Not welcome.

PART I

"Next time i come..." Excuse me? Next time? There won't be a next time. I just learnt a valuable lesson about who i will/ will not allow into my home and my space. We had a visitor stay with us for a little more than a week recently. He was a student in my 2017 literature class and we had found a similar interest (books and films). He came in 2020 but that time, he didn't stay with us because i thought our rental home wouldn't be ready by the time he arrived so he had to book himself an airbnb. I don't remember much of that time with him. Earlier this year, he asked if he could come again and I thought, why not.

I guess this post is really about the basic etiquette and desirable qualities a house guest should display, from the pov of a host, all based on this recent experience of mine. Take what you want from it. But I promise you, it is entertaining.

Number 1. Planning for accomodation and meals

First of all, please do not assume the person will be hosting you in their home. If you have the desire to travel overseas, please make sure you have the ability to spend on your accomodation. If the host offers you their place... well, lucky you! Check to see how many days is okay. So now you have acquired free lodging. That's 700 dollars or so saved if you're staying a week. How about the amenities that come with the lodging? That's all included in the stay, right? Nice. Now, since you'll be enjoying all the creature comforts provided, it'll be great if, as a gracious guest, you offer to pay for meals outside or for the week's groceries. That’s the decent thing to do to show your appreciation for the kindness extended to you.

This visitor of ours took for granted that we were sponsoring his accomodation all nine days. Ok. My fault. I had said yes to him. I figured, ex student... why not? But then we noticed we were stuck with him all the damn time. He was at pretty much every one of our meals. That's 5 breakfasts ( the other 3 mornings he claimed he doesn't usually eat breakfast, what a laugh), 7 lunches and 8 dinners he had with us while he was here. And of those 20 meals, he only paid for 2 lunches. When I brought him grocery shopping with me, he added snacks to the basket and then did not pay for them at the cashier. That day, I told him he had to pay for my lunch. On a separate grocery run with my husband, he tried to do the same but my husband, being the more garang one, said:"No, pay for it yourself". His response:"Oh, ok." The other lunch he paid for, he also only did so because we told him to again.

Number 2. Cleaning up after yourself and helping with chores

Another quality hosts look out for in a guest is the ability to clean up after yourself and maybe help out around the house. You could offer your help with simple tasks or chores. As simple as washing the dishes. Not only did our visitor not do this, he didn’t even know to complete his own chores unless told to when he first arrived. First dinner with us, Shai and I noticed that he hadn't picked up his plate after sitting there for an hour. We had both washed our own dishes. So I told him to clean up. And then horror of all horrors, he said this: "I don't do dishes back home." Was the twat expecting us to do his dishes for him? Even if he wasn't, why say that to your hosts? So we told him in this house, what you use, you wash. Next day, after helping himself to the eggs at breakfast (2 eggs every morning for 5 days) I told him to wash the frying pan he had used. He proclaimed :"This is the most housework I have ever done." All 8 nights he was here, he did not once make his bed. He did not once open up the blinds or the windows. By the last day I told Shai the room was smelling like susu basi.

Number 3. Displaying independence and adventurous spirit

We have had so many visitors since we've been here. All of whom we've been so happy to host and bring around. In fact, we wished all the time they would spend a longer time with us. We have made so many beautiful memories with them here. We love that they love getting to know Perth. We realised that a very desirable quality we see in our other visitors is their curiosity and sense of adventure. We know Perth isn't a first choice for most and when they show us that they want to get to know Perth better, it makes us so happy.

This person had zero curiosity and for a young man of able body and sound mind, his lack of independence and adventurous spirit was gross. If Shai or I weren't driving him around, he wasn't going out. He would hide in the room. Or hover around us in the house. We explained how friendly the public transport system is and that there is a reliable app he could use. Nope. He was not going out of the house on his own. The one time he spent the day out, he did so at the mall and only did so because we forced him to. Dropped him off at the mall at 10am and told him to return only at 5pm. He returned at 4.57pm. Not only that, he had this to say: "It was quite a long walk." To which I responded: "You're 22 years old and 2km is long for you?" So yeah. He did do a 9-day trip here, consisting mostly of this route: room - toilet - bathroom - kitchen - back to room.

Number 4. Planning itinerary and transportation

Please do not assume your host is driving you around the entire time you are staying with them. Be prepared to rent a car or to travel on your own via public transport. Do your research beforehand. Basic etiquette: If someone is driving you around, apart from offering to pay for meals, you could also offer to pay for gas. He was counting on us fully to bring him sightseeing. We drove him to a few places during my husband's two days off. Didn't offer to top up the gas. Sat there like a fucktard at the gas station. Oh. My husband did use the opportunity to teach him to fill up the car at the gas station (over here we have to do it ourselves). He was quite nervous. We enjoyed seeing him nervous. Should have done it a lot more.

Easy so far, right? Check if your host is offering you a place to stay, first of all. Check how many days is okay with them. Then offer to pay for meals/groceries. Don't freeload, that's disgusting. Be prepared to travel on your own. Be cool and offer to pay for gas if they're driving you around. Do your basic chores. Offer to help around the house, make yourself useful. Show some sort of independence and curiosity for the place, don't just hide in the house and depend so completely and helplessly on your poor host.

How lovely it would have been if he had said to me this: "Ms Haiza, I'm gonna be out of your hair most days, ok? I'll go figure out how to get around, no problem. Don't worry about me. I wanna explore the place. Buy a few things for my folks back home. When you can, let's hang out. Don't trouble yourself too much. Oh and please, meals on me whenever we are outside."

Number 5. Being polite and gracious

To add to the painful experience, he was loud and obnoxious. He made snarky little remarks all the time. He called my favourite show lousy and lowbrow. He called the murder case my husband and i were talking about "pure tabloid". He called precious trinkets from loved ones I put up on my shelf "white noise". Stuff like that. All the time. He also liked peppering his sentences with fuck fucking fucked fucking fuck. Maybe he thought that was all very charming. Maybe he thought it was cool. He sees himself as a passionate cinephile and would share his knowledge and namedrop any chance he got. He spoke loudly and aggressively. He threatened the peace in the house so much that the first three days he was here, our cats peed on the carpet, the doorway and the cat beds. 3 of Shai's favourite snapbacks placed on his shelf got peed on as well. It's real, the energy that these animals feel from us. The two sassy girls Aida and Penny didn't mind him so much and let him sniff their butts. But the boys stayed clear of him the rest of the days.

Smart mouth. Lazy ass. Freeloader. The worst combination. After the first couple of days, whenever he tried to say something smug or patronising in response to a particular topic, I stopped him. My husband too, took every opportunity to challenge him and put him in his place. How does a young person end up like this? A blown up ego to make up for what we could see is a low self esteem. A loud voice to make up for a lack of courage. A cockiness to make up for a lack of worldly experience. A sense of entitlement for things he did not earn or deserve. He must have had enablers growing up. Enablers around him now.

PART II

So here's what took the cake on day 8. He woke up late as usual. Helped himself to the eggs. Then Shai instructed him to complete a chore (tearing up a box into smaller pieces to fit our recycling bin). After he completed it, he went back to his room. Later on, I was on my way to the kitchen to prepare lunch, and I could hear him snoring loudly as he did every morning. He'd gone back to sleep. Fifteen minutes later, he's up and standing next to the kitchen counter saying this: "Mmm smells good." What am I? His maid? I didn't respond. Instead, I walked straight to my husband and reported to him what just happened.

Now it's almost lunchtime. I'm setting the table. The jerk had gone back into his room to hide again. Shai said to me: "Don't set anything for him. He'll come out because there's food. He's hungry. He can help himself." Sure enough at that moment, he came out and I guess it had been building up for 8 long days so the moment he stepped into the kitchen, Shai said to him straight-faced: "Good life huh?" Stupid boy answered: "Yeahhh..." And before any of us knew what had hit us, my husband was on a roll, berating this 22 year old, colourful language like confetti in the kitchen.

"STAND STRAIGHT WHEN I TALK TO YOU!"

"TELL ME YOU UNDERSTAND ME!"

"yes"

"YES WHAT?"

"yes i understand"

"YES I UNDERSTAND WHAT?"

"yes i understand, sir"

"WHY DO YOU TALK SO LOUDLY IN FRONT OF US? WHY IS IT WHEN U'RE SURROUNDED BY MS HAIZA'S OTHER BOYS YOU ARE LIKE A CHURCH MOUSE?" (that's you guys alex, ben, lowee, remus, zhixuan)

"THIS IS MY HOUSE. I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO DISRESPECT OUR HOUSE LIKE THIS. IF I WERE YOU I'D PACK UP MY BAGS NOW AND LEAVE."

For a while it did feel we were in a military movie. It went on for a good 10/15 minutes. Just making him smaller and smaller. All that cockiness now gone. I sat there eating my lasagne slowly, watching it enfold. I did have my fingers on my phone to record parts of this which, from time to time, I will listen to and smile. After that, I took over. I asked him: "Who am I?" "Who am I to you?" He answered:"My ex teacher." "That's right. I'm not your friend. I was your teacher. I stood at the front of your class. I taught you. I graded your work. I'm not your friend." And i went on to list for him things to do to be a better guest and a better human being. I told him no one cares about the directors and producers you yap about so much. People care that you are kind and compassionate and generous. I stopped there.

Still, he was invited to sit down to eat by my very gracious (and now very sexy after that little show) husband. He sat there quietly. He ate. But that's it. At that moment, I decided, that's the end of this, whatever this is. He will cease to exist in my life. He left early the next day, but not before we got him to remove all his bedlinen and clean the toilet he's been using 10 times a day. I refused to look at him anymore. I couldn't. When he was leaving, he attempted to say bye to Shai but my husband simply held the door open for him and didn't say a word. Closed the door, closed this chapter. Anyone will tell you my husband is a soft-spoken, polite and very generous man. He'd never want to do something like this to anyone. He accommodated this person because he was my student.

I was literally counting down the days to his departure from the day he arrived. I didn't like his energy at all, so whenever Shai was out at work, I tried to stay in our bedroom with the cats, away from him. I told Shai being near him made me physically sick, I couldn't explain it. I kept asking Shai: "How are we celebrating after we drop him off at the airport?" You know, kita orang melayu, we have adab. We have budi bahasa. We have tata tertib. We have segan. But I really did learn a lot from this experience. And I had words of wisdom and encouragement coming in constantly from a couple of friends and my cousin the whole week to keep me going.

This shameless person said to me: "I spent $x00 on the flight. Brought $x00 more to spend." He bought himself 11 dvds/blu rays. 4 novels. Souvenirs. Bought us 2 stupid lunches. When he arrived with 2 small containers of famous amos cookies I had asked for, he attempted to show me the receipt, i guess in hopes i'd pay him for it. I actually said: "I'm not paying you back." The audacity is beyond me. It's something that happens in movies. Not to me! Oh well. Here’s my takeaway: I must protect my home and my space better. I must not let anyone else disregard my boundaries like this again. I will not be an enabler. My kindness and generosity is my strength. It will not be made my weakness by this a-ho. And no amount of money can buy him back his dignity in my books now.

"Here's looking at you, kid." ;)

Qui and I celebrating our emancipation from the most horrible visitor ever. This was us in the backyard the day after he left! Qui is just too stunned from it all.