Helping out a friend who lost their housing due to unemployment is a very good and noble thing to do. So letting someone just stay on your couch or in your extra bedroom is a time-honored tradition. Unfortunately, some folks out there are perfectly willing to abuse someone’s hospitality even when they are ostensibly friends.

A woman turned to the internet for advice on what to do with a friend she let crash in her spare room and who now refuses to follow any rules or leave. We reached out to the woman who made the post via private message and will update the article when she gets back to us.

Houseguests who overstay their welcome are pretty annoying

Image credits: Andrej Lišakov (not the actual photo)

But one woman was at a loss for what to do about a friend who had been with them for months

Image credits: Faruk Tokluoğlu (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Daniel Martinez (not the actual photo)

Image source: sausagedogmumm

Taking care of your guests is a longstanding human tradition

Image credits: Kateryna Hliznitsova (not the actual photo)

Humans have long had a pretty long history of understanding that sometimes you need to spend the night under someone else’s roof. Sometimes you are just far away from your place, maybe you are a refugee or, as in this story, you might just be homeless for one reason or another.

This is likely the reason humans have widespread and often pretty intense “guest rules”. This isn’t just a conceit from Game of Thrones (or, “A Song of Ice and Fire”, if we are being pedantic) it’s a real part of many hospitality cultures. The logic is pretty simple, helping others means that you can expect help in the future when you need it.

Everyone from Immanuel Kant to Abrahamic religious scholars have pointed out that “guest rights” are a pretty important building block of civilization. After all, what is a society or nation if not people who aren’t your family members? If you don’t have a structure to care for them, the family remains the largest possible “unit”.

This is all to say that the couple taking in their friend are participating in millennia old traditions and should not be faulted for their generosity. Setting aside all the high-minded philosophy, what is the point of having friends who refuse to help out when you are in trouble? Naturally, if you believe that, then you would also help your own community when needed, otherwise you would simply be a hypocrite.

But guests can easily overstay their welcome

Image credits: Curated Lifestyle (not the actual photo)

However, there have to be some limits, this houseguest seemed to have ground her life to a halt. It can be hard to pick yourself out of a slump, but, arguably, she had it better than most. She was not homeless and got to keep her stuff, her pets and was given time to search for a job. There are landlords who won’t take pets even when you are literally willing to pay for it, so best to not disrespect a forgiving host.

The real “kicker” is her threatening self-harm when given six weeks to move out. This goes beyond unreasonable and is downright manipulative and evil. If one was to do this in a relationship, it would be considered domestic abuse. Doing this to one’s hosts is both shortsighted and really reflects poorly on her.

It’s already monumentally easy to overstay one’s welcome, as the old American saying goes “fish and visitors stink in three days”. So if someone is willing to put up with you and your pet, you should be on your best behavior. The fact that the host has to ask the internet if she is “unreasonable” points to the fact that her friend is just manipulative.

In other words, she would not be unreasonable to turn six weeks into six days now. Regardless, if that is extreme, she should at least be very firm about this. Six weeks, not a day more. Threatening to harm herself and just using her friend’s resources is bad enough. While she hasn’t exactly destroyed anything, enough is enough.

Most folks thought she was not being at all unreasonable

A few shared similar stories

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