"Can we invite 37 friends?"

[Tom2718]

We've just had an amusing enquiry.

"My husband and I would love to spend the weekend at your lovely holiday house. As the xx is our wedding anniversary, we'd love to invite a few friends over for drinks in the garden..." 

We actually agreed to this, and then thought it might be wise to ask how many friends they were thinking of. They weren't planning anything crazy, they said - just 37 friends and family! But not to worry, only she and her husband would sleep at our place.

Terrific! 37 nonpaying guests, what's not to like!

I had a hard time composing a reply that wasn't too rude.

(I'm my wife's co-host so I have zero Airbnb track record of my own, sadly. Doesn't seem fair to me!)

[Laura2592]

@Tom2718 WOW. From 6 guest capacity to 37?? I hope you said NO WAY!

Something like:

"Dear Guest:

We would love to host you and 37 of your nearest and dearest. Let me make you aware of our event and catering fee schedule which you will find attached. There are permits for events to be had from the local authorities, and neighbors will need to be notified of parking blockages. All of these will incur additional fees, as I am sure you understand. We will station a co host to check IDs at the door and ensure that all individuals attending are legal age if alcohol is being consumed. Then there is the cleaning and turnover fee, table, chair and tent rental and additional insurance.  I can also hire a pet sitter to ensure that any dogs will be well cared for during your party. Your grand total should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-20,000, and I can take that now. I will get you a final number and send you a request through the resolution center. Thank you so much!"

[Tom2718]

Excellent suggestion! I kept it short and said we weren't terribly keen on cleaning up after 37 + guests. (I also mentioned Airbnb's 16 guest rule just to make it sound authoritative!)

I forgot to mention the best bit of her reply - they were planning to have a barbecue. That would have been fun to clean up after! Chicken bones in the flowerbed, greasy sheets of tinfoil blowing around, 37 people tramping in and out to use the bathroom... 

[Sarah977]

@Tom2718  I wonder how much toilet paper, soap, hot water and towels the non-paying friends would go through during the course of their evening get-together. Then they'll probably all want coffee, so make sure to leave several kilos as well as a gallon of coffee cream (and some soy milk, almond milk, etc, for those who are lactose intolerant). 🙂

[Tom2718]

You're clearly a lot more generous with the beverages than I am! There's a jar of Nescafe for the desperate! (We used to provide a crate of beer with a note saying it's 1 euro per bottle -  but too often we'd see the crate emptied and a measly 2 euros in the cash box. So we abandoned that idea!)

[Sarah977]

@Tom2718  I'm a home share host for one guest at a time. There is coffee and tea available for them and cream- if they have special needs in the food dept, they can provide for themselves. 🙂

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

LOL @Laura2592 😄

If you will ever miss communication with guests then please let me know, I would love to hire you as my PR 😄 ;D

[Laura2592]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 happy to help for the right price....

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Laura2592  To me your answers are priceless 😄 😄

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

I had a hard time composing a reply that wasn't too rude....

Oh yes, been there done that 😄 very time consuming, especially on foreign language

[Tom2718]

Yeah there's a translator web page called DeepL Translate which is a real help when banging out reviews in German (not my native tongue!) It's much better than Google translate which can be hilariously bad!

[Debra300]

@Tom2718,

To respond to a specific person use  "@" and then you can see or search for their profile ID.  This tagging will notify the person that you've mentioned them in a post. 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Tom2718  tnx, but unfortunately there is no Croatian language 😞

[Debra300]

@Tom2718,

I see that your listing is in Germany.  If it were in the US, you would have also mentioned left over corn cobs, rib bones, half eaten hot dogs, watermelon rinds, strewn potato chips, torilla chips, cheese doodles, (empty, partially used and full) bottles of bar-b-que sauce, ketchup and mustard, popsicle, snow cone and ice cream sandwich wrappers, over flowing trash bins and party residue that didn't make it to the bin, and burn marks from fireworks and charcoals.  It's not a real party unless you leave these mementos. 

[Tom2718]

Nice! To be honest, part of me wanted to say "yes!" to the party, just to see what would happen! Luckily my sane side won the argument.