People Who Lived Abroad With A Host Family Are Sharing Their Wildest Experiences, And It's Part Funny And Part Shocking
We recently asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us the wildest stories they had about living with a host family or hosting a student from abroad. The stories they had were quite unexpected. Here are the best ones:
1."I lived overseas doing volunteer work for a year after college. One of my host sisters stole from my room constantly. She would take money, clothing, food, a camera, and even my vibrator. My host parents refused to do anything, so my organization got me a lock on the door. I came home to find her unscrewing the lock from the door to get in."
—Anonymous
2."I studied in Gijón, Spain for two months in the summer of 2022. My host mom was a 63-year-old woman who would work as a nanny for a couple of hours a week in the morning, nap all afternoon, and then go out to the bars from 5 or 6 p.m. until 1 a.m. every night. I barely saw the woman. Sometimes I’d wake up and there was a man in the house that had stayed over. She’d go on about how sorry she was a bad host, but she was so 'in love.' I also discovered I have a stomach disorder because her food, which she rarely refrigerated, constantly made me feel sick."
"The best part was when my professor asked how my host family was. I told him not the best, and when I told him the name of my host mom he was confused. 'We don’t have any host families with that name,' he said. It turned out, this lady was the mother of the lady who was supposed to host me."
—Anonymous
3."I studied abroad in Europe in a few countries. In France, my host mother told me within five minutes of us meeting that her husband had left her for his secretary and that her son had died. She was convinced the ghost of her dead son lived in the attic and anytime there was a noise in the house she would chuckle and say 'Oh, that's just Fabian.' She thought I should find that comforting."
4."I went on exchange from Canada to France in grade 12. One night, my host took me to a country party and then left me alone all night to hook up with her ex-boyfriend. I had to sleep in an unlocked car because I didn’t know anybody and there were adult men who kept trying to hit on me. I was terrified."
"I also go extremely ill when I was there. I woke up one night to go to the washroom and fainted. When I came to I was covered in my own vomit, urine, and poop. I had a seizure. It turns out she heard me pass out and never came to check on me. She told me later she watched two episodes of Gossip Girl before she heard me wake up and crawl back to my room. Her mom was great though."
—Anonymous
5."I studied in Germany back in the 1990s and one of my classmates knocked up his married host mother. She ended up pregnant and it resulted in her marriage ending. She actually came to the US and he totally ignored her."
—Anonymous
6."I was doing a two-month internship in England and the local secretary from my program helped me find a place to stay. She invited me to stay at hers in the meantime and introduced me to her boyfriend. They were both in their late 40s and I was 19. They offered me a threesome but I declined. Later that night, I heard them come into my room and I pretended to sleep so they left. I found an apartment soon after but still had to see her every day at my job."
—Anonymous
7."I studied abroad in Sevilla, Spain. My host family also was incredibly bad. First, no one ever gave me a tour of the host's sprawling apartment. I lived there for several months before one day I opened a door to find an elderly woman napping in a hospital bed. Apparently, this was the host's mother, though I was never introduced to her, nor did I even know of her existence! Second, the adult son lived below his mother (my host). I was never introduced to him, but he would come to his mother's apartment and take long daily showers so he wouldn't have to pay for his own water. The host then accused me of using up all the water! I resorted to only showering every few days and even then the woman continued to accuse me of using her water. Remember, these people are paid to host foreign students."
"I was never notified of meal times, the host was never around and never left me notes. She left crackers for my breakfast, which was fine, except the crackers were infested with mealworms. This woman then had the gall to tell me and my university's study abroad program that I needed to move out because I studied too much in the house and was therefore too expensive because I used her utilities. Again, she was paid to house me! And I had also done at least a month's worth of traveling around Europe and spent almost every day exploring the city and hanging out at the university. At first, my program sided with her until I chewed them out in what was by then perfect Spanish about all the insanity this lady had inflicted on me. They were mortified. I immediately moved to a different apartment where I was housed by an extremely wonderful elderly lady who was great. I love Sevilla so much, but I wish I had just taken the international student dormitory over a host family."
—Anonymous
8."I studied abroad in Ghana, West Africa in 2012. I stayed with a host family for the entirety of my stay, along with another woman from my college. It was…interesting. I was an African Studies minor, so the culture wasn’t a complete shock but the treatment from the family sure was. The family was the mother (who we called Auntie), the father, and one adult son. The adult son was the WORST. He was attracted to me and constantly proposed marriage to me. It was extremely uncomfortable. Once I made it perfectly clear I was uninterested, he did a complete 180 and made my time there very difficult. He tried to get me deported!! He stole my headphones and spread lies about me to the community."
"Auntie had also promised a local seamstress all my business before I even landed in West Africa. I didn’t like her designs so I found my own seamstress. Auntie and her seamstress confronted me on the street one day yelling at me about how I needed to give them money. One time I had malaria and needed a ride to the university hospital but the father claimed he only used the car for Auntie’s hair appointments so I had to walk to the hospital!"
—Anonymous
9."I had a lovely host mom, except for two things. I was in Paris, and, being half-Jewish, I decided to write my thesis on the history of anti-semitism in France. My host mom, out of nowhere, gave me a lecture on how there was never any anti-semitism in France and it was all made up. Another time, a guy started talking to me in a club and insisted on walking me home. I felt I had no choice but to give him my number to make him go away. I told her he'd made me uncomfortable, wouldn't stop calling me, saying he wanted to marry me and we were meant to be together. She said I should have him over for dinner, I should give him a chance."
—Anonymous
10."I went to Clemson undergrad and did a summer semester study abroad program in Quito, Ecuador. My host family was great but there was one event that was really strange. The woman’s son lived with her and one day when I came home realized that he had used my razor to shave and his face didn’t look like it had been shaved in quite a while so I can only imagine the areas he used it. He also found my stash of weed, took some, and left the bag open on my desk for anyone to see."
—Anonymous
11."I lived in an apartment with a family in Spain. They had a horrible little dog that never left the apartment. Ever. I learned very quickly to watch where I was stepping, especially when coming home in the early morning hours."
—Anonymous
12."My family hosted an exchange student from Italy when I was in high school and he literally didn’t know how to prepare a single thing to eat. I’m not talking about preparing a full dinner or anything like that. I literally had to teach him how to make CEREAL. It’s maybe even fine enough if he just genuinely was never taught, but at a certain point he shares his view that it is wrong for a man to be expected to prepare any kind of food because it’s a woman’s job to feed him. Obviously, we called this out for the sexism it was, and it didn’t take long for him to request a reassignment to a new family a week or two later. Needless to say, none of us tried to convince him to stay."
—Anonymous
13."My South American host mom fed a lot of stray cats on her rooftop. Sometimes they didn’t all get along and would mewl and hiss and fight until late at night. Surely the neighbors were as bothered by it as I was. It was common to be woken up by a catfight out of nowhere."
—Anonymous
14."I studied abroad in Washington State. The host family got money to help with my expenses but they only fed me nachos for dinner. Just plain chips with cheese and salsa, no meat, avocado, lettuce or whatever."
—Anonymous
15.And lastly, "I studied abroad in Spain. I soon began dating a guy whose parents were in my host parents' friend group. We all had a weekly dinner together. Both my host dad (who traveled a lot for work) and my boyfriend's dad worked at the local airport. At some point, my boyfriend told me that his dad had caught my host dad having an affair at work! He walked in on him and his mistress fooling around at work. My host mom and host siblings didn't know, and I just had to live out the rest of my time with them knowing this awful secret but not feeling like I could tell anyone. As far as I know, they're still together, but we aren't close. I never told anyone."
—Anonymous
