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Post by lambada on Apr 30, 2016 2:42:27 GMT
I know this has been discussed a million times, but I'd like to hear your perspective (again) as I seemed to be unsure of what to do everytime it happens.
I have an inlaw unit that I rent out, right below my place, with a separate entrance. But I do have an exterior cameras and could actually guests coming and going when I am home. I limit a maximum of 2 guests, although I could make money by having 3 and charge extra. However, I do prefer to have only 2. Every now and then I get guests who'd ask in advance, prior to or after they made the booking, if their daughter/son/friend could come over for a glass of wine. And I mostly give them an exception to the no visitors rule.
But it happened the second time this year, guests who are a couple, bringing in one extra guest, not only hanging out, but actually stay with them! Other than reminding them of the rules, I am not sure what else to do without having a direct confrontation which I'm not a big fan of.
Should I just let it go and put it in the review after they leave? Here's my reasoning: If I remind them of the rules, they get unhappy, and since Airbnb is holding the deposit, I don't really have access to it unless the guests agree to pay. And I don't like having unhappy people staying in my place, as I'm not sure what they'd do (leave a mess, etc.). And the chance is, they'd leave a bad review for me. So I'd gain nothing if not negative thing from doing that.
That's why I'm debating to just leave it, painfully wait until they leave, and then give the bad review for breaking the house rules that they have reviewed and accepted (I ask each guest to review and accept prior to booking).
What do you all do? Would love to hear your thoughts.
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Post by High Priestess on Apr 30, 2016 2:59:51 GMT
That's a difficult one, Lambada, which many hosts have been torn about how to deal with. And hosts really are split in how they handle this type of situation. THere are different ways of handling this and none of them are necessarily more "right" -- they just fit what different hosts need.
I think it behooves us all to reflect on our own values and what is important to us as hosts. ANd what is important to us, may actually change over time or from one situation to another. At one point, such as when business is slow, or we just got a bad review, pleasing guests may be all-important, and we may feel forced to bite our tongue and let the guest do what they are doing, and only take action in the review afterwards, where we tell the truth about what they did.
But if we don't feel that our business is suffering, and we have many good reviews, and what upsets us most is having someone defy our rules in our own home (or on our property) then evicting the extra guest who is not permitted to stay may be what we want to do. Or at least require the guests to pay additional for the 3rd person. I think it is hard to evict someone who the guests are pretending is only staying for a visit, not overnight. It can be hard to "catch" someone staying overnight. HOw much do we have to watch? Do we feel like we are spying? It is hard.
Here is what I would do if this were my situation: I would NEVER permit guests to have visitors over during the day. No visitors or friends, nobody may come onto the premises who is not someone officially on the reservation, who has been named and paid for in advance. I might give guests an option of adding someone to the reservation at late notice, but never of having someone come onto my property who is not registered and paid for.
The reason I would handle it that way, is that I feel (and I take this approach in my entire philosophy of house rules) that it is very important to have rules which are clear, preferably, which are black and white, and thus easy to enforce. Meaning like a switch, either it is on or it is off. Either a dish is cleaned and put away, or it is not cleaned and put away -- it can't be left in an ambiguous state on the counter or the dining room table. Quiet hours start at 10pm, and this means no cellphone calls after 10pm. Either the phone call ends by 10pm or it is not permitted, end of story. For guests, either the guest is named and paid for and part of the reservation, or the individual is trespassing and is prohibited from entering your property and those who brought the person on, have violated your rules. Clear, black and white.
Allowing a guest to have visitors, but only certain kinds, or during certain hours, or during only the day and not at night -- just very quickly enters that slippery slope where clarity is lost and ability to enforce your rules is lost. Because you cannot monitor how long a visitor is there or whether they actually leave at night. But if you see someone you don't know on your property, now that is very clear.
Admittedly when you forbid guests to have visitors this is less attractive to guests. So it is a trade off. Do you want to give more to guests, or do you want more comfort and security and less stress for yourself. I know that for me, one incident of feeling angry when I find out a guest has lied to me and done something that is very much prohibited, can have long lasting effects, and so I want to avoid having to get into that situation. So my preference is to take care of myself first and offer less to guests. One implication of that is that I doubtless need to have lower prices than someone who gives more to their guests. And that is fine with me since my comfort is more important to me.
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Post by helgaparis on Apr 30, 2016 3:08:02 GMT
Are they aware before booking, that you will know if they bring extra guests? For the full unit rentals, I have some text about nice neighbors who may chat in the common courtyard, that it is common to great or lend each other a tool or an egg ... It prevents panic, when someone knocks or stands outside chatting and it discourages cheating on some rules. In all the years, we never had sneaked in extra guests (but for a strange one that brought a boyfriend for a shared room single bed and did not stay). You could also have a text "Visiting friends? Please ask ... And pay... " in the unit and make clear at checkin that you have sight of the entrance.
We used to charge for extra persons for the whole stay, but if a family member came for the weekend on a 2 weeks stay, we would not, if they washed the extra sheets and towels before departure. But only if it was agreed upon before booking or they asked before arrival of the other guest.
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Post by lambada on May 1, 2016 0:15:50 GMT
That's a difficult one, Lambada, which many hosts have been torn about how to deal with. And hosts really are split in how they handle this type of situation. THere are different ways of handling this and none of them are necessarily more "right" -- they just fit what different hosts need.
I think it behooves us all to reflect on our own values and what is important to us as hosts. ANd what is important to us, may actually change over time or from one situation to another. At one point, such as when business is slow, or we just got a bad review, pleasing guests may be all-important, and we may feel forced to bite our tongue and let the guest do what they are doing, and only take action in the review afterwards, where we tell the truth about what they did.
But if we don't feel that our business is suffering, and we have many good reviews, and what upsets us most is having someone defy our rules in our own home (or on our property) then evicting the extra guest who is not permitted to stay may be what we want to do. Or at least require the guests to pay additional for the 3rd person. I think it is hard to evict someone who the guests are pretending is only staying for a visit, not overnight. It can be hard to "catch" someone staying overnight. HOw much do we have to watch? Do we feel like we are spying? It is hard.
Here is what I would do if this were my situation: I would NEVER permit guests to have visitors over during the day. No visitors or friends, nobody may come onto the premises who is not someone officially on the reservation, who has been named and paid for in advance. I might give guests an option of adding someone to the reservation at late notice, but never of having someone come onto my property who is not registered and paid for.
The reason I would handle it that way, is that I feel (and I take this approach in my entire philosophy of house rules) that it is very important to have rules which are clear, preferably, which are black and white, and thus easy to enforce. Meaning like a switch, either it is on or it is off. Either a dish is cleaned and put away, or it is not cleaned and put away -- it can't be left in an ambiguous state on the counter or the dining room table. Quiet hours start at 10pm, and this means no cellphone calls after 10pm. Either the phone call ends by 10pm or it is not permitted, end of story. For guests, either the guest is named and paid for and part of the reservation, or the individual is trespassing and is prohibited from entering your property and those who brought the person on, have violated your rules. Clear, black and white.
Allowing a guest to have visitors, but only certain kinds, or during certain hours, or during only the day and not at night -- just very quickly enters that slippery slope where clarity is lost and ability to enforce your rules is lost. Because you cannot monitor how long a visitor is there or whether they actually leave at night. But if you see someone you don't know on your property, now that is very clear.
Admittedly when you forbid guests to have visitors this is less attractive to guests. So it is a trade off. Do you want to give more to guests, or do you want more comfort and security and less stress for yourself. I know that for me, one incident of feeling angry when I find out a guest has lied to me and done something that is very much prohibited, can have long lasting effects, and so I want to avoid having to get into that situation. So my preference is to take care of myself first and offer less to guests. One implication of that is that I doubtless need to have lower prices than someone who gives more to their guests. And that is fine with me since my comfort is more important to me. Thanks for the previous feedback, Deborah. My place is up the hill, and then there are quite a stairs to climb to get to the unit, with no elevator. So some older guests would ask permission to get their son/daughter etc., to help with their suitcase. And that is totally fine with me. In my house rules, I said: 'no visitors allowed, day or night.' It used to say: 'No visitors allowed without prior written permission from host'. And of course this invited guests to write me as soon as they could to get permission. I book the Studio quite easily, mostly get booked back to back, so my strict house rules seem to work out fine to most people. And these guests who broke the rules, are the guests who already confirmed that they have reviewed and accepted my (strict) house rules. The current one got completely puzzled when I said we don't allow visitors. She goes, wait, what? Why? We paid good money for this place so we could visit with friends. OK, not sure what to say since when making the booking, she confirmed that she's 'down with the house rules. it is only me and my husband' I'm gonna let this one go and put it in her review. Oh, we also have quite hours from 10pm - 8am and they were in and out lots from the time they got in thru 4am! But I guess I have to look at this as the 'one percent'. Because admittedly, we mostly get great guests with no problems.
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Post by lambada on May 1, 2016 0:22:44 GMT
Are they aware before booking, that you will know if they bring extra guests? For the full unit rentals, I have some text about nice neighbors who may chat in the common courtyard, that it is common to great or lend each other a tool or an egg ... It prevents panic, when someone knocks or stands outside chatting and it discourages cheating on some rules. In all the years, we never had sneaked in extra guests (but for a strange one that brought a boyfriend for a shared room single bed and did not stay). You could also have a text "Visiting friends? Please ask ... And pay... " in the unit and make clear at checkin that you have sight of the entrance. We used to charge for extra persons for the whole stay, but if a family member came for the weekend on a 2 weeks stay, we would not, if they washed the extra sheets and towels before departure. But only if it was agreed upon before booking or they asked before arrival of the other guest. Yes, Helga they are aware of the 'no visitors' rule. I ask each guest (unless they already confirmed that they have read the house rules in the initial message), to review and accept the house rules to see if this is a good fit. So I thought I give potential guests a fair warning that I have strict house rules and may not work for their needs. And this current one who got a third person stay, said she's totally down with the house rules. And I also include in the house rules that I live on site and have cameras. yes, if guests stay for a month or so, sometimes they asked if they could have a friend come over for a drink. But my monthly guests are normally the low maintenance type, since they are here on work assignment. So they go out with their coworkers etc., get info whatever they need on the city from their friends and they seriously just pay and sleep at my place Less $$ of course, but sometimes it is completely worth it. It is just not that easy to get all the months booked up that way. Thanks for listening (i.e. reading) to my rant.
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Post by helgaparis on May 1, 2016 15:30:38 GMT
We called it "the fool of the year". Whatever you do, how you change your contract or description, there is no help, you'll get one fool per year. - Imagine, you could cure that and have all guests always in compliance. The military would run your door down to get the manual for that achievement !
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Post by andrew on May 2, 2016 0:42:47 GMT
I think I'd take a different approach here. If the roles were reversed, and I did something that violated a guest's boundaries, I'd much prefer that they spoke up about it at the time rather than wait to surprise me with it in a public review. So I try to extend the same courtesy in return. I figure, if a problem isn't worth dealing with as it happens, it's not really a problem. Also, how they react to being confronted about their extra guest will be a matter of great importance to any future hosts they contact.
About the "quiet hours" part - I've never understood that rule to apply to entering or exiting the apartment, which I feel a paying guest should be free to do at any hour. Rather, I understand it to mean that guests have to enter quietly, refrain from excessive noise, conduct conversations exclusively in the private areas, and not use facilities such as a TV in the shared areas. If it means something different to you, I'd suggest being very explicit about it in the listing.
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Post by lambada on May 3, 2016 2:27:11 GMT
Thanks for the 0.2 cents, Andrew. The guest seemed very surprised and annoyed and I reminded her the house rules for not allowing outside visitors. She said, wait, what, why? We paid good money to rent this place, etc. etc. This was just a few days after she confirmed that she was 'totally down on the house rules'. I try not to overreact when guests breaking one of the house rules, the problem is, if they break one, I can't be sure if they're gonna break another if I let go of the first one.
I agree with you with the 'quiet hours' part as in they should be able to come and go as they please. And I do note that during these hours, they should limit walking/talking activities as the sound travels throughout the building. And their late night activities (up and down the stairs, closing and opening the gate) was because they were waiting for their friend who ended up staying with them. I do think that she didn't try to be malicious in anyway, it was more that she didn't read anything even when she said she did. And she told me they were going to leave before 6am this morning, so I arranged for the cleaners to come in at 7.30am, only to find that they were still sleeping. This was after my check out reminder the night before, also citing that I understand that they were leaving before 6am. So it comes down to her (lack of) communication, which could save everyone the time and unnecessary headache.
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Post by carolyn on May 3, 2016 2:45:54 GMT
Hi guys...Just want to offer a way to phrase it when in these situations. My house rules stipulate that visitors are not allowed on the premises. If I need to tell a guest that their friend can't hang out, I gently remind them of the rules, and then I tell them that my homeowners' insurance does not cover visitors, only registered guests. (This is actually true in my case, per my vacation rental homeowners' insurance, but I would say this even if it weren't true.) In my experience, this suffices. The guests understand, and they ask the visitor to leave. It saves me from potentially having to explain or defend my rules. It's clear-cut.
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Post by lambada on May 3, 2016 3:15:55 GMT
Thanks Carolyn, that's a great one. So do you get complete names of each guest everytime then?
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Post by carolyn on May 3, 2016 19:08:59 GMT
Hi Lambada, yes, I get complete names...at least that's always my plan. Sometimes I get lazy about it! For example, if the guest who's booking says that she's traveling with her boyfriend Dave, I just go with "Dave." That name appears in our Airbnb communications, so "Dave" is down as a registered guest. That's sloppy on my part tho. I need to remember to get full names all the time.
Here's something else I did once. My space accommodates maximum of two. I had a woman reserve who was traveling alone. She told me that her boyfriend, who lives in my city, would visit her, if that was okay with me. So, I asked her just to put him on the reservation. Change number of guests to 2 and provide me with his name. That worked fine. (My rate is the same for one or two persons.) Even though he didn't actually sleep here, he was on the reservation, so I knew who he was, and I felt I was covered if anything happened.
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