someone home...
 
not a chance...
 
No way. These days you have to be so careful. I'd rather be safe than sorry. ;))
 
Zoe~ I didn't take your comment as rude at all.

How about foreign exchange students? They are technically strangers. Do we as a society feel more at ease within the situation because it's backed by someone we know like the superintendent?
 
Foreign exchange students seem fine to me, as they are known by the school, etc... I know people here host Squash players that come from all over to play in a big tournament here.. I am fine with that because they are part of a community we are involved with.. We will be hosting this fall. And DD's BF is a big squash player, and if anyone messed with us, they'd be toast.
 
no way jose
 
I think again it would vary. Strangers that we KNEW were our new neighbors were allowed in always. One brought us a ham. Another accused us of stealing her recycle bin. One girl at our townhouse baked us a cake (never did get to eat any of it).

If it's just some random person, then no.
 
When I was in college, my apartment was a crash pad for drunken friends of fri--okay, that's a lie. My apartment is still a crash pad for drunken friends of friends. I run trivia at the club where my best friend bar tends, and I'm fanatical about people not drinking and driving, so between my BFF and me, there's always an adoptee on our couch. I don't think I'd allow a complete stranger to do that though--at least in our case, it's people that my BFF knows really well!
 
There were never any 'strangers' in my house growing up...

However, for some reason I always hated when my parents had people from out of town stay over for the weekend. I assume the reasoning is because I liked being a sloppy mess all day (walking around with a mop on my head...wearing awfully ugly clothes) and it bothered me when these people were over and were in my way of being a mess :)

To this day, I can only handle having people stay over my house for three days tops.
 
Yes, when growing up my parents hosted people - and helped other people.

I do the same - and yes, I have let total strangers stay with me. Why have a spare bedroom if you never use it?

I have also crashed in a lot of places too - especially when judging kayak racing all over the US (someone always has a place - or can find a place for me). Likewise, anyone associated with the kayak circuit can crash here if they need to be in this part of wisconsin.

You get to meet great people this way.

I have never had any noticeable problems with this. I did have one person who turned over his weapons to me for the night (that was an interesting night - but it lead to a great conversation). I note that was a hitchhiker I picked up. I fed him supper, did his laundry, let him get a good nights sleep, fed him breakfast, and packed him some food for his trip, and then drove 40 miles out of my way to put him on the best highway for where he was going.

I still pick up hitchhikers when I can.

To sum up my attitude and approach: I believe that one of my purposes in being here is to help other people. Should something happen to me - I've lived a great life - and there is a better future ahead of me.

I do note that I do perform a screening on who I help - but the vast majority of people just need some kindness (and respond to it with appreciation).

Perry
 
I can't say I've ever had strangers in my house, except the time somebody knocked and then walked right in (I had unlocked the door the night before and forgotten to re-lock it). Seriously buddy?! He obviously thought it was somebody else's house because he looked really embarrassed when I was coming down the stairs to see who was knocking. Good thing I was actually home!

Otherwise, the only people who have come in are our friends, family, and landlord.
 
The only strangers we've ever had in our home are friends of friends who have attended some of our parties. We've never had anyone who was an absolute stranger, and I don't plan on changing that.

I feel compelled to help people, in general, but not in ways that put me in a potentially dangerous situation. After all, if I'm hurt or killed trying to help someone, then I'll be unable to help ANYONE after that. We have to take care of ourselves in order to take care of others.
 
When you have kids like me, everything changes, bringing complete strangers home is not acceptable nor negotiable. In case of an emergency we would not mind offering hotel room/ride though :sun:
 
Back when I was 14 or so my mom took in an unknown woman who was in an abusive relationship and needed a place to stay (she and my mom shared a therapist). Along with having been in a horribly damaging marriage Linda turned out to have other mental disorders, so it was an interesting few months. At some point she went off her meds and started losing touch with reality. One day she started giving me all her personal prized possessions, including a box of Lucky Charms, went out into the backyard and started feeding bread to the ducks (we have no water whatsoever), and then walked to the nearby church and started kissing the pictures on the wall. The police picked her up at the point and took her away.

The best part was that she came home from the state hospital with a boyfriend, Danny, who was a paranoid schizophrenic. The ideas he had...Van Halen was out to get him and kept driving by in a red Ferrari, he was going to cash in a million dollar check (one of the fake ones they send in the mail) and fly Linda off to Paris, the government was sending him coded signals through the car radio (which he managed to get stuck on static and my mom could never fix), he was German royalty... Good times.

Anyway, more directly to the question, I would let strangers in my house with someone vouching for them (so quasi-strangers, like students who were visiting the school I attended or friends of a friend). I likely wouldn't just bring in someone off the street to stay.
 
Goodness, those are crazy stories SS!


No strangers in our house. I'm fine with buying a homeless person lunch, sitting down to eat it with him/her (in a public place), but inviting them into my home/car is a safety risk I'm not prepared to take.
 
Never would I have a stranger stay at my house. I have enough anxiety when my MIL visits. I love her to death but I am a little ocd about some things and hate trying to be quiet because she sleeps in.
 
I'm moving in with Thing2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
GET 3 FREE HCA RESULTS JOIN THE FORUM. ASK FOR HELP
Jewelry Blog
PriceScope-Concierge-Ad
Find prime cuts.
Top