Invasion of the TT Homestayers! My 14-day Game of Human Chess with Random House Guests

TT instils in me the same feelings the characters in Jurassic Park go through: hyper-vigilance and fear. Neither has anything to do with the races – I’m talking about homestayers.

For two weeks, the Island is swarmed with leather-clad visitors looking for space at an inn. And because I’m 36 and living back with my parents, I’m turfed out of my bedroom and crammed into the spare room – also known as ‘the box’ – faster than you can say, ‘Shame about the weather, the last two weeks have been glorious.’

Mum isn’t particularly thorough when it comes to doing background checks on the strangers she’s handing our spare keys – and my Nutella – to. But she is thorough when it comes to ensuring there’s as little trace of my existence as possible. (God forbid a guest sees a picture of me aged 15 and throws up all over the mattress topper.) Once my belongings have been boxed up or burned, the skirting boards blitzed with industrial chemicals, and the ceiling hoovered, the space is deemed fit for outsiders.

And then begins a 14-day game of human chess between myself and our guests.

Each morning, I wake up hoping they’ll leave the house before me so I can avoid bumping into them. Naturally, I hear their alarm go off at precisely the same time as mine. Lying on top of a mountain of 90s memorabilia – my replacement bed – with a lava lamp jutting into my clavicle, I weigh my options.

Do I get up and sprint to the bathroom before they do? Or do I wait until I hear them go, then creep out once the coast is clear? The longer I hesitate, the worse it gets. If I carry on like this, we’ll both end up walking out of our rooms at exactly the same time, which would be catastrophic.

‘Forget it,’ I think. This is my (parents’) house. I’m going in first.

I get up, grasp the door handle… and freeze. A creak from across the hall – my room. They’re moving. Do I run? Do I wait?

I wait.

Listening.

Nothing.

They’re likely poised in exactly the same way, listening for my footsteps from the room two metres opposite. I take my chance. I throw the door open and sprint for the bathroom with the urgency of Laura Dern being chased by a raptor. I make it.

Step one: complete.

Step two is equally harrowing – except now I’m naked. I haven’t heard whether the guests have gone downstairs for breakfast, so I stand behind the door, listening. Footsteps go past… but I don’t hear a bedroom door close. I’m trapped. I can’t risk a first encounter wrapped in a towel. But I also know they’ll need the bathroom soon.

I’ve waited it out before – last year, in fact – until one guest assumed no one was in and walked in on me, in a towel, sitting on the floor with my back against the bath, staring at the wall like a forgotten houseplant. He hasn’t stayed with us since.

So once again, in full Laura Dern mode, I dash back to the box room unseen. I’ve done it. Showered, unscathed, undetected.

Now all I have to do is wait for them to shower, get ready, eat, brush their teeth, grab their things, and leave the house – so I can finally enter my room and get dressed. I message work to say I’ll be late because of ‘the roads’, even though they don’t close for another seven hours.

After standing with my ear to the door for 98 minutes, they leave. I get dressed, eat breakfast, pour away the water bottle of… let’s call it ‘necessity’, and think: at least I’m out late tonight. They’ll be back and in bed by the time I return.

11pm. I get home. The lights are off. Their (my) bedroom door is shut. Excellent.

Upstairs, I settle into a candlelit bath when I hear the front door open. My stomach lurches. They weren’t in after all.

Now they’re coming up the stairs, sounding cheerily tipsy on TT Bushy’s beer. I pull the plug and start making deliberate splashing noises to make my presence known. (The upstairs bathroom door doesn’t have a lock, which adds a fun ‘will they/won’t they walk in while I’m naked’ tension to every bath.)

Again, I escape without incident. But I don’t risk darting past their room. That kind of luck doesn’t strike twice. Instead, I sneak downstairs and lurk in the dark until they go to bed.

Then horror: one of them starts coming back downstairs.

I panic. What could they be after? A snack? Something forgotten in the lounge? Maybe they left their shoes in the garage. I take the most rational route — I hide under the stairs.

I hear their footsteps above me. I freeze, like Lex and Timmy hiding from the raptors in the kitchen. At the bottom of the stairs, I hear a zip.

‘No. It can’t be,’ I think. They’ve been storing coats under the stairs. I glance at the hooks next to me – empty.

I’m stood under the stairs, towel-clad, still dripping bathwater and bubbles, bent at an unnatural angle. I stop breathing as the footsteps pause in front of the door.

What am I going to say? That I fancied a late-night game of Yahtzee?

Or do I stay absolutely still, like with the T-Rex, and gaslight them into believing I’m not really there?

And then – a miracle. They leave.

I exhale, creeping out cautiously. I’ve done it again. But then I see it – unmistakably mine: a trail of wet footprints leading from the bathroom into the cupboard, with soap bubbles on the door handle.

This pattern continues for a further 13 days. By day 14, I’m exhausted. My nerves are in tatters. But the end is in sight.

The final morning, I hear the front door open and shut. Finally! I head to breakfast with a spring in my step, bursting into the kitchen yelling, ‘FREEDOM!’

Only to find I’ve been duped again.

The guests sit at the table, sausages mid-air, staring at me.

I’m not wearing a bra. I’ve just quoted Braveheart. There is no one to mediate the awkwardness. Excellent.

But oddly – they’re lovely. Polite. Warm. A little apprehensive, sure, but who wouldn’t be?

A few hours later, I watch them leave from the window. They wave. I wave back.

I feel like Sam Neill at the end of Jurassic Park, watching the pelicans fly past the helicopter. Emotionally drained, a little traumatised, but with a new appreciation for the species – in this case, the TT homestayer.

And just like the dinosaurs, they never returned.