Guest's privacy vs house needs

[Gail600]

I'm a newish host, enjoying it so far, and need some guidance from experienced hosts please.  From the outside of my house, I observed that my guests, who had left for the evening, had turned on the air conditioning in their room and left the windows open at the same time. 

I knocked and announced myself in case only one of the guests had gone out, and went in to turn off the air conditioner (the temperature outside was already below 70 and dropping).  Afterward I wondered if I should have just left and be and spoken to them in the morning.   What is the standard in this situation?

Also, the guest had booked only for himself.  He texted me and said "we'll be arriving" -- should I have asked for the second party's name at that point.  What do you find effective in getting people to book everyone in their party at the original booking time?

Thank you very much for any advice you can give me!

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Debra300  Thanks! I didn't even realize what I did~ When posting a response to the OP I usually  hit the @ key and select from the drop down menu :-)) 

Yes..... my post was for @Gail600 who was the OP. 

On a slightly different note, we actually have an app on our phone (Henry's phone) that allows us to turn the heating on/off, shut off the gas, turn certain lights on/off. Our apartment adopted SOME *smart home* features to allow limited control. Unfortunately it only works for things that came with the house. Henry did mention our AC unit has a remote control function that we could use by changing the setting and downloading an app if we wanted to..... but ours is a large AC standing in the corner of our living room that is strong enough to cool the entire 3bdroom apartment with the help of an air circulator - and Henry works from home so is usually there in person to adjust as needed :-)) 

In the end I think it really does depend on the hosting environment, type of guests one usually gets and our own hosting styles. 

[Sarah977]

@Jessica-and-Henry0  I do think that probably has a lot to do with the age of your guests. I imagine most are used to living at home with their parents, are quite accustomed to having Mom come in and clean up their room and are therefore happy to have you do it. Even if they don't live at home anymore, they probably have roommates, so not that much privacy. 

I had one guest, a middle-aged woman, who, when I mentioned I never enter the guest space at all when I have a guest in residence said "Hey, it's your home, if you need to go in there for some reason, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't." But I think that's not the norm for most adults- when I offer clean sheets and towels to my guests and ask if they'd like me to change the bedding or they'd prefer to do it themselves, they have always said they'll do it. Maybe they just don't want to make more work for me, but I take it as meaning they like to feel the space is private during their stay.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

Completely agree @Sarah977 - many of our guests were completely happy (and relieved) to let us change sheets for them while they are out :-)) 

I've had one older guest stay with us twice...... one was a 2 week stay in hot humid August. We honestly did not feel the need to enter the room at all the entire time, and even for shorter-staying younger guests (less than a week) we usually didn't have a reason to enter so we never did. 

[Gail600]

Thank you all very much for your help!  I charge by the room but my concern with one guest versus two guests is that I want to know who is in my house and I want to follow Airbnb's process so I don't increase my liability.  Am I understanding correctly that the guest can amend their reservation themselves through Airbnb?  Is there any trick to it?

[Anonymous]

@Gail600   Guest can send you a request to amend the dates of their stay or number of people. But the changes only go into effect if you approve them. 

[Helen350]

@Gail600 Also, my experience has been that it's only possible to amend reservations - from either side - BEFORE your check in time. So if a guest turns up with more people than booked, you can not register as such, which  amends the payout where applicable. In those circumstances, you would need to recover the additional payment through the Resolution Centre.