The term "Mi casa es su casa" is intended to make your houseguests feel at home, not actually make your home their new dwelling. Unfortunately, some houseguests don't really know how to adjust properly in other people's environments or respect boundaries.
Of course, we've all had some great houseguests in the past who are respectful and understand the right time to leave. Others, however, overstay their welcome...sometimes by weeks or months.
We recently asked the BuzzFeed Community to spill the cringe-worthy, unhinged, and downright WTF moments they’ve had with houseguests, and let’s just say...sleeping in the car sounds like a better option. Below are 19 wild stories that might make you second-guess inviting people over.
1. "I invited a friend, 'Nicole', over to spend the night and help me set up for a party. Her husband, two dogs, and another couple would follow a day later for the party."
2. "We were newlyweds living in a two-bedroom apartment. Our guest room was set up with a twin bed for my sister to use a couple of nights each week so she could make her two early morning college classes, which we lived a few blocks from."
3. "My sister-in-law and her boyfriend came from the city to stay for a few days at our country house. He brought his machete with him to cut things down in the woods."
"After doing that, he muscled his way next to me at the kitchen sink while I was trying to prepare lunch to rinse off his machete, thereby getting dirt and sap all over the salad I was preparing."
4. "My grown son’s friends. A band. The lead singer looked like Liza Minnelli. All the band members wore Axe body spray, and my upstairs was saturated. The place smelled of Axe for several months until I washed the walls."
5. "She drank my soda cans (which I was fine with, she could have as much as she wanted), but never finished them before opening another one. There was always a couple of ounces left. Then she’d drop them in the return bag without pouring the rest out."
6. "I was living in a house with two roommates during Hurricane Katrina. The storm left us all without power, so we hooked up the generator to keep the fridge running. Well, one of my roommates let her 'friend' stay over. For some reason, this fine young gentleman took it upon himself to refuel the generator in the middle of the night, and ended up setting the back deck on fire while we were sleeping in the house."
7. "My doormat literally says, 'don’t let the cats out or the cops in.' Houseguest let the cops in."
8. "Right after my husband and I got married, we invited one of his long-time friends to come stay for the weekend. He would wander into the kitchen and start eating the meal I was preparing while I was still preparing it. Then, once we sat down to eat, he would ask for more before even finishing what was on his plate. He legit asked me for a second sandwich one bite into his first sandwich at one lunch."
"OK fine, but yikes, I’d like to sit and enjoy my meal too. They went digging for rocks in a creek one day (they studied geology together), and when they came back, instead of taking a shower, this man wiped himself down with multiple kitchen towels, leaving them caked in mud. He left his dirty laundry in our guest room and asked us to mail it back to him. But the thing that totally sent me over the edge was when I walked into our family room and he was digging through my purse for cigarettes. I said 'This is what you do? You just go through people's purses?' and instead of apologizing, he walked into the other room and said to my husband, 'I think I just made your wife really mad.' Yeah, bud, ya did. He was not invited back for YEARS. We still love him. He is a better houseguest these days."
9. "I was friends with a woman whose husband my partner and I had never been fans of. He had a business trip scheduled around our area and asked if they could stay with us for a couple of nights. I wanted to catch up with her and said it was totally fine to bring their toddler."
10. "TLDR: I invited a college friend over for a weekend, and I moved out two years later. It started as a weekend that became a week, then two weeks, then a month, then 'just a couple more months,' and by that time, she'd moved in. I call her 'the roommate from hell!'"
11. "I had a *friend*, Sam, who used to stay with me pretty regularly. We partied together often and usually got ready for nights out together at my house. On a day following one of those nights out, my mom came by for a visit. As she was fixing her hair in front of my bedroom mirror, she asked, 'What the hell is all over your wall?' She was looking at black and beige streaks on the wall where the mirror was mounted. I knew right away what it was. Sam had done their makeup in that mirror the night before, touched up their mistakes with their finger, and wiped the excess on my wall. When I told my mom, she was rightfully disgusted. Sam and I ended up having an explosive breakup months later, but I should have recognized then and there what a disrespectful POS they were."
12. "Barely a guest, it was a MAGA neighbor I rarely put up with, but there was a neighborhood street party for 4th of July and this motherfucker drops the N-word in my backyard referring to some other Hindi neighbor's children. I lost my fucking shit on him, and apparently I'm now known as a jerk for kicking the MAGA out."
13. "I had a fellow performer come into town. She'd been at my house before, so I wasn't concerned. The first night, I made spaghetti, but made the egregious mistake of not putting ground beef into the sauce (I don't eat a lot of meat in general, but not for any specific reason). She got quiet and asked why I would make meatless spaghetti, in a tone that suggested I'd sacrificed something precious of hers in lieu of ground beef. Then she wailed, 'What am I going to eat?' as if she weren't a 40-year-old adult getting a free stay. The next night, she bought a meat lovers pizza."
14. "My mom had an awful experience with a family member. She invited family from out of state to visit her, and they have four kids. They were staying for one week. The last day of their visit, my grandfather (her dad) passed away. So not only did the family of six stay, but also several other family members flew or drove in for the funeral. My mom ended up having several more houseguests, and on top of it planning a funeral and dealing with her grief."
"The day of the funeral, everyone who was staying left right after the services EXCEPT one family member and her husband. They came back, got in their bathing suits, and relaxed in my mom’s hot tub. My mom and stepdad basically ignored them, but the next morning, they came out and made a comment about how there was no breakfast. Normally, my mom cooks big breakfasts when she has guests for the holidays; however, this was not a holiday! Her dad had died. She responded, telling them there was food in the fridge, and went to her room. They ate and then immediately went back to the hot tub (second day in a row). Essentially, they were acting like they were on vacation, and my parents’ house was their resort. My stepdad, whom I have never even seen mad in the 20 years I’ve known him, went into the guest room, packed their stuff, brought it to them, and asked if they needed help loading it into their car. My mom had reached her limit, and he knew it. Fucking legend, and fuck those relatives."
—Anonymous, 31, California
15. "In the '90s, I was married to a Newfoundlander. Decades have passed since I had to suffer Newfoundland or Newfoundlanders, but at the time, it could best be described as a masturbation cult. Despite a slapstick failed history, and daily handouts from Ottawa, they knew themselves to be masters of the universe, superior to all, including, especially, the mainland Canadian taxpayers who supported them."
16. "We opened our house to some guests who traveled out of state to visit our church. We let them have our bedroom. I slept with a mouth guard and forgot to grab the case before they got there. The night after they left, I went to wear my mouth guard, but when I opened the case, it was gross and obvious that one of them had used it, despite it being fitted for my mouth. I threw it away and had to pay for another one. I showed my husband, but we never mentioned it to anyone at church."
—Anonymous, 54, Oklahoma
17. "I had a friend visiting me from out of state for the weekend, and since we were really close, she was crashing on my couch. We decided to go dancing in the evening, and she ended up meeting a dude and hitting it off. She ends up inviting him back to my place and proceeded to have sex with him in my bed."
—Anonymous
18. "I had a friend who lost her home stay with me, and she had eight dogs, 19 cats, a sheep, and a very nasty cockatoo. She stayed for two months, and by then, our carpet was soaked. When they left, we had to pull it up and spray enzymes on the concrete. She also brought her father in a hospital bed to stay for two weeks. She was a very close friend, and I was just trying to help. "
19. "I had one friend visit from Dubai with his son. They ate all of my eggs and avocados, trashed my living room, and proceeded to kill all my fish by pouring hydrogen peroxide in my fish tank."
—Anonymous, 26, LA
20. "My father-in-law came to visit and left his medications, electronics, clothes, etc., all over the floor for my 8-month-old to find. My husband would try to talk to his father, and he would purposely turn off his hearing aids to ignore him. The real kicker was the morning of his departure, he threw his suitcase down the staircase at 4 a.m., waking my husband, puppy, and 8-month-old, and damaging the stairs."
—Anonymous, 34, California