Staying HOW long?

House guests are fine but how do you get rid of them, asks Max Davidson

Be careful what you wish for. We have all become so used to multi-bathroom households that, for many people, a guest bedroom with an en-suite bathroom is no longer a luxury, but an essential of civilised living. every ideal home should have one.

Trouble is that once you have installed that tastefully decorated guest bedroom with adjoining dinky bathroom — power shower, hisand-hers basins, the works — you do not have a leg to stand on when loved ones come to visit.

‘I wonder if you can recommend a good B&B in the vicinity . . .’ We have all had emails like that, sending us into a paroxysm of guilt and misery. We know what we ought to do. We just don’t have the stomach to do it. Our spirits plunge as we get out clean bed linen, and we start to look nervously at the calendar.

house guests staying for one night are an emergency. house guests staying for two or more are a catastrophe.

a bare-faced lie in such circumstances is never satisfactory.

‘We would to have you to stay, but unfortunately, we are having a damp course fitted that week, and the house will be swarming with builders.’ But how do you convey, tactfully, that you are not running a hotel?

as my own house has only one bathroom, no second loo and a tiny kitchen, I can get away with inviting relatively few friends to stay the night. But my heart sinks, just a little, every time it happens. I am sure I am not alone in that.

In one of my favourite episodes of One foot In The Grave, Victor and Margaret put out the lights and hid behind the sofa rather than open the front door to old ‘friends’, ronnie and Mildred, who had turned up out of the blue. The scene was farcical, but it was true to how ordinary people feel. We are all — ferociously and no doubt excessively — protective of our privacy.

The trouble with house guests is that, however dear friends they might be, they cramp your style. You can’t lie in bed till midday, shout at the television, do the ironing in the nude or sing always look On The Bright Side Of life in the shower, if cousin George from canada is lurking in the wings.

and then, there are the irritating habits cousin George has acquired — irritating habits of which you had no inkling until he parked himself on you for two weeks, along with his fun-loving wife Marlene and sulky children rick and candy.

Quite how and when cousin George will start to get on your nerves is impossible to predict.

He MIGhT not do his share of the washingup. Or he might insist on doing so much more than his share of the washing-up that it is like living with St francis of assisi. You can’t win.

The only certainty is that, once he has started getting on your nerves, he will continue to get on your nerves, like a stuck record. Whatever your bedtime, he will have a different bedtime. his politics will not be your politics. and what chance of you wanting to watch the same TV programme? One in a thousand?

everyone has their own little rituals, and it can be disconcerting to share your home with friends who have ones different to yours.

We had some australian friends to stay in May and, as they are big sports fans, like us, we sat down to watch the fa cup final together.

all very matey and relaxed — until the playing of the National anthem before the match, at which point our friends solemnly rose to their feet and expected us to do the same. Strewth!

Nobody can avoid putting up the occasional house guest, but the experience will be far less stressful if you obey the six Golden rules:

DON’T make your spare bedroom so luxurious that it looks like a suite at the ritz — your friends will descend on you like locusts.

eSTaBlISh in advance exactly how long your guests will be staying. a fixed-term sentence is easier for a condemned man to cope with than an indefinite sentence.

DON’T wait on your guests hand and foot. encourage them to do their own thing and keep out of your hair.

DIScOuraGe them from helping themselves to the contents of your fridge.

Make sure you have a daily newspaper which you can read cover to cover at the breakfast table — it will spare you tedious attempts at conversation.

OrGaNISe masses of events that you absolutely have to attend and look weary from the moment they walk through the door.