Should you have a stove in your listing?

[Jenny]

Hi everyone!

Some of us love cooking while away travelling, making delicious foods with local produce, and some of us prefer to try local restaurants or bars.  It’s a highly individual choice!

Regardless of cooking ability, it can be important for some to have access to a stove when travelling, for hot drinks and for basic meals like breakfast eggs and bacon. On the other hand, depending on your property and the type of guests you usually receive, it might not be something you’ve considered including.  

I was curious to know what you all thought about having a stove in your listing. Do you believe it’s a key amenity? Or, from a guest perspective, do you prefer to stay at places which have a stove?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

Jenny

[Debra300]

@Anonymous,

I can appreciate your viewpoint.  However, it's been my experience that guests don't seem to mind sleeping in the same room with food smells based on the odoriferous fast food that they bring back to the guest suites/apartments.  Which intensifies when they fail to rinse out the take away containers before putting them in the kitchen trash bin. 

[Sandra957]

My place has a kitchen area that comprises of a hob, microwave, toaster, fridge/freezer and all utensils ,crockery and glasses , and only had one guest who would have liked an oven. 
I don’t really get long stay guests ,most are usually here for work or family related stays so unless you have room I would say don’t bother with an oven. 

[Huma0]

@Anonymous 

I am the same as you. I definitely would not want to be cooking in the same space as where I live if I had the option (some places might be too expensive though to rule out that option) but I have to agree with @debra300 (can't seem to tag for some reason).

I do not allow meals to be eaten in the bedrooms, but I've had so may guests who did it regardless. I've had leftover fish and chips left in the wastepaper basket, sushi in the wardrobes and even fried chicken and chips strewn all over the floor. Plenty of people don't seem to mind food smells where they sleep at all.

[Anonymous]

@Huma0  I don't tend to notice the smell of takeaway meals nearly as much as the volatile compounds that are released by cooking. I've definitely eaten fried chicken and waffles in a hotel room (it's the only nice thing about a layover at LAX), but I can't imagine frying the chicken in one.

[Huma0]

@Anonymous 

That may well be true. I have never thought about it, but I have very occasionally eaten take away food in a hotel. I actually had to do it last week out of necessity rather than choice. This was late at night, there were no left overs, and the packaging was disposed of the next morning.

What I am talking about above though is guests leaving that food in the bedroom, sometimes in hot weather and sometimes even after it has gone off. To me this is really gross.

The chicken and chips strewn over the floor situation was with a couple who barely left the room, let alone the house, in ten days. I had no idea until they left that they were storing food (including several large cartons of milk) and left over takeaways in the room that whole time and it was high summer. It was so disgusting (leftovers even stuffed behind the radiators) that I had to call the incoming guests and beg them to check in  slightly later as there was no way to clean that room in time.

It seems this couple were having quite the romantic time, but to me, a bedroom in that state is far from romantic. That is the worst case of 'food abuse' in my listings, but I can think of many other situations that came sort of close. My point is that food smells in the bedroom don't seem off putting to a lot of guests. 

[Anonymous]

@Huma0   Oh that sounds viscerally nasty...but then again, everything in the known universe that causes disgust to some is a massive turn-on to others. Maybe your guests were just careless or wasted, but that actually sounds more like mysophilia.

[Huma0]

@Anonymous 

Mmm, I hadn't thought of that. I just thought that it was because they were students and from a country where people who can afford to come to the UK to study also grow up in families where they have home help and never have to clean up after themselves. Still, this kind of went beyond what I would expect in that situation. 

I had also assumed that the reason they didn't leave the room (the girl not at all other than to use the bathroom and the guy only to cook food and take it to the bedroom to feed her) was perhaps because their families back home (they were going back after doing their masters degrees in the UK and had met at uni) were strict and wouldn't have let them spend the night together, so they were making the most of their last days of liberty.

However, your explanation also makes a lot of sense considering how truly bad the room was.

[Helen744]

@Sybe correct me if I am wrong but I think a house tenanted in any way is not a 'habitable space 'according to the law unless it has a kitchen of some kind available, certainly in Australia . H

[Huma0]

@Helen427 

But what if it's not a 'house tenanted in any way' but a b&b/holiday accommodation. I think that most hosts offer the latter rather than the former these days.

Also, I think the topic was about whether people have a stove, rather than whether they have a kitchen. Would a kitchenette set up, e.g. with a microwave, be considered sufficient by law in Australia, or does it need to be a fully equipped kitchen (in terms of appliances) in a tenanted property?

[Michelle53]

I do not have a stove.   I offer a microwave and a kettle for boiling water.   The vast majority of my guests are in town to attend events of some kind, mostly over a weekend. My average stay is 2 - 4 days. 

I am not considering longer stays that would necessitate offering a more robust cooking facility, mainly due to the extra work required to keep everything clean, and, since I offer a guest suite in my home, cooking smells could easily permeate the whole house. 

Being vegan, the very last thing I'd want my house smelling of is eggs and bacon.    Having to clean up after that would make me feel physically ill. 

When I travel, all I look for is morning coffee.   I fend for myself when it comes to food, don't require a cooked breakfast,  or if I do stay somewhere that offers food, it needs to be something I can eat.

Definitely no shared kitchens. 

[Mark116]

@Jenny If I were putting together an Airbnb from the ground up, unless it was going to be a luxury space where professional cleaning was factored into the cost, I would probably not have a stove.

The stove in our Airbnb apartment has been the bain of our existence.  The first, very old, stove was broken by guests.  Okay, it was old.  We replaced it with a new fairly high end Samsung stove, that is now about 3 years old.  It has been serviced 3x times due to guests not knowing how to use the burners on th stove at a cost of more than $300, and despite its young age, it is only a matter of time before it will need to be replaced because of misuse of the burners.  The enamel finish has also been destroyed by guests and has scratches and some dings; one of the burner covers has also had the finish eroded by misuse.

Cleaning the stove is also, by far, the most time consuming single action

I would probably just have a microwave or a countertop induction oven.

@Branka-and-Silvia0  Almost no one uses the actual oven, but it too has been treated very roughly by the few who use it. There are deep, inexplicable scratch marks on the bottom of the oven and the last people who used it managed to somehow drip something BETWEEN the two glasses on the oven door, so no reasonable way to clean that drip.  

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Mark116  it should be the way to separate the glass, look for any screws on the inside of the oven door but be very careful, so the glass from the door doesn't fall on the floor when you unscrew them (almost happened to me at home) I had to unscrew the door handle as well.

@Sybeyes, my guests get the list of different restaurants ( Indian, Chinese, local... ) and also the name of local delivery services 🙂 We are in the city center and the average stay of our guests is just a few nights so, luckily, with exception of families, our guests rarely cook at home. Happy happy about it 😄

Recently I discovered a brand new listing in my neighborhood, great design, big apartment... but with only a tiny, 1 m wide kitchen. I immediately knew they are experienced and smart hosts 😄

[Mark116]

@Branka-and-Silvia0  There is, but my fear is if we drill out the screws so we can clean inside the two glass panels that the door will never be as tight, and that it will become an ongoing problem.  The drip between the glasses is very small and only a 'white glove' type of guest would probably even notice it.  I still wonder how/what they did to get the drip between the glass panels, but these are the same yahoos who melted the spout on the kettle.  The nice artistic mom from Minnesota with tons of great reviews and her college children having a nice Thanksgiving vacation.  Awful.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Mark116 

well, I used vinegar + soda and then the steam cleaner so soda, pushed by steam went between 2 glasses. Smart ha? 😄 😄 Btw, I've put grasses back together and it is tight as before, no problem but if it is just a small drip then don't bother

[Huma0]

@Mark116 

How on earth does one melt the spout on a kettle? I am assuming you mean a stove top kettle? Another reason to have an electric one instead!