Hello fellow hosts,
My husband and I rent out our 2 bed, 1 bath apartment in the US Virgin Islands. The apartment is below our main house, in which we live, and its entry is on the opposite side of ours. We share a laundry room, with guests. Today we had our second incident, in which we feel, a guest was taking advantage of us by over using the washer and dryer.
I first must explain, to anyone not familiar with living on a Caribbean island, that water and electricity is at a premium here. We literally rely on rain to fill our cisterns for all our water needs. If we run out of water, we need to order water, which takes about a day and comes by truck for about $425. The price of electricity is ridiculous as well. When we have guests staying in our apartment for even one week, our electric bill can increase as much as $100 for the month. (Yes, that means, if we had our place rented for a whole month, we are looking at a $400 increase to our monthly electric bill. We’ve had bills in excess of $800.) While the price on our rental is affordable, we feel that we still charge enough to cover the added expenses for water and electricity.
We have it noted in our information sheet to guests and with a few signs in the apartment strategically placed to conserve water and electricity. Most have been very considerate. However, in May we had 2 sweet ladies traveling together in their mid to late seventies, and they did at least one, if not two, loads of laundry every night. That was definitely above and beyond what is the norm. We were shocked at our electricity bill and embarrassed when we ran out of water when our next guests were staying with us. (Luckily, they were good friends and not clients!)
But what took the cake was what happened today! Two guest (who we believe grew up on island, and were here visiting family and friends,) placed 4 large, black, trash bags of dirty clothes on the laundry room floor. The guests are only staying for 5 days, (cancelled the 6th night the day before arrival). It was obvious from the overflowing garbage bags, that they had brought with them other people’s laundry, who are not staying at the apartment. When I introduce myself to them, I asked about the laundry, and they admitted it wasn’t all theirs. Even after I explained how expensive water and electricity is and that our laundry facilities are not for outside laundry, they continued to use our machines to wash clothes that were not their own.
What option do you suggest to help alleviate this unnecessary expense?
Thank you for your suggestions,
Fabio & Christine