DanBell

I was cycling with a couple of girls in South America and as we were separating they were looking for hosts in a city I was not going to. One of the people they found had the longest list of rules I've ever seen, all of which he required guests to acknowledge they had read completely and accepted fully before he would agree to let them stay. Some of them were as simple as guests agree to take a shower each day that they stay. At first I thought it was a bit overboard, but I'm trying to learn to give people the benefit of the doubt and eventually I realized he must have had some really horrible experiences to need to tell people in advance that, for example, he expects them to maintain their own hygiene.

I have not hosted but I can understand how you don't want to have to make it weird for them or for you by being overboard with your rules and expectations, but if you don't make things explicitly clear, you get people taking advantage of the situation. It's a tough spot to be in.