How do you manage your house rules?

[Sybe]

Hey everyone!

It has been an unspoken rule for centuries that when you’re the guest in someone else’s house, you abide by their rules. Your neighbour might want you to take your shoes off when you come in, or the store in your local mall might prohibit you from entering with food or pets.

Whether you’re welcoming guests into your own home or you have a separate property, house rules allow you to set expectations with your guests. Though even with house rules in place, breaches can happen, leading to tricky situations. Knowing how to deal with them can be very beneficial for both your business and your peace of mind!

How do you manage your house rules? How do you make sure that your guests are aware of the rules? What do you do when a guest breaks the rules and how do you address them? 

Let us know in the comments below!

Sybe

P.S. If you’re unsure how to add house rules to your listing, check out this Help Center article.

[Steve3413]

I have list of items I want my guests to be aware of and give them out as a flyer to each guest. Also all the rules can be posted on your Airbnb listing so guests know what they are getting into prior to their booking

[Laura2592]

@Sybe  guests not reading house rules was one of the reasons we decided to sell our place. I don't 100% blame them- the ABB format makes rules very difficult to see for the person who is just skimming. The basics are up front, but the guest has to actually expand to see what the host added and most do not.

Over time I found that the basic "have a great time and clean up" was not enough. If it was not stated explicitly, ABB support would not help with it. So my house rules began to grow. No extra guests became no extra visitors without host's express permission became no extra guests period. Pets allowed became, up to 2 pets, became dogs must be crated during guest absence and litter boxes must be contained in a specific room with a barrier under them. Children and infants welcome became not suitable for infants due to steep stairs. The rules expanded as we hosted hundreds of people and found we actually DID have to say things like "don't shoot on our property." That, incidentally, was the last straw with regard to hosting.

Personally, I think writing good rules is a very hard thing to do. You don't want to sound petty and unhospitable, but you do need to protect yourself, your property AND your guests. I strongly disagree with the ABB advice to keep rules super simple. All that ends up meaning is that when you DO have someone who shoots animals illegally on your property, your call to customer service will net only a tired "well, its not in your house rules that shooting isn't allowed...."

I would love to see ABB make house rules more visible and have guests actually have to scroll through them and press an "I agree to terms" button before booking. Perhaps that would lure me back to the platform. 

[Sybe]

@Laura2592 Thank you so much for sharing this. I completely agree, it's about finding a balance where you're specific enough so your guests know what you do and don't allow but not too many rules that you are seen as inhospitable or even "controlling".

[Loretta126]

 @Sybe You missed a significant part of  @Laura2592  's point.  If it is not in the House Rules, the CS agents won't enforce it, no matter how outrageous the guest's behavior or expectation.  

When the new guest refund policy came out earlier this year, Catherine Powell stated that our house rules should set expectations for guests.  Here is her comment:  "For example, if you have a backyard pool, you might include a note that you make every attempt to keep the pool as clean as possible, but at times leaves and debris may end up on the surface. This can help guests understand why there may be leaves in the pool. "

That means our house "rules" have to be extraordinarily long to set every possible expectation.  No rain recently?  "Our lawn may not be green if we haven't had rain".  Lots of rain?  "Our lawn may be muddy if we've had lots of rain". 

[Huma0]

@Loretta126 

Yes, I agree with you. I had a real problem with this statement from @Catherine-Powell , and responded as much on that thread.

Telling guests there may or may not be leaves in a pool has nothing to do with 'house rules'. How is it in any way a house rule?

This statement basically indicated to me that, whether or not it is described elsewhere in the listing (i.e. in a more appropriate place like the description or other things to note or guests must acknowledge), unless it's in the house rules, it's meaningless to CS as far as disputes are concerned.

It's wrong. So wrong...

[Louise0]

 Maybe it's just me, but I'd feel a mite uncomfortable hosting guests who need help understanding "why there may be leaves in the pool."  Clearly, these are people who should never be allowed to roam the world unsupervised.

[Louise0]

If only it were as easy as "finding a balance" between being specific and appearing controlling. 

Unfortunately, many of us have learned from bitter experience that unless a rule is very, very tightly scoped Airbnb will not allow us to enforce it; hence the need for an absurdly prescriptive, lengthy list of instructions and prohibited behaviours.  I hate this aspect as it makes me come across as some kind of raving lunatic.  However Airbnb give me no alternative.

And, to add insult to injury, nine times out of ten guests don't read them because they can't find them on the listing description.  Why oh why can't Airbnb save hosts', guests' and CS' time by including the full House Rules on the booking confirmation?

[Huma0]

@Louise0 

I believe the rules are part of the booking process, i.e. the guest is technically supposed to agree to them when booking. However, I think they need to click on something or other to actually see them all and can easily go ahead and book without having read them. At least, that used to be the case.

I booked an Airbnb the other night and don't remember this part of the booking process. I had already read the full house rules anyway so didn't have it front of mind but, now that I think about it, I don't remember seeing this section. I wish I was paying more attention. Maybe Airbnb have gotten rid of it?

I just tried to find an Airbnb help guide/article that mentions this, but I can't find one anywhere...

[Louise0]

@Huma0 It's getting harder and harder to coax a guest to read the House Rules. Even when guests are told that there is a 'code phrase' contained in the House Rules that they need to quote to confirm they've actually read them, they still won't make the effort.

Airbnb needs to do better in this regard.  They need to make guests understand that the House Rules form part of the contract between Host and Guest and are enforceable and will be enforced to their detriment.  This might spur the guests to actually read them rather than just clicking through.

[Huma0]

@Louise0 

I agree with you but I don't believe that Airbnb has any intention of doing this. Why else have they buried the house rules at the bottom of the listing? They want the booking process to be as quick, simple and painless for the guest as possible. Anything that might make them think twice about booking is going to be obscured or glossed over.

[David8879]

@Sybe 

As @Huma0  (my new role model - she understand realities of working with people so well and walks the line perfectly) - explained everything better that I would.

I am not always reading all replies, apologies if it was said already, for me the part of trying to make certain that people read the rules, beside making sure that they are good fit for my places and my place is a good fit for them - it makes my consciousness clear in case if something goes really wrong and I have to initiate dispute or worse. People are not perfect, not everyone is like me or you or them and I want to make sure people clearly know what to expect.

As for "people complain" - hey, those are the same people who write bad review for hotel room that there is no mini-fridge when in room description fridge was not mentioned. That is reality of dealing with people as I firmly side with George Carlin and do my best in special education 

[Huma0]

@David8879 

Thank you for the compliment!

Yes, I am afraid that we as hosts have to take this into our own hands. I find that most guests prefer to have clear rules so that they know the boundaries and don't have to guess what is and isn't okay as this is going to vary from listing to listing. The ones that don't like the rules will hopefully not book, but a few still do.

I have found it very useful to be able to tell the complaining guests, "Yes, as stated in the listing..." or "As stated in the house rules..." It doesn't always help, but it makes most of them realise that they had that information beforehand and that usually results in a good review (or no review). The ones that complain about it in their reviews are the ones that never bring up any issues during the stay, so there's not that much you can do about it except reiterate more strongly to the next guest that they need to READ everything.

[Ana27232]

I have found out that most of my guest have been very complient with the house rules and I have added more "requests and advise" into the book, like be carefull when outdoors with your pet at night, wild animals  have been seen in the area, clean after as you do at a park and things like that.

I have place pad locks where stairs are, don't want anybody falling.

I had the help of a super host, Christy, when I started this and she has been an incredible person, responding to all my questions.

My biggest problem has been related to taxes and certificates of occupancy for the area were my home is located, still learning.

[Huma0]

@Laura2592 

Ditto. I initially never would have thought I needed to spell out things that I now have as standard in my house rules but, after hosting a few guests, realised that what you think is obvious (like close the front door) is not necessarily obvious to others.

It's tedious to have to spell everything out, but every time you don't, that's when the problems start occurring.

At some point a few years ago, Airbnb started highlighting hosts' house rules near the top of the listing. I don't mean they were there in full (you still had to click on a link), but at least the link was front and centre, rather than hurried at the bottom of the page.

This was, we were told, in response to hosts' repeated requests to make house rules more visible. Yay! I thought. At least it's a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, it seems this was just a tactic to appease unruly and vocal hosts for a while because it wasn't long before the link to the extended rules was hidden at the bottom of the listing again.

I don't remember seeing any explanation or rationale for why it was changed back, but maybe I missed something. Funny how Airbnb makes a song and dance about any small change they implement that hosts have asked for but keep it on the down low when they scrap that change.