We recently had a really large family revisit our home. It was a little weird, but the house has a lot historical meaning to their family (owned it for 100 years, lost family members there, was important in WWII). I didn't mind, because I knew who they are and what it meant for them, but I think it is entirely reasonable to refuse such a request. It is up to you to decide what you are comfortable with.

It's pretty rude to expect a tour of the house on the spot. If they were making introductions and trying to set a time later to see inside the house, that would have been more respectful. And even then, OP is not obligated to make an agreement.

We had to sell my father's seaside house after his death. It was heart-wrenching because the house was in the family since 1947, having belonged to my great-grand-mother, but we simple couldn't afford to keep it, the house prices in that now fashionable area being what they are. The people who bought it were very enthusiastic and they poured money into that pretty but somewhat ramshackle (for lack of funds, my parents had let it go some) house. After two years of construction, it was restored to its former glory and then some. Hubby and i decided to use our share of the sale to buy à small apartment in the same seaside town, because I was really attached to it, and we followed the progress of the house every time we came there. Last June, it was finally finished, and the new owners invited us in and proudly gave us à tour. I was so glad to see that house I loved start à new life.

No! It is BEYOND rude to show up at someone's house without prior agreement and expect to be accommodated.

"Sure, but you should know tours cost $50, per person, payable in advance."

Some weeks ago, I visited my hometown and came across the house my family moved out of 11 years ago and the house we lived in in the mid-80s. I sure would have loved to see the inside. Especially with the older house, I always try to remember the layout, I don't want to lose memory of my childhood home. But I'd never ask a stranger to show me THEIR house. It's not mine/ours anymore.

Same thing happened to our family. Funny enough my mother also bought our (her) house in 1993. Shortly after a couple showed up, 2 very friendly men who said they were former owners and wanted to see inside the house. They approached us apprehensively like they knew they were asking a big favor and were totally expecting us to say no. We let them in and gave them a quick tour. The house was still pretty new to us and not that lived in yet. I doubt my mom would allow that now. It was cool though seeing their excitement about the house and hearing some of their memories and stories/knowledge about the house (it was built in 1908). And that was it. They were satisfied. Never came back again. Which would've been weird.

F**k that s**t. NOPE. NTA. I don't even feel comfortable with open-houses and prospective tenants scoping my suite. Not after getting broken into and robbed a week after an open-house. You just don't know people. Not even the people you've been acquainted with for years. The neighbour doesn't sound like a friend. More like the neighbourhood "ruler". I've lived many places my whole life. Sometimes I'll look at it if I'm passing by. Sometimes I'll check it out on Google maps. Never would it occur to me to actually go up to the house and demand to be shown the inside. It wouldn't look like how I remember it, anyways. None of my stuff would be in there.

I live in a fairly historic old house - it's attached a former bank that we own and the house used to be where the bank manager lived. We had one of the former bank managers come by and basically apologised for disturbing me and explaining who he was. He was delighted I invited him to look around some of it. I was more than happy to show him the old bank and the downstairs of my house and he was utterly delighted and grateful, telling us some of the history of the place as well. He also made it very clear he understood if I didn't want to invite him in. We also had some Americans who were descended from a family who built the property. We were happy to shown them parts of the old bank and the outside of the hosue but not to take them in and they were prefectly polite, asking us permission to take some photos of the outside of the property. The OPs neighbour and the owner's daughters were absolutely rude as hell. They had no right to expect you to allow them on to your property.

Google Earth lets you see the outside and the top. Leave it at that.

The very fact that they got angry when the OPs declined is a red flag in itself - and they'd already had a mooch, allowed by their mother, who felt 'pressured' to do so. NTA. The daughters & the neighbour were the AHs. #Entitlement also showed in their angry reactions. YTAers are AHs, too.

When we (hubs and I) went back to the states for my dad's funeral, I took him on a tour of the place (very small hamlet) I grew up. We stopped by the house my dad built and looked at it from the road. Even though it was my sister's friend who bought it, I had no desire to knock on the door and ask to look around. That's just weird!

Sometimes I drive by the house I grew up in, when I visit my parents in another town. I even feel creepy parking in front and looking at it for a minute :D

what a ghastly neighbour - getting angry at you , shows that she is really a person without boundaries.

I had a guy show up saying he owned my house way back when and kind of look like he expected me to let him in to tour the place. I was home alone. I ended the conversation quickly and shut the door, he looked irritated. Being a former inhabitant of a home does not grant you a permanent right of easement.

I used to live in an old house on the countryside with my parents, one day this little old lady came by with her daughter. She was born and raised in that house and wanted to see how it looked now. She talked about the history of the house, people had died in every room of that house. My parents weren't happy but i wasn't suprised, me and my sisters had already experienced things we couldn't explain but the worst was yet to come and i didn't know that yet. That house wad haunted as hell and i had some of the worst experiences in my life there were i still think i was close to die 2 times. I usually don't like talking about it cause it makes me feel so uneasy and still have nightmares about the things i experienced in that haunted old house.

My dad did this. We'd bought an old church to try and convert it into a house, but ran out of money and had to sell it. 15 years later, he decided to confidently storm down the hill and ask the new owners to see the inside. I tried to warn him not to and fully expected them to tell us to f**k off, but unexpectedly, they immediately hit it off over the drive dad had put in and ended up giving us both a full tour! They even exchanged phone numbers. That said, I wouldn't ever expect this is to happen normally. If people aren't comfortable with the idea, leave them alone. It's their home at the end of the day. We just got lucky.

One: Yeah, this is creepy. Drive-by is the only acceptable way to check out an old house you used to live in. - Two: that one commenter is wrong about people forgetting what their home looked like. I'm sure some people do but some people remember. I remember the layout of every place I've ever lived since being able to have memories, and I've moved around a lot ... and I'm older. Not saying the ladies should have gone inside, just saying not everyone's memory works the same

I don't get the big deal show them the house we have lived in lots of places in US and Germany - our fave was my nanas while she sold it during her lifetime it was the house my father lived in as a teen, it was the house that no matter where we lived we always saw her for 20 plus years even with us moving every 3-4yrs that was address of record our mainstay we have gone back twice to visit with the new owners (it's been sold twice since my nana sold it) each new owner made changes to the inside and outside but the nostalgia remains it brings back great memories and latest owner even passed along the fire place mantle to my dad when my dad mentioned that his father had handcarved it (it was in the garage they were renovating the home taking it from 60s colonial to more farm house vibe) we also have had the knock on the door asking for a tour of course we let them in - as a military fam rarely were our homes owned by us - a home is owned by many thru the memories it contains

Nowadays you can often look on Zillow to see what a house looks like if it's been sold in the last few years

My father did that. He sold house, the new owner sold it later to another person. My father asked that person if he could come and see. Also offered to bring pictures how it looked when he lived there (He documented all changes he has done there). They said yes and spend whole Saturday going through whole house and yard and comparing the pictures and changes. It is not creepy if you offer something (pictures how it looked long time ago) and let the owner find the best time for visit.

i like how the YTA said if they can make peoples day better by doing nothing then they will, yet they went ahead and ruined my day with that comment.

I had a great chance to see my childhood home but the difference is that the day I drove by, it was having an open house on sale! So it was great because it was set up for strangers to look at. It was surreal and a great moment, but I think people need to realize that once it's not your house any longer, you're not entitled to be let inside. The neighbor is super nosy and entitled for offering it without permission.

We've seen this twice; Landlady showed up at the little cabin that our family of five rented expecting to stay with us. 2) The guy next door had sold his house but showed up still thinking he owned it. The renters called my husband to come 'fix it'

Nope. Not even family is invited into my home. If you don't actually live here, you may not come in unexpectedly. Thank goodness hubby is fine with that restriction too especially since it's his family that lives nearby while mine are on the other side of the planet. This is our private messy little refuge from the big bad world where we don't have to "put on appearances" like the big outside world expects.

There’s nothing wrong with asking to see the house but op has every right to refuse and it should have been accepted with good grace. My sister has an old Victorian and gets requests occasionally. One time, it was a 90 year old man and his daughter. He had grown up in the house and his family lived there for about seventy years from the 1920s. He had great stories that explained some of the eccentricities of the house and a tie in to a local scandal about the owners before his family. Another time, four mennonites in hats and beards knocked on the door because they wanted to check out the workmanship of the shelving one of their sons just built. Fun stuff.

So this is the second time they wanted to take a look around? Maybe one of the parents hid something of value in there and they're trying to find it?

If the neighbour has a key to your house ask for it back, I wouldn't be surprised if she told them to come back when she knows you're out to show them around without your permission.

I live five blocks from my old house and walk by every now and then: never would I walk up the steps and ask to see inside! I don't let strangers into my house (which used to be a rental, so imagine the potential traffic!)

Well, my mother sold the house I grew up in about eight years ago, and it was sad for all our family. She had that house for almost 50 years, so lots of memories! But anyway, even though I still live in town, very close to that house, it would never occur to me to knock on the current owners’s door and ask to look inside! That would just feel weird! Likewise, I would find it very off-putting if some total stranger showed up at my house asking to look inside. No. And that OP’s neighbor sounds really presumptuous and inconsiderate!

Soon, I’ll have to sell my house - which I love - because I’ve been an expat who’s going back to my original country. I am sure that, if I ever come back to my expat country, I will think about asking to see it again. I believe I wouldn’t even see their decoration. I would see my decoration back then…

The original owners of our home (and we are the 3rd family to have lived here since) has done this several times to us, over the past 25 yrs. that we've owned the house. The 1st time, I relented and let them have a look inside, but never more (and they've tried a couple of more times to "see how things are now"). Frankly, I am not comfortable having strangers in my home questioning why my husband made renovations, etc. They are taking being "entitled" to an awful, uncomfortable level, IMO. My husband & I have lived in 4 different states and have never attempted to barge in our former homes to have a lookaround.

I want to do this very thing when I go next summer to the city I lived in for 25 years. I lived in the house for 20 years selling it in 2000. I won't be accompanied by an old neighbor but I have some good stories about the houses history. I'm 75 and don't look like serial killer....I'll knock on the door and see what happens. I have to agree with a couple of the remarks here...especially the one where reddit commentors won't do anything unless there's something in it for them....

aubergine10003

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Hmm. Well, here's a counterpoint: my family lived in a house in Brooklyn, an old Victorian that my dad had bought in the 1950s and lovingly restored. We sold it in 1978. In 2003, my mom and my sister were visiting me (I'd moved back to NYC years earlier) and we went out there to see the house. No one was home, so we were just looking at it from the outside. But then the person who owned it came home - she had bought it from the person we'd sold it to in like 1981 or something (the guy we sold it to didn't have it for very long) and she *immediately* invited us in to look around. My mom and my older sister were both incredibly touched about seeing their old home - my mom had lived there as a newlywed up until 14 years of marriage, and my older sister had lived there from birth to age 13 (I was only 7 when we left so was less nostalgic). The kicker was that apparently my dad used to come around YEARLY to see his house and she always let him in. So it's not the craziest ask IMHO...

Only one YTA, 🤣

Ah... Zoomers. The nostalgia of bad behavior.

When the previous owners of our house died within a few weeks of each other, the family called and asked to visit the house. Since several of the grandchildren had recently been students of mine, it didn't feel strange letting them in.

I think people used to do this more in years past. Nowadays people aren't as open to letting strangers in their house. I stopped by my grandma's old house that I hadn't been in since I was a child. I knocked on the door & explained it was my grandma's and I hadn't seen it since I was a child. I hoped she would invite me in but I could see she was uncomfortable so I asked if I could take a few outdoor pics. She said she was just renting & I needed to go down the street &ask the owners. I said OK but took a couple of pics as I retirement to the car. Didn't see what that would hurt.