When I decided to take part in this adventure the rules I set out were few and very clear. Only some rooms and two bathrooms were available to the guests. Nothing more. That means that all the other areas of my house were off limits.
I did a lot of work on my ad, I wanted it to be “neutral”, but not cold. The rules of my house must be clear. I was not a hotel. I was not a “B & B”. I couldn’t fix breakfast for the guests. I was only a private person who rented some rooms of his house.
I tried to recreate a sense of home. My home is your home somewhere else. I want you to just make yourself right at home.
I had a tough time for those first few months. It was strange and nice to have someone around my house pay me attention, askìng me stuff, I must say. When the guests got home, my dad and I were in the living room with the closed door, we looked at each other and whispered: "They came home, did you heard that?", like old gossipy couples who organise their lives around other’s people lives.
No matter what we were doing, we knew that someone could knock at our door and ask us “What places could one see here?” or “Is there a place where you can taste the typical Milanese cuisine?”, while there was a detailed “House manual” that contained tourist information about Milan, public transport in Milan, nice to know in the district (restaurants, bars, EatItaly, Italian buffet, brunch etc.).
Would I be able to live like this? And for how long? Noboby thought I could pull this off when I started.
Many guests, however, could be so sweet, but there were some guests who were not discreet at all, they were rude and very good liars, but I was okay with that.
Of course, I got a whack of things about those guests that bugged me, bad manners, insensitivity, but I justified them either because they left my father five-star reviews (soon 5 stars became a drug) or because, after all, I was paid to host guests and the money at the end of each month cleared the all time game memory.
Then slowly I gained familiarity and I learned that being prepared for the unexpected also means doing everything we can avoid it. Now I knew how to anticipate the needs of the guests, their questions, their doubts. I learned to be comfortable even though the guests had a copy of my house keys.
Your perfect home, you know, is like your life, and you don’t want your life ruined. But above all you are getting good at this and you’re worried that negative reviews can influence the amount of bookings.
Being a host is an important "job". It takes commitment, time, but above all a lot of patience. I had a bunch of crazy experiences where I suspended my disbelief like I was in front of a film by Buñuel or Fellini and everything became plausible.
My house was swarming with people with phosphorescent suitcases, white jackets and purple loafers and no socks, elderly Brits in the morning asked me if they could play golf indoors, wealthy Japs, with parasols, in various states of delirium, asked me where were the waiters, Indian women came in the shower, forgetting the bathrobe in their room, then came out of the bathroom completely naked and ran off to their rooms with the hands on their private parts, shouting weird words in Hindi, postal retirees asked me, with lazy candor, if by chance there were gays in my house because they absolutely hated them, overweight Eastern European ladies in pink Lycra sweatpans that I really wanted to take them aside and tell them very gently not to wear something like that again, asked me if they could have sausages and Swiss cheese for breakfast I pretty much screwed them all up together with those hysterical ladies who scolded me because they did not find flowers and choccolate in their bedrooms as did the previous host in Florence (bloody host in Florence).
Is that enough? In those moments it’s never enough, because sometimes, I do not know why, some details played on my sympathies, other times I felt like if I was in a recreation room of a mental health center.
Suddenly I found myself thinking about ethnic groups and first I was shocked and then a little horrified, because I've never been that kind of person, I was starting to think like a racist and I started feeling repulsed with myself and I really started to think how dangerous it all was.
I’ve tried to do well in all situations, regardless of who’s in front of me. With some guest there was an emotional exchange, with other guests radio silence. I kept in touch with some guests afterwards, with one of them I became more than a friend (social connections sometimes turn into a stronger connection), with four guests I traveled many miles, we spent some time together to tell us who we were and what we wanted out of life.
Sharing a house with a dozen of perfect strangers for many days a year may sometimes cause discomfort, but hosting has repaid me of the small inconveniences. I think I was lucky ten years ago to meet AIRBNB. I was lucky for one of those fortunate cases in life and it was the experience that showed me that the choice was good. A choice that has also given me some pride, because in these years almost five hundred people made it to my house finding a comfortable bed and, if not a friend, at least a smiling face and a cup of tea. No place can be said confortable without a good teapot.
