Middle Class Problems: We're happy to let friends and family stay - except when it comes to sharing the bathroom

Do our toiletries pass muster? Is there enough shelf space? Are the towels fluffy enough?

'Oh god. Aren't the neighbours away? Maybe I could pop in and use theirs."

Don't get me wrong, it's nice that family and friends make the most of the fact that we live in London. It being one of the most expensive cities in the world, they cannily decide that staying with us in our tiny two-up, two-down, one-bathroom household in Hackney is preferable to Airbnb'ing or some dodgy hotel. And we (generally) are happy to have them – except when it comes to sharing that one bathroom.

It begins with the toiletries; do ours pass muster? Are they organic/fashionable/natural/fragrant/pretty/expensive enough? Are containers clean and quantities sufficient? Is there enough shelf space for guests to put out their own toiletries should ours prove wanting?

Then it's on to towels. Bales of clean, fluffy, not-too-old towels in at least two sizes and different colours for each guest necessitate a raid on Ikea, because last year's selection seems to have become too tatty to use for anything but hair-dyeing, the pet basket, flood clear-up or draught exclusion.

But of course the real challenge of sharing a bathroom with anyone other than immediate family is, well, sharing a bathroom with anyone other than immediate family. How do you explain your OCD desire for the shower stall to be squeegeed after use? Will your shower rota seem a tad, ah, militaristic? But most of all, how to coyly convey that "I need the bathroom now" means now, not in five minutes?

Dammit, where did I put the neighbour's spare key?