Knock, Knock

Who's there? It could be Guestzilla. Here's how to cope when friends want to turn your home into a hotel.

What's more popular than all the Sheratons, Westins and Four Seasons in the world combined?

Your house.

Fact is, although the hotel industry pours billions of dollars into enticing travelers into for-hire lodgings, 48 percent of all leisure travelers last year stayed with friends or relatives, according to the Travel Industry Association of America. It's a figure that varies little from year to year, always hovering near the halfway mark.

Most of those millions of visits start like this: The phone rings. Someone on the other end says, "We'll be passing through, and wonder if we could drop by."

Everyone knows the caller isn't talking about a coffee break, but a self-invite for overnight accommodations, often of unspecified duration.

It's a question that sometimes makes the blood run cold, judging from the heartfelt responses of readers when we invited them to tell us about their experiences with hosting -- and being -- houseguests.

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Oh, there were some delighted hosts and guests who wrote about how they treasure their home-based overnight encounters with friends, relatives and even strangers. Art Kosatka and Maureen O'Hara of Olney, for example, adore hosting Japanese students each year, even though they flinch at watching them eat pizza slathered with mayonnaise and topped with dried fish and cabbage.

Julie Puckett of Centreville loves to host her mother-in-law, who "pitches in whenever needed," "stops by the grocery store to replace food items she's used" and leaves the guest room "as clean, if not cleaner, than when she arrived." Ruth E. Thaler-Carter of Rochester, N.Y., marvels at the Washington friend who keeps a coffeemaker, with mugs and condiments, in the guest bathroom. Pat Tollifson of Shepherdstown, W.Va., loves and now emulates the friend who washes the sheets and remakes the beds before departing.

But the odes of joy that reached our mailboxes were far outnumbered by the still-raw memories of guests and hosts from the land of bad manners. Guests who not only invited themselves for long visits on short notice, but who brought other guests, too. Sandy towels clogging washing machines. Guests who ran up huge phone bills, or tried to change their hosts' religious or political beliefs. Empty-handed guests who not only expected a full breakfast and dinner, but packed themselves a lunch before heading out for the day.

Your popularity as a host, many readers told us, may have less to do with your stellar personality than with the amenities of the locale where you've chosen to live. Reader Debbie Gathercole, for example, found that friends and relatives were much closer spiritually when she lived far, far away -- in Maui -- than when she relocated much closer physically. In fact, friends and relatives who couldn't bear to be away from her for long when she lived in Maui for some reason don't miss her nearly as much now that she's tucked away in Winchester, Va.

Other readers raised issues we had never considered, like what to do if you find ticks in your host's bed, or a huge sausage beneath the keyboard cover of the grand piano.

With the help of etiquette specialist Letitia Baldrige, author of numerous books on manners and social secretary to the late Jacqueline Kennedy, we've created a primer both for those who are considering a drop-by, and for those who will be dropped upon.