Last updated 19 August 2026

Code of conduct

We are living in one house together for three nights. These are the things we expect of each other while we are in it, and what happens when somebody does not manage them.

Who this applies to

Everyone in the house, for the whole stay, organisers included. If you bring somebody with you, it applies to them too and you are the person we will talk to about it.

Still to confirm. Whether day visitors who are not registered may come to the house at all.

This is a house, not a convention centre

There is no security team, no ops desk and nowhere to go and be somewhere else. Your bedroom is a staircase from the lounge, the spa is indoors and shared, and the kitchen is a room everybody has to use. The rules below exist because we are living on top of each other for three days, not because a venue insisted on them.

Only one of the two buildings on the terrace is ours. Whoever is in the other one did not sign up for any of this, and neither did the village. That is the real reason for the lines about noise and about the terrace, rather than an appeal to being considerate in the abstract.

Photography

There are no designated photo areas here, because there are no designated areas at all. So the rule attaches to people rather than to rooms: ask before you photograph anyone, and ask again before you post it. Somebody agreeing to a photo has not agreed to it being on the internet.

If you are asked to delete something, delete it there and then.

Still to confirm. Which spaces are absolute no-camera regardless of consent. The spa and the bedrooms are the obvious candidates and stating them as absolute is cleaner than leaving them to be negotiated. Also whether anyone is shooting on behalf of the event, and what happens to any group photo afterwards.

Fursuiting

Suiters get right of way on the stairs and in doorways, which in a three floor house with bedrooms above and below the living floor is not a formality.

Do not grab. Do not pick anyone up. Do not put a drink in a suiter’s paw without asking first. If a suiter signals they need out of a space or need it clear, give it to them immediately and ask questions later.

Still to confirm. Where suiting up happens and where heads are stored, whether suits are welcome in the kitchen, the dining room and the spa, and whether the terrace and the lane outside are in scope given the neighbouring building and the village.

Drink

Nobody is counting your drinks. But the person who cannot be woken is everybody’s problem in a house on a hill, thirty minutes of driving from the nearest station, in January. Look after the people you arrived with, and tell an organiser early rather than late.

Still to confirm. Whether alcohol is bring your own, bought collectively, or provided. Whether there is any cutoff. The position on illegal drugs, and whether the page states it outright. And whether one person is nominated as sober and reachable overnight.

Noise and shared space

The bedrooms sit above and below the living floor rather than off a corridor, so the lounge at one in the morning is a staircase from somebody’s pillow rather than a thin wall. That is genuinely better than a hotel and it is why there is no hard curfew indoors.

The terrace is different, because the building next door is not ours.

The kitchen is the one room everyone needs. Clear up after yourself in it.

Still to confirm. Whether there is a stated quiet time, and whether the terrace has an earlier cutoff than the inside of the house.

Harassment

Not tolerated, and worth being specific rather than gesturing at behaviour that makes people uncomfortable.

  • Sexual harassment, and continuing after a no
  • Racism, transphobia, homophobia and the rest of that family
  • Following somebody around the house, or engineering it so they cannot get away from you
  • Photographing somebody who said no, or posting a photo somebody asked you not to
  • Going through somebody’s belongings, or entering a bedroom uninvited
  • Pressuring somebody into the spa, into a bedroom, or into a drink

Telling somebody

Until the details below are settled, the route is info@rochehowl.be. That is a shared inbox, and it is honestly not good enough for something happening at two in the morning in a house with no front desk, which is why it is being fixed before the event.

Email info@rochehowl.be

Still to confirm. This is the section that most needs finishing. It needs at least one named person and preferably two, so that a report can be made about an organiser. It needs a channel that works overnight without a laptop, which realistically means a phone number. And it needs an answer on whether a report can be made anonymously.

What happens after you tell somebody

Somebody listens properly. You say what you want to happen. The organisers decide and tell you what they decided. Your name is not passed to the person you reported without asking you first.

Still to confirm. What gets written down, who can read it and how long it is kept. Whatever is decided has to match what the privacy page says, because a written record of a report is sensitive data about at least two people.

Being asked to leave

Removing somebody from a house on a hill in January is not the same as walking them out of a convention centre. There is no bus, the nearest station is half an hour of driving away, and it will be dark and cold. That is not a reason to avoid doing it. It is a reason to be honest about what it involves.

Still to confirm. The ladder itself: a quiet word, exclusion from a space, removal from the house, a ban from future events, and involving the police. Also whether being removed forfeits what you paid, which has to say the same thing here as it does in the booking terms.