A lot of my extended family, including me, had to go somewhere. It’s far enough away it requires an overnight stay. I was taking a lift with some people and was paying for my share of the petrol. As far as I was concerned that’s the only expense I could afford for this trip. As such I was perfectly willing to spend the night hanging around a supermarket car park reading my ebook rather than paying the price for short notice accommodation. A different group of people to those who gave me the lift, who I’m related to but not really friends with, had booked a cottage that sleeps 8 but there were only 6 of them so a room was free. One of them, hearing I wasn’t planning to sleep the night offered the bed. Nobody dissented so I ended up sleeping in the cottage. I didn’t offer payment and wasn’t asked for any but afterwards I have heard grumblings.
So, I took a room that was offered, that wouldn’t have otherwise been used, didn’t directly affect anybody else. However, these people split the cost 6 ways for something that ultimately benefited 7. Nobody made any objection known earlier.
So what do you think, should I have offered to pay a full share or a smaller share despite the fact I’d not arranged accommodation because I can’t afford it, should I have refused the bed if I wasn’t going to pay anything towards it?
IMHO, you should have made it clear to the offerer that you wouldn’t be paying, and let him make the decision: “Look, I’m sleeping in my car because I honestly can’t afford to rent a hotel room, so I can’t pitch in to the cost of the house either. If that’s OK, thanks for letting me stay in the extra room. If it’s not OK, no hard feelings.” That way if he was just being nice, great, if he only was looking to reduce his payment by 14%, you’re back where you started.
If the ‘grumblings’, amount to a remark such as, “It would have been kind for him to have offered.”, and others NOT disagreeing, which I think is most likely, then I’d just let it go.
You can’t change it, someone knew you didn’t take a room due to cost and understands even if they didn’t speak up. These grumbling seem like afterthought busybodying to me. I’d choose not to care as I cannot change it now, and move on. This will pass.
But don’t question yourself, you didn’t do anything wrong.
Well, the universal expectation when booking a hotel room, cottage or rental house (as opposed to staying in someone’s home as a guest) is that everyone should split the cost in some way that is agreed upon in advance. Adding someone at the last minute doesn’t mean they get to stay there free, unless that is agreed to by everyone. One guest shouldn’t unilaterally let someone use “the empty bed” or “the empty room” for free. Others may, in fact, wonder if the surprise guest paid something that was secretly pocketed.
But, we are talking about relatives, who should certainly be compassionate and accommodating to a relative who is short on funds. Was your money shortage communicated to the group?
So, it entirely depends on how and when everything was communicated to the entire group. But, in the end, it’s lodging for one night, and probably small potatoes. I’d forget about the whole thing, until a similar situation comes up… and then offer to pay for your share, or contribute to the group in some way.
You are right, they are wrong. You don’t offer something to someone and then grumble because he didn’t pay for it. Especially since, if they knew that you intended to sleep in your car, it was clear that you couldn’t or didn’t want to pay for a room. And even more so since it costed them nothing as they had an unused room.
This would give me a seriously bad opinion of the grumblers.
This is a case where Miss Manners’s attitude towards invitations and hospitality seems eminently reasonable to me. If you invite someone to dinner, or to stay in your rented cottage, without explicitly asking them to pay their share, you have set yourself up as providing hospitality for that person without compensation.
You shouldn’t be butt-hurt when they fail to protest and say “no, no, let me pay for my share of dinner/the cottage/whatever.” If the offer is conditional, it should be made with conditions from the outset.
Ideally, when the OP is Ina position to return the favor in some way, they will be equally gracious. Even if they can’t offer something of equal value in absolute terms.
EDIT: Miss Manners would have a much more elegant way to say “butt-hurt.”
This one is closer to my thinking. No great wrong was committed by anybody here. But there could be some minor fault to go around based on lack of communication IMO. Like if the direct offerer wasn’t clear at the time in getting the other paying members’ agreement to let in OP for free. And OP to some degree if OP wasn’t clear about not having the money to pay. Lack of complete faultlessness in OP’s position IMO is indicated by the faulty logic about ‘extra’ room. What room is ‘extra’ among X rooms paid for by Y people? That’s arbitrary. The totally correct position from OP’s POV would be ‘it was made clear to them I couldn’t pay anything, they agreed on that basis I could stay for free, but now they’re grumbling about it I hear’. It doesn’t seem to be quite that, though hardly a big deal (or whoever turns it into one, it’s on them).
With the semi-caveat that ‘I’m related to them but not really friends with them’ suggests a kind of relationship I’m not familiar with. My extended family aren’t my friends, they’re my family.
Yep, this. I’ve done the chateau/beach house thing several times, and it’s understood that a full room = a share of the cost unless otherwise made explicit. Couches are different.
You should have made it clear. Just a simple, “I appreciate it, but I don’t really want to spend the money” would be fine. That’s more than enough to start the “oh no, we insist” dance. No need for an extended explanation.
I have a number of “moochie” relatives and friends. One thing that they seem to be good at is manipulating situations so that they don’t have to pay money.
For this particular case, how much of it is your relatives offering you a favor and how much of it is you putting yourself in a situation where you have no accommodations and on some level are relying on other people feeling bad about you hanging around the parking lot for 6 hours?
IMO, the OPer twice put his relatives in a very awkward position. Had my relative asked to bum a ride with me to a family function, and then told me that he was planning on spending the night in a parking lot to save money, I’d have said absolutely not. I wouldn’t have wanted to worry about his/her safety, nor would I have wanted the inconvenience of having to go fetch him/her in the morning.
No, his 2 options would have been: Stay in a room (even if it was on the floor of my room, assuming I was close enough to him that it wouldn’t feel ridiculously awkward); or 2) Stay home.
However, I’m with mssmith537 and believe that he was either deliberately or obtusely angling for a free room with his “I’ll stay all night in a car park” line. I’m leaning towards “deliberate” because of his OP:
“…rather than paying the price for short notice accommodation.”
“One of them, hearing I wasn’t planning to sleep the night offered the bed.”
and this:
“Nobody dissented so I ended up sleeping in the cottage. I didn’t offer payment and wasn’t asked for any but afterwards I have heard grumblings.”
I daresay that 1/7th of the cottage wasn’t even close to the price you’d have had to pay for “short notice (single occupancy) accommodation.”
If you were quite willing to actually spend the night in a parking lot, then you could and should have done so discreetly. They couldn’t “hear” that you didn’t plan to sleep if you didn’t SAY it. You must have known that saying this would elicit sympathy, and quite probably, a free bed.
As others have said, you did have the opportunity to offer a token payment or at least make it crystal clear that you had NO money. Had you done that, and they insisted, then at least you made a feeble attempt. There’s no shame in accepting generosity freely given; there is shame in accepting forced generosity.
So AT BEST, you were putting people in a very awkward position. At worst, you were taking advantage of them. You have no idea what the financial situation was for the 6 people you shared that cottage with. You also don’t know for certain that the hapless relative who made the offer, didn’t ultimately pay your fair share in order to stifle the “grumbling.”
That being said, $40-50 isn’t a huge deal. Personally, I’d write each and every one of them a heartfelt note, thanking them for allowing you to stay for free. It won’t cost much, but it will help you and them feel a little better about the situation.
I agree that the OP has no obligation to pay; the offer was made without any agreement for payment. I also agree that to keep everyone on the same page, he should have made it clear that he couldn’t afford to pay for it - an offer like the room is usually met with a counter-offer to insist that you help pay for it, so letting them know that you’re tight for money would have kept them from being resentful.
Just a few data points: When offered I did state the reason I had not booked anywhere was that I couldn’t afford it, and some of the places I could have booked online came in at lower than 1/7 of the cottage cost. Everybody heard the offer, and heard me explain I had already not taken up accommodation that cost less than 1/7 of the cottage cost. It wasn’t a secret or a miscommunication on my part.
When I owned a car, every so often I would have to go somewhere and stay overnight. I would find a quiet street and sleep in my car rather than pay for accommodation. This has happened several times and is also not a secret. Now I’m not a car owner I can’t sleep in my car, but spending some hours in a well lit 24 hour supermarket car park, when I’m not the one that has to drive in the morning, doesn’t seem like much of a chore. This was also within walking distance of where the liftgivers were staying so they wouldn’t even have to do the dreaded task of gasp picking me up from somewhere else!!! that PunditLisa would be so loathe to do:rolleyes:. They did have to pick me up from the cottage.
