Unannounced Pop-in

madamerwin

Why does anyone think it's ok to do this?? My sister and BIL used to pop in without warning, until I gently mentioned to sister that, as much as we love them, we absolutely do not like unannounced company. It's not that hard to text to see if we are free.

We have one friend who is allowed to do this, mainly because her 3 year-old daughter is our goddaughter, and if they drive anywhere near our house, the kid demands that they stop to say hi. But these friends have seen us and our house in all states of disarray, and I don't feel like we need to entertain them. But they are literally the only people who can stop by unannounced without making me ragey.

kns1988

My family is a complete pop in family. They'll walk right in without knocking, but I've lived 3 hours away for the past 8 years so they obviously can't do it to me. My sister, on the other hand, lives in our home town. She started keeping the doors locked so that they have to call.

H doesn't do pop ins, but he and his friends are totally cool with inviting themselves over to each other's houses. Like, "hey, want to watch the game? your place?" I'm still getting used to that, but they've been friends for 20 years so I guess it's just the norm for them.

lightningsnow

I do this only with my parents. That's just because there is always someone home and if not I have a key.

BF's mentally unstable uncle has done this several times to his widowed mother. She has really bad anxiety attacks. One morning she came down and he was sitting in the living room. He has spoken to him every time this happens yet his uncle doesn't learn.

WinstonsGirl

I do on occasion, with my parents or my brother.  But I also have keys to their houses (parents is the house I grew up in, so it's kinda still my house).  With my brother, it's only evening-ish, when they're finished dinner/hanging out with kids.  Never weekends/early morning/late night.  But we do that in my family, so it's ok.  

I wouldn't do it with friends/acquaintances/etc.  I also don't have a cell, so while I try to call from home, occasionally I can't

kaitlynmichelle

We live in the basement and BIL in the upstairs part of a house. So usually he'll knock on the door at some point in the evening to chat with H. It drives me mildly crazy. He used to just come in and bring his dogs in with him. We had a pretty stern chat about that and he's much better.

Other BIL lives a 10 min drive away so sometimes he pops over. They all know that if they show up with no warning it means my place might be a disaster. He's almost always texting first or setting up a time the night before. He came by unannounced to say hello last week but had bought me my favourite beer on his way. He came over as I was cooking dinner so he ended up staying. I didn't mind, because beer.

Other people show up unannounced, I don't answer the door. I would never just show up at someone's place either. That would piss me off. I'm saved from parents and inlaws showing up out of the blue because if they did, they flew across the country without telling us.

STARMOON44

I grew up doing this all the time and loved when my mothers friends would call round for afternoon tea. It makes me sad, but I agree the custom is falling by the wayside. I tend to keep my house fairly company ready but I still like a 5 minute heads up.

APDSS22

Thank goodness no one does this to us.  I feel bad that the alarm install guy had to see the house the way it is since we're still unpacking and I'll probably never see him again.

jdluvr06

My family is like this. We drop in on each other a lot. We kind of treat each others houses like our homes away from home. That is just our dynamic though. I couldn't imagine just dropping by a friend's house , well except my bff but I really include him more in the family category.

Chipmunk415

yay for living 2 hrs away from my parents. No pop ins.

The last time we had something close to pop ins, it was two missionaries from a particular, famous denomination in Utah. In defense of DH, we'd just finished a lovely dinner with wine, and he was slightly buzzed...

He opens the door, sees these two fresh faced young men, who politely introduce themselves. DH smiles and says "Oh! Mormons!" This wouldn't be bad, if it weren't for the fact that his buzzed exuberance gave him the excited, non malicious tone of "look honey! the circus is in town!" Poor kids weren't sure what was going on, but were happy to accept a glass of water (It's ridiculously hot and humid even at 7:30 in the evening in FL...) and chat for a few minutes.

WinstonsGirl

Ha.  My brother just pulled up this evening with his kids for a 5 min visit.  He had them out in the bike chariot thing for a ride and stopped by.  He knocked.  If we were busy, we just wouldn't answer.  Like I said, family is ok with us but no one else. 

lovemesomemonster

The ONLY time this is OK is if my house is on fire and you are my neighbor, maybe come see if I have noticed, or if you come with a beverage. Our neighbors across the street in our old house were AWESOME, we hung out with them all the time. Her H was military and deployed and FI goes out of state every summer. If we were texting and either of us was having a rough day and we could see that they were home we showed up on the door step with two glasses of wine. We also had keys to each other's houses and regularly asked the other one "hey, I'm working late, can you let my dog out?" which ROCKED. So in this situation totally cool because we had that agreement, anyone else NOPE.