I had one student from American University stay for 2 weeks. I think he was Chinese because he had Asian features and spoke with a British accent.
I had an older man stay here for about 7-9 days.
I had a one-nighter middle-aged man stay here 1 day.
I have a large house and was able to give them a bedroom with a bunk bed. In theory two people could have utilized the room but theory never is the reality. That part of the house came with its own 3/4 bathroom (toilet, sink, shower but no tub). I furnished linens. The reason I liked that set up was the fact that that part of the house was isolated from my bedroom where I have a master bath. Also that bedroom had a side entrance/door to the house. The house was originally configured to have servants quarters, and the room with the bunk bed was formerly the servant's part of the house.
I have heard of traveling staff staying in everything from separate rooms to sleeper sofas to sofas. So I guess the quarters that I offered were about average.
On the one hand having the guests segregated worked for the situation at hand - campaigning: leaving early and working until very late at night. On the other hand, wished that I could have interacted and engaged with guests more. But yet engaging with guests a lot implies that this is some sort of B&B arrangement, again a situation that I didn't necessarily want to promote because in addition to preparing the rooms, I would have also been a cook.
One thing that I didn't like and that you should be aware of or plan for was kitchen space....I'm extremely finicky about food and I really didn't want to share my kitchen, especially without notice. I was somewhat surprised when this college student who was staying at my house walked in with a bag of groceries to unload in the kitchen. Again, this was not like guests who I would have prepared food for - it would have ended up we were both sharing the kitchen. This ended up being resolved with the college student keeping his food at another location....
I had another man - adult in his 50's or 60's also stay here. He stayed for 5 days, drove back to NY and then stayed here another 3 days. On the day(s) that he was in NY, I had yet another person stay here but only for one night. He took the top bed of the bunk-bed.
In the cases of people staying here for several days (+), I trusted them just on who they said they were and that they came through the Sanders campaign staff. In these cases, I gave them the key to my house.
One thing that I have heard from all of these guests is that when it gets very close to the actual day of the primary, there are no hotel-motel rooms in town. Room & board is at a premium. I've also gathered that the guests who stay here are on tight budgets - this is why they may want to bring there own food. In the case of my guests, the ones who stayed here for long periods of time stored food in my refrigerator but didn't cook.
I live alone and in some ways felt abandoned by the campaign staff because they didn't provide lots of guidance other than giving me the name of the guest and telling me the approximate days that they would be here. (Dates that guests were here varied slightly as the campaign unfolded.) Other than that one is on their own....and as I mentioned above, there is very limited interaction with the guests.
In summary, the experience of having guests for the primary campaign reminded me of what I read about the Russian revolutionaries and how single minded its organizers/participants were.....The only thing that they thought about was the revolution, the revolution, the revolution. Well the Sanders primary campaign is like that - the official paid staff works about 80+ hours a week.....They work about 6 days a week or until they drop, take a day off and then go at it again. I've seen some staff very organized, others are kind of loose cannons. Your roll in hosting will be like a cog in the machinery to try to get everything to work and to not interfere.
One interesting note - on the occasion that the college student was staying here - it was New Year's Eve. I swear I thought I smelled something burning, like what I thought was marijuana smoking. I never said anything or found anything but I'll always wonder.
Please message me if you have questions.
Thanks for listening.
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