Guest booked a bedroom to give a tattoo to a friend

[David6487]

Has anyone had something like this... and what are you suggestions?

A young and her friend booked a bedroom in my house and had a third person in their room. The girl who booked the room left and I asked how much longer their other friend would be because the room was only for 2 people. She told me, well they're not done with the tattoo so maybe an hour. 

I was floored and it took me a minute to compose myself. How would you handle this... and what additional cleaning should I do to the bedroom? The thought of someone's residual blood in my room is really giving me the creepy crawlies. 

Surprisingly... I never ask my guests if they are planning to have tattoo art done in the room. Call me foolish but I was kind of expecting then to just sleep through the night. 

[Anonymous]

@David6487  The way you present your House Rules ("don't burn down the house," etc) is funny, but the message it sends to guests is that you don't really have any boundaries that you take seriously. Obviously, that's misleading. I'd suggest moving the funny stuff to your photo captions and seriously conveying your real expectations in the House Rules.

To me, the biggest transgression here was bringing an unregistered guest into the home without your permission. It's really best to have a strict rule against that and enforce it. If you're doing multiple rooms in the same house, they're probably best limited to solo guests. And if you want to only host people for legit overnight accommodation and not random stuff like tattoos , sex workers, drug deals, and who knows what else, a minimum stay of 3 nights filters out most of the riffraff.

An amateur tattooist could leave behind some residual blood, but then again so could can sex, menstruation, and wounds - all things that can stain your sheets during normal use. If cleaning up residual blood or other bodily fluids gives you the creeps, I'm not sure if renting a bed out to strangers is a good fit for you. But you can certainly manage the risks by choosing guests who will respect your home (no instant book!) and removing those who don't. 

[Huma0]

@David6487 

I agree with @Anonymous . It's best not to have unregistered people in the house. Those people have no connection nor contract with you and it's highly unlikely that they have read your house rules, so there is more chance of something going wrong and, if it does, you won't be covered by Airbnb.

Because I host long term, I do allow guests to occasionally have someone over but only with prior permission, and I am very clear about this. If that person is staying overnight, they must pay the extra person fee. I want to know exactly who is in my house and I believe that my other guests should also know and not be surprised by some random stranger roaming about in their underpants.

If I was still hosting short term, I would probably not allow visitors at all. The guests are renting an accommodation, not a place to entertain or whatever else it is they are planning to do with those visitors. Also, no one night stays and no last minute bookings.

[David6487]

The printed house rules in the room do not have humor, just specific rules.

The exposure of blood does not bother me as much as conducting business in the room with unregistered guests. After all I've had guests menstruate and I assume some have had sex, that does not bother be and it just simple part of letting people use a bed room.

[David6487]

Is there a standard fee for additional guests?

My room rates through AirBnB states $300 per guest over 2 guests. Of course I understand that's an outrageous amount but it's that way because I do not want to host more than two people in each room.

[Huma0]

@David6487 

No, there's no standard fee. It's up to the host to decide and I imagine it will vary a lot depending on the listing and the location.

If you do not want more than two people in each room, then you shouldn't have a charge for a third guest. You simply have a maximum of two per room and select this in your settings and state it in your rules and then you have to stick to it. Rather than trying to charge for the extra person, and I imagine it would be difficult to get the guest to pay up, if a third person shows up they should be asked to leave immediately as it's a breach of the rules the booking guest agreed to.

I had a maximum occupancy of two per room, but my base price was for one person, with an additional £15-17 per night for a second. However, recently I decided I only wanted to rent the rooms to solo travellers. I host long term guests and have three private rooms available in my own house. Until a few months ago, all my long term guests were solo, they would just occasionally have a partner/relative/friend come to stay for a few days. In recent months, I twice had couples book for long stays (1-3 months) and found it quite problematic. The house was too crowded and the extra cleaning was really substantial. 

So, now I have my maximum set at one person (I also turned off Instant Book). If someone wants to have an additional guest stay for a few days, I charge that as before, i.e. £15-17 per night depending on the room. I then send a request via Airbnb for 'additional services' as the system doesn't allow you to change the number of guests for just part of the stay. 

Most guests are very happy with this set up and all have paid promptly. There was only one who was not. She basically wanted to bring a guy over for one night to have sex and seemed a bit put out that she had to pay for it! She left me 3 stars for value and 3 stars overall, but she had been asking for an extra discount from the beginning (I said no), which is probably why she resented having to pay anything more. Quite frankly, the £15 I charged her was not worth it to put up with the very noisy sex she then had while I was in the next room and all the other guests were also still awake. So, no more additional guests staying for one night only! 

[Anonymous]

@David6487  The printed house rules in your room are not part of your contract with guests, and mean nothing to Airbnb. If you want to discourage people from using your home inappropriately, you can't wait until they've already checked in. From that point on, the only recourse you have is to kick them out and refund their money out of pocket.

Fool around with silly extra fees if you wanna, but if that were a successful tactic, this incident wouldn't have happened. @Huma0 and I suggested some strategies that actually work in our experience as homestay hosts, so I hope you give them a chance. 

[David6487]

Well as it turns out, Virginia law requires that the artist be licensed and the location must be a registered tattoo parlor. Regardless, I told them the reservation was only for 2 people and everyone else was not allowed in the room.