My mother left this morning after I had already gone to work. I arrived home to find almost no trace that she had ever been here, except, of course, the vastly improved garden and yard, the repaired doorknobs, and various mementos she has been trying to get me to take from her house for years. Oh – and the Christmas cactus cuttings from my great-grandmother’s (I think) cactus. She neglected to tell me how to care for the cuttings, so I will have to figure that out. I am not that good with houseplants.
She cleaned up after herself. She stripped the sheets from the guest bed, left the bathroom completely tidy, and washed all the dishes in the sink, including the ones I had left there last night. She put away the dishes that had dried.
When my mom visited me in Austin for a week, she stayed at Dave and Laura’s while they were out of town. (I had a tiny apartment.) She cleaned the place before she left. Laura said she had never seen her house so clean. “She even cleaned behind the refrigerator!” Laura marveled. “Our cleaning lady doesn’t even do that!”Source: http://www.1976design.com/blog/images/302a.jpg
I was not surprised by any of this. My mother has exquisite houseguest manners (and, of course, it is a pleasure to have her around). It might be genetic. Any time any of my aunts, uncles or cousins have stayed with me, they have been very considerate. When my cousin Becky stayed at my house for her optometry school interview, I was out of town. I returned not knowing what to expect.
It was as if no one had ever been in the house. She had made the bed and folded her towel and washed and put away all her dishes. She’s a good girl, that Becky.
The only person this gene seems to have skipped is my brother. One of the biggest fights we’ve had in recent history was a few years ago at my mom’s house at Christmas. My brother was sleeping until noon, leaving the bathroom a mess, not cleaning up after himself in the kitchen, and throwing his stuff all over the living room (even though he had a bedroom to sleep in – I was the one sleeping on the sofa).
When I told him it might be appropriate for him not to treat Mom like a maid (those might not have been my exact words, but that was definitely my feeling), he informed me that it was the duty of the host to accommodate to the schedule and the practices of the guest.
Oh, no, I told him. It is the duty of the guest to work around the host’s schedule. You don’t sleep until noon and expect someone to make you breakfast. You don’t expect someone to clean up after you. You make your bed and keep your area tidy, even if you live like a pig at home. It is a sign of respect for your host not to treat her belongings like trash.
Suffice it to say he did not agree with my point of view. We did not speak for several months. I think he might have improved slightly since then. I hope so.
I have had some excellent houseguests and some not-so-excellent ones. Anna W. is welcome in my house any time. When I was in Miami, she stayed a night with me on her way to Brazil. It was a work night and I had my mom’s cousins Dave and Judith coming the next evening. I worried about how I was going to get home and wash and change the sheets on the guest bed before they arrived.
I got home and found that Anna had not only washed the sheets but had made the bed up again with the clean sheets. She had also washed the towels she had used and left them folded on the bed.
It was so nice that there wasn’t even a chance that my guests would have ended up sleeping on sheets that someone else had slept on! (Not that Anna is not a clean person, but really, that’s just gross – to sleep on someone else’s sheets.)
I love the houseguests who make their visit easy for me. I try to do the same when I visit my friends. I hope I am a good guest. I have been invited back everywhere, so it’s either that I am a good guest or my friends are good liars.
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