When our son was on parole I was shocked when the PO came to our house each month. That was 10 years ago so it has been a learning process for us. The PO was a woman. She was very nice. She rang doorbell and introduced herself to me. I invited her in (would not do that if I'd known then what I know now except for inspection). I was raised to be gracious to a guest in my home and learned hard way that the PO is not a guest and not my friend. Answer questions honestly but do not volunteer anything.

When my husband's current PO comes, which is rare when I am home, the first time wanted a tour of the house... Then every time after that all he ever wants to do is go out in the barn and look at the horses. My poor hubby, he knows little about them other than their names, how to feed them and how to lead them. Other than that, doesn't know much about each history (the horses are mine, obviously). But that PO just can't seem to get enough horsey stuff.

The GPS folks that I have talked to about their experiences with home visits are about as eventful, granted they live in town, alone and in a more populated and harsher on SOs area of the state too. And even their experiences aren't terrible, no one has gone to jail over something stupid involving the home visit. Now if you're talking GPS screw-ups, that is a different story.

The rules vary from state to state to what a PO can and can not do. In some states, they can search the house in some states only LEOs can. It will depend on the rules and laws you have there.

At what point do you find out what the rules are?

In most states, inspections are based on "plain sight". That means they can only look at things on table tops, dressers, etc. They are not allowed to root through drawers, closets, cabinets, etc.