One of these upcoming holiday days, you and a companion (perhaps your elderly mother) drive for 12 hours and arrive at a house where no one is home. There is a note on the kitchen table saying “We’ll be back in an hour. Soup’s on the stove if you want some. The guest bedrooms are upstairs.”
How would you feel?
NOTE: I have suggested that the note might better read “We’ll be back at 7pm” rather than “We’ll be back in an hour”. The question has come up because we’ve been invited to a gathering the same evening our guests are due to arrive from out of town.
Probably, I’d be fine with it. It depends on how well I know the hosts and whether I knew they’d be out when I got there. I wouldn’t make it a surprise to your guests. Let them know you’ll be out and that dinner will be ready for them.
I’ve done this to my parents when they visit. They’re comfortable getting themselves from the airport to our apartment and making themselves at home until we get out of work. No biggie.
As long as they have the key to get in and notice in advance, I don’t see a problem. I would tell them though, so they have the option to not arrive at your house until later and grab a bite to eat at a restaurant or something. Don’t see a problem here.
Don’t worry–IF we opt to not be home, we will have left our visitors the ability to get into the house. We also will have notified them that this is a possibility. And of course, given the season, the potential weather, the traffic, etc.; one never knows for sure what time our guests will arrive.
I don’t like leaving notes like that because it’s a note for any burglar as well. “Great! I’ve got another two hours to snoop around!” Speaking for myself, if there was no way to stagger the times, I’d have made a commitment one way or the other: go to someone else’s deal or host my own. Depending on which came first, I would have told the other that I already had a commitment.