Oh, hell no! My welcome mat says Go Away!
Our place is pretty clean but even if it were very clean, I’d spend a few hours moving things out of the way to make surfaces and hanger space for a guest, changing the cat litter, reorganizing the refrigerator, and moving gifts-in-process and the donation box to a private part of the house. I’d want half a day no matter what.
For the most part yes come on over but I won’t get it in gear until you pull in the drive then I’ll dash around shutting bedroom doors and giving the throne room a quick swab.
On second look give me an hour, major dust bunnies rolling around and the pothos has shed leaves everywhere and the dining room table is cluttered.
Half a day - yeah, easily. I might not bother to dust, but in the time, I can push the vacuum around, de-clutter the worst of it, tidy the kitchen, clean the hall bathroom, and maybe even push a mop around the kitchen floor. But we live in the boonies and no one visits us on short notice.
Wait, are the guests coming for dinner or staying overnight? I read the OP as the former, but some of the responses sound like the latter.
Assuming dinner guests, my house is clean enough on very short notice. I constantly straighten up. I was married to the messiest woman ever (Cat puke? Let’s wait for it to dry so it can be vacuumed up! Maybe tomorrow or the next day! 
Seriously, she’d get annoyed if I didn’t follow that plan. Dirty dishes? Just hide them in the sink until they mold and insects live on them.) So now it’s part of my sanity to have things not falling apart. I may leave something in the sink for maaaybe a couple hours then it bugs me and I clean it up. I make my bed every morning, again because it’ll bug me. Floors mopped or vacuumed every 1-2 weeks. Kitchen cleaned daily as I use it.
Huh, I don’t consider myself a tidy person at all, but the main areas of my house are presentable enough to have guests without embarrassment with zero notice. 30 minutes, I can clean up the mail on the counters, round up the cat toys, vacuum up the more obvious dust bunnies, and it’ll look almost perfect if you don’t look too closely. Half a day and it actually will be spotless everywhere.
That excludes my personal bedroom+bath though. Those might require a bit more work, but they’re also largely off-limits to guests.
Nope. Not really with half a day’s worth, either; though that’s probably what it’ll get.
But some people love me anyway; so I’ll let them in the house anyway.
There’s only two of us and we pick up after ourselves. We have a hyperactive 8 month old kitten who gets into everything so keeping things George clean stops a lot of stress for humans and feline. I know without looking that the throw pillows are on the living room floor due to the above mentioned kitten but other than that, come on over! If you give us some warning, hubs will have some good beer chilled and I will have cut up some cheese and stuff to snack on while we visit, so that might be a good reason to call first.
Well, if you’re just coming to dinner, I’ll set up the dish heater on the tarped catio and see you out there.
In the last 2 hours we hauled the old Tempurpedic mattress to the living room and made it up atop the guest bed, then handtrucked/lifted the new Bed in a Box to the bedroom, unbagged it and exclaimed as it and two pillows immediately inflated, replaced everything we had to move out of the stairwell, and now will let it air in the master bedroom overnight. If you want to stay with us tonight, we’ll make up the guest/exercise room for you (~10 minutes) and set out clean towels. If you just want dinner, it will be a shrimp-and-sausage paella.
I live alone in a one bedroom apartment. It’s not hard to keep it presentable. The only mess that accumulates are the dishes in the sink. With just about an hour’s notice, I could make it immaculate.
Yes, please. We’ll bring the wine.
We’ll look forward to it!
Given a half days notice, the answer is yes. 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath house with my spouse, myself and 2 house panthers (+ 5 snakes, but they own one of the bedrooms).
The non-master bedroom is set up as a micro office but has a twin and dresser for the close family friend that (barring COVID) would visit us 3-4 times a year from out of state. Right now, the bed isn’t made, and there’s an unfolded pile of clean laundry on it. But that’s a quick fix.
Doing the vacuuming, mopping the kitchen, and a surface cleaning would be a few hours to get it guest ready. But honestly, after 2 years of COVID and living in the house like a hermit, I should spring a few hundred dollars and pay for a house wide cleaning (esp. the carpets). I think though I will find better things to spend the money on.
I downsized and have lots of clutter. Most of it is due to the fact that I had to move in mid-renovation and then had a couple of emergencies drain my bank account. I still have so much to do but no money and now a bad back so I can’t complete the upgrades. For the first couple of years, I didn’t mind so much but now it is really getting on my nerves. This year, I did manage to get nice window blinds for the bedrooms and the kind of lighting fixtures I want for the living room, but I still have a long way to go.
My home doubles as my place of employment, so I do have a lot of clutter, but if someone who doesn’t know me all that well was stopping by, I’d at least shove some loose cardboard boxes into the 2nd bedroom (aka “the book room”) and close that door, and clear off the dining room table. I’d vacuum too, and probably wipe down the kitchen and bathroom.
I’m in the “if a guest shows up here, they probably already know what they’re getting into” camp, and I clean nothing. Also if they’re going to want to eat, they’re probably going to go out. I am a lethal chef and am very much not equipped to feed anybody.
Yeah, as long as we close the bedroom door. The rest of the house is not immaculate, but good enough for casual visitors.
We also in the boonies, so don’t get any drop in guests. On a rare occasion my one neighbor may come over for a beer. And house is fine for that.
If something occured that we where called and had company coming because someone was driving through, we could handle that. No major clutter, vacuum, check the kitchen and downstairs bathroom.
Providing dinner is a whole other thread IMHO. Closest restaurant is a 1/2 hour away.
Not today.
Just sayin’