The holiday guest from hell – and 20 rules for sharing your home with friends

I stared Dorothy straight in the eyes. It’s not her real name but it’s close enough. If she is reading this, she will be in no doubt. I mention her not only in a spirit of revenge but also as a cautionary tale. Holidaymakers often seek to stay with friends or family abroad. It saves money - a wonderful thing when sterling is in the doldrums - and can be terrific. It can also be appalling.

Dorothy stayed with us for four days. Previously, I had not seen her for 35 years. Our parents had been vaguely acquainted. She had somehow discovered that I now lived in the south of France. She had rung and invited herself. (Loose end, great to meet up again, etc, etc...)

My wife was suspicious. I should have listened. It was like having Genghis Khan’s younger sister about the house, only a lot plumper. She arrived empty-handed and with no summer clothes. “I thought you’d have some I could borrow,” she said to my wife.

She ate like a dustcart, everything except salad (“Doesn’t agree with me; don’t you have anything else?”). In between meals, she set about the fridge uninvited, carrying trays to the garden where she would loll, before returning the tray to the kitchen and leaving it there, for us to clear away.

She demanded I take her to visit friends holidaying 70 miles away. On arrival, she waved me off, saying: “I’ll be ready to come home (home!) in a couple of hours.” She neither offered nor paid for anything. She found our internet connection intolerably slow. Her bedroom resembled a camp for displaced persons. And she criticised the French... for lack of hygiene. That rather did it.

“I’m surprised your bathroom’s so clean,” she told my French wife – thinking, I believe, that she was paying a compliment. My wife dragged me into the pantry. Harsh whispers ensued. And so, four days into what was to be a week-long stay, I was staring Dorothy in the eyes.

What I should have said was: “OK, apologise, pay up and get out.” What actually emerged was a ramble about pressures of work, mother-in-law’s illness and surprise impending arrival, and the possibilities of changing air tickets. This did not go well.

Her sensitivity, so dull in most regards, suddenly became dagger-sharp. There were tears, then sulks. We didn’t speak on the way to, or at, the airport and we have never heard of her again.

Travel etiquette | More advice on holiday conundrums

This was an extreme case. You might think I am exaggerating for effect. If only.

Of course, most visitors bring joy to their hosts; they are generally friends or family and so you like them. But some don’t. And even good ones can occasionally be irritating. Meeting in the pub or for dinner is one thing. Having the same people to stay, and share a bathroom, is quite another.

I mentioned something along these lines in an article about a decade ago, and don’t believe I have ever had a bigger postbag.

Recent research among a cross-section of expats confirms that the issue nevertheless remains live. It has also allowed me to come up with a definitive set of guest rules. Follow them and you will not be on that early plane home.

1. Make sure it’s clear how long you are staying. Open-ended stays – “We’ll see how it goes” – are hopeless. Unresolved questions will pollute the air. Departure dates must be known. The expat consensus suggests that three or four nights is perfect – though, if everything else is going OK, we are happy to push that out.

2. Don’t go at all unless you know the hosts really well – or have a fabulously reliable introduction. Showing up because you are a friend of a distant friend, or met your hosts on the beach 20 years earlier, almost always ends in tears.

3. Give enough warning. A call from your mobile when you are 10 miles away doesn’t count. Two weeks does; a month is better.

4. Don’t show up empty-handed. What matters isn’t the price but the thought that has gone into a gift. If you know the people well enough to stay with them, you should know their taste in books, CDs and drink – or, at least, know them well enough to ask.

5. Bringing unexpected, additional guests is no way to ensure a warm welcome. Your host will have prepared for you, so it’s not the occasion for you to bring along your unannounced, incontinent wheelchair-bound mother.

6. Be independent. Hosts are generally thrilled to see you. That’s why you have been invited. But it’s clear that they will also be delighted if you don’t expect them to be full-time entertainers and tour guides. They will have seen local sites up to a zillion times (I make a dozen trips a year to the Pont du Gard.) So make independent plans and go off to visit on your own.

7. Don’t attempt to seduce your host’s spouse or, worse still, son or daughter. This evidently happens more often than you would imagine and is unerringly catastrophic.

8. Help around the house – without being asked. Few subjects are more litigious. If you see your host peeling potatoes or washing up, don’t say: “Can I help?” Don’t say anything. Grab a peeler or dishcloth and do it. On the other hand, don’t go bonkers. Vacuuming when there is no indication that your hosts were intending to will be taken as criticism.

9. Fit in. Check which are your hosts’ habitual chairs, places at table and times in the bathroom – and work around them. This is their home. Never forget that.

10. Don’t criticise. Living at close quarters with your hosts will obviously underline just how imperfect are their habits, house and taste in tableware when compared with your own. Mentioning this – even in tones of helpful advice – is never a good idea. Just say everything is fantastic, and leave it at that.

11. Keep family or marital disputes to yourselves.

12. On the other hand, excessive shows of affection can also be troublesome. No one likes people snogging on his sofa – or overhearing vigorous sex in the shower while he is outside waiting to shave. Believe me on that one.

13. Do your share of food buying. This subject is even more sensitive than housework. Reports of guests eating and drinking until they dribble, and paying for nothing, are legion. You have no idea of the resentment that has built up in foreign parts. The consensus seems to be that, for two or three nights (max), you are on a free ride. Think no more about it (though perhaps supply some wine). After that, contributions are expected. Take your hosts out to dinner and you might even be invited to stay again. One restaurant dinner per week’s stay is a good rule of thumb.

14. Do not assume that your children’s foibles are a delight to absolutely all. If, to pluck one example from many, they eat spaghetti bolognese with their hands and then run those hands up and down white walls, this does not qualify as endearing. And, if you have to prepare special food for them using the hosts’ mixer, remember to put the lid on the thing.

15. Leave only cleanliness behind you… especially, of course, in the bathrooms and lavatory. And remember – foreign WCs cannot always take as much toilet paper as you would like.

16. Don’t do more texting or checking of emails than is strictly necessary. Any more is fabulously rude. You are on holiday. Send postcards.

17. Avoid certain topics of conversation. Particularly annoying, it seems, is discussion of British television series, of exchange rates (if you live abroad, it’s really not news that the pound is weak) and of British house prices. In general, we don’t want to know that, if you sold your place in Hemel Hempstead, you could still buy Portugal.

18. Don’t whistle early in the morning. This might indicate that you are happily on holiday – but it infuriates a surprising number of people. Near silence until well after breakfast is a much-prized quality.

19. Be happy. Nothing is more rewarding to hosts than a smiling face and a sense of contentment (nothing – apart from money for the food, obviously).

20. A final one for hosts. However tempting a dinner party idea, don’t mix English guests with French (or Spanish or Italian) local friends unless a significant number speak the others’ language. Otherwise you will have the most stilted, tedious conversations in the history of international relations.