Last night I slept on the pull out bed/sofa at my friends’ house. I’m sure that she will wash the sheets and everything today or tomorrow, so I figure making the bed is a waste of time. However, I feel like it is rude not to. What do the Dopers think?
Rude not to. Yeah, she’ll probably wash the sheets, but she may not do it the moment you leave, and she shouldn’t have to look at an unmade bed in the meantime. My rule of thumb is to try to leave as little evidence that I’ve been there as possible when I’m a guest.
If I’m staying at someone else’s house, I always make it when I get up - even though I almost never make up mine at home.
I don’t remember where, but what I’ve heard is you should strip the bed and fold the sheets and leave them on the bed folded. I always thought that was excessive. It depends if it’s a bed or a pull-out. I’d strip the pullout and fold it back up, and I think that’s what I’ve always done (it’s been a while since I slept on a pullout.) On a regular bed I just make the bed.
Do whatever simplifies things for your friend. If you think she’ll wash the sheets (and I do, even if a guest has only been there one night), take them off the bed and fold the bed back up.
It’s all about being a good guest so that you’re invited back!
I always ask in cases like this. If it’s a sleeper bed, it would make much more sense to strip the bed than to make the bed, since the “bed” view isn’t really the normal view. If I’m spending several days in a friend’s sleeper sofa bed, I generally just straighten out the blankets and sheets in the morning, then fold them back into the sofa for the day. When I leave, I strip the sheets off the bed, ask where the sheets should go, and leave the blankets folded somewhere nearby, if I can’t tell where they are supposed to be stored.
My in-laws appreciate it if we strip our beds and leave the sheets in the laundry room when we leave at the end of a stay. Comforters, blankets, etc. are left on the beds, and the beds are “made” in that they look like made beds with no sheets.
Normally, make the bed unless they say “don’t worry about it”, in which case you still ask if they’d like you to strip it. Sofa bed, I’d ask “Should I take the sheets off?” and then go with whatever they said. But if I were staying in somebody’s guest room and had no directions otherwise, I’d make the bed.
I always ask what they prefer.
GT
I always ask what the host prefers that I do.
I also ask
Unless, that is, I’m staying with someone in my mother’s family. If I ask one of them I’ll hear “oh, you’re a guest, don’t you worry about it. You take it easy. I’ll take care of it. I’ll go up those stairs with my bad knee, bend over the bed with my aching back, and strip the bed with my arthritic fingers. You just sit down and have a cup of coffee. If you don’t see me in 15 minutes, I’ve fallen on the hard wood floor and broken my hip…” :rolleyes:
In those cases, I just ask where in the laundry room I should deposit my used sheets. Then I run for another room.
Just ask. Sometimes they don’t want you to make the bed because they’re about to wash linens.
When in doubt, though, make the bed.
I always make the bed. I’ll never forget the time my aunt yelled to me from the other room “and make the damn bed, what do you think this is a damn hotel or somethin’?!” after I had been spending the night there on occasion for a number of months.
I felt like ass. 
So now I’m paranoid. I never make the bed at home (unless I’m sucking up to my S.O.) but I always do it when I’m a guest somewhere.
Unless it is a damn hotel or somethin’ 
I used to strip the bed and fold everything up neatly, but then my mother pointed out that the mattress might be stained, and my host might be embarrassed by that. (I took her word for it.) Now I ask what they’d like, but most people won’t let me do anything, even if I’m pretty sure they’ll just strip the bed the moment I leave.
If it is practical, I bring a sleeping bag. (I also bring my own towel*)
If they set up a fold out couch I fold it back up / put the cushion.
Brian
- and know where it is
I always make the bed as well, unless it is something simple like a fold out bed and I’m only staying for one night, in which case, I take the sheets off, put them in the laundry room and fold up the bed. To me, it’s the same thing as using one of their towels and hanging it back up when I’m done as opposed to tossing it on the floor and leaving it there. They’re being hospitable, the least I can do is show some respect by not leaving a mess for them to clean up (or at least minimizing the mess…all that feces flinging does defeat most of my efforts, but hey, it gets a laugh).
Miss Manners says that you should ask the host her preference. If you can’t ask, or don’t get an answer, you should fold the sheets and make the bed with the blankets . You don’t make it with the sheets because you don’t want the hostess to infer that you don’t think she washes the sheets between guests.
If I’m staying again, I make it. On the day I leave, I ask “do I leave it like this or take the sheets off?”
I seem to recall something different from Ms. Manners, that one does not make the bed. One may arrange it so as to be neat, but that’s different from making it.
Regardless of what she says, if etiquette (sp?) is to prevent imposing discomfort, then handling your own sheets is probably the best way to go. Especially if you’re a character in Trainspotting.
This is what Miss Manners had to say.
My version of making a bed is just to neaten it, anyway. I don’t know what else there is to it other than pulling the covers arond so they’re flat and straightening pillows. What do you do when you make a bed?
Well, it depends. For some people a bed isn’t made if you can’t bounce a Quarter on it. So what you’ve described is what I’ve described; however, some people must tuck things in and make sure things are perfectly straight and so on when they make a bed, so I put it that way keeping them in mind.
What I read was decidedly different from what I read in your link. (Not different in spirit, but the specific prose.) Maybe it was another advice person. Or maybe I dreamt it.