The Lingerer

I now have a false neutral on my profile lets talk about how being a lingerer is not a good thing. 

Its not. Lets understand you are staying in someones house who is letting you stay there out of the goodness of their hearts. If you want to stay longer then you need to communicate this with your host. If they want you out than you shouldn't be complaining or arguing about it you should leave on the date they requested.

My lingerer left this response in a reference to me

Then she went & booked other CSers without consulting me about my plans, which I thought was very inconsiderate & thoughtless as I had to reschedule everything and find last minute lodgings (where places were already fully booked).

So I will start by saying, yep this is true. I invited other couchsurfers without asking him what he was doing. I had no idea what he was doing he never told me what dates he planned to stay at my house just left it open ended. I came to an understanding that he intended to stay nearly two weeks (going on a two day tour in between) after asking my mother if she could drive him to the airport on Saturday. She then came to me whispering

amanda when is leaving he seems to think he is going to be around forever

There was never any communication between me, my mother or my sister on what dates he was supposed to be there. #1 rule of hosting or surfing - Make sure you confirm dates.

This was the extent of our length of stay communication I have copy pasted this from private messages

Lingerer:
 Can you host for a week or longer (although I may be making some side trips during that time and just leaving some luggage behind)?


Me:
as for hosting more than a week we only host up to 7 days after that if surfers want to stay longer we expect contributions of $60 a week to cover water & electricity which is really expensive in Darwin. if you are away on trips its fine to leave luggage and I don't consider time away as part of the seven day limit.

And that's it. No dates were set or asked for. He asked if he could stay longer I said I usually let surfers stay longer than seven days if they pay $60 to cover costs he never confirmed that was ok. After five days surfing with me I became aware my family was not that keen on him so I asked him to leave in two days telling him I had other surfers. 

I don't believe any of the steps I took was my fault except I should have had clear expectations in the beginning. The difference between the lingerer and me is that he is travelling on his own schedule I however have a very set schedule. And most hosts have this. Suggesting that accommodation was booked out in off season is a lie. There is plenty of accommodation in Darwin in March. I checked with some hostels as I found his accusation a bit ludicrous and was informed that yes there was plenty of accommodation. If he didn't want to pay for accommodations he should have asked before booking his flights to Thailand if he could stay at my house until the following Saturday.

Surfers need to take responsibility for their own schedules and not expect to rely on a host EVER you are the traveler not us. Don't Be a Lingerer.