Edited to leave unsaid what I was going to say. The suggestion that since I am not willing to open my home indiscriminately, I should not open it at all, is puzzling to me, but I'm going to retract my lost temper.

Hubby just told me, "You don't need to justify yourself for not wanting to open your house up to a bunch of bums." He says from now on, if my daughter needs her laundry done, he'll pick her up, with her laundry and ONLY her laundry, not theirs. And he'll drop her off. My children are welcome in my home, make no mistake. It's the street urchins my oldest wants to bring along with her, that I don't want. Neither does hubby. He is a city bus driver and says he deals with them enough, without having them follow him home.

The others who have responded in this thread and offered *support,* and constructive insight on the subject of personal space and setting boundaries--which is the real issue--thank you. I would appreciate advice on how to be more effective when setting boundaries, since my attempts get ignored, just as in the college example above. As for my oldest daughter's kind-heartedness in trying to "cure" young homeless people, I'm afraid her efforts are going to be futile. I saw my mother take drunken bums in off the street, and try to make a decent father figure out of them, and it always failed. I even did it myself. Opened my home to a homeless person because I felt sorry for him. We fell in love, got married, and he ended up going through every penny I had until I was out on the streets along with him. So no more of that.