Guests who work from home

[Michelle2145]

Hello,

I just had my first guest after COVID, and my first guest works from home.  He booked a room for 2 weeks, my maximum, and told me when he arrived that that he would be working from home.  It is very hot in my area and air conditioning is required, and he never leaves the room.  I'm going to look at the bills after leaves, but I imagine it will be hefty since he is in there 24 hours a day (he has his meals delivered).  I wondered how others handle working from home, or if it is possible.  He also found a hole in the system in that he booked an additional 2 weeks in a new booking, which escaped the 2-week limit.  I'm talking to Airbnb about this now as I think they should have alerted me to see if I wanted to extend his stay past my maximum.  I definitely would have because the guy is a great guest, but I would have increased the rate slightly.   

This was not an issue for me pre-COVID because most of my guests were here on vacation and the few that were here for work went out to work during the day, the peak hours for electricity.  Now, everyone, including me, is working from home.

Thanks for any tips, Michelle

[Ted307]

@Huma0 

We do have an absolutely NO Smoking rule on our entire property. Arizona is having rain now, but a forest fire can start from a cigarette. People have asked us if they could "vape", I told them I consider that the same as smoking. I do not want that smell where I have to go and clean. I do not want guests who are smokers, I believe they will do it where ever they want, in spite of rules about just smoking outside on the patio. As the owner who smokes, you would probably have more difficulty enforcing rules against it.

[Huma0]

@Ted307 

As a smoker, I am pretty lenient about it. There are areas here where guests can smoke and it is very rarely an issue for smokers during summer months (and we have been having unusually dry and warm weather here - the driest since 1976 apparently). As long as they use ashtrays, which I provide,  and don't put their butts in the flowerbeds and plant pots, I am totally cool with it.

The one thing I ask is that they do not smoke in the bedrooms. I don't think it's too much to ask. As a smoker, I know it's not always fun to go outside in the cold, wind and rain, but when the weather is so fine, what is the problem? Even when the weather is not great, most people are used to not being able to smoke inside.

Luckily, it's very rare that I get guests who smoke in the rooms (or maybe others were better at hiding their tracks). This example was unusual in that it was a guest who seemed to be very conscientious about the rules in general, but is not following this particular one. I suspect it's because he thinks I would not approve of WHAT he is smoking and that is why he is doing it sneakily in his room. But, I would much rather allow it outside than have him do it in there...

[Huma0]

@Anonymous 

And as for your general point about rules, it makes total sense, but I guess there are two reasons why my rules are so long and detailed and have been added to over time.

1. There are those things that you will throw a guest out for. Then there are those things that, if they happen repeatedly rather than occasionally, drive you mad and make hosting just not worth the stress. One example of this is guests ignoring check in times. Another is unauthorised visitors. Another still is using my address for registering things like bank accounts, credit cards, social security etc. 

2. I've been told quite clearly by Airbnb CS that, in order to back me up with a rule breaking guest, the rules broken have to actually be specified in the listing. On one occasion early on in my hosting experience, this turned out to be crucial in dealing with some problematic guests.

However, a lot of my rules were written when I was still hosting short term guests and some of those things aren't such an issue now. Or, I mean they happen occasionally rather than frequently, so I probably could remove a few.

[Huma0]

@Anonymous 

PS off topic, but my issue with the 'ketamine brunch' was:

1. Disturbance to already sensitive neighbours. The housemate was an amateur DJ and had a full on club sound system going all day as well as numerous people coming and going.

2. Airbnb guest checking in who was luckily not to phased about it but could have been horrified. No one expects to check in to an Airbnb and find 30 random people having a full on drug and vodka fuelled party in the middle of the day in the space they booked and the host not on site to handle it.

3. Ketamine left all over the dining table (that's how I knew about the drugs), where my cats could easily have ingested it. I imagine it could have killed them if they did. They are not horses.

Still, all being said and done, I liked that housemate more than some of the 'digital nomads' I have hosted lately!

[Anonymous]

@Huma0  It sounds like a great party, but the wrong venue in so many ways. Here in Kreuzberg, it's just the normal thing that happens when the bar closes at sunrise and nobody wants to go to bed  🙂

Anyway, I think your recent guests are pretty representative of this peculiar moment in which our intuitive sense of barriers between work, school, and home life has been broken for a long time, but the illusion that it was just a temporary disruption prevented a new social etiquette from adapting. But now it's pretty clear, we're never going back to the norms of 2019, so we have to redesign the social structures a bit.

Personally, I prefer not to get too rules-y with people if another approach is possible. I think guests would actually be quite happy to know that at least one communal space is a 100% work-free zone, fully dedicated to pleasure and conviviality. You want them to feel like not like they're following a list of do's and don'ts, but honoring and protecting the sacred rites of the tribe.

[Huma0]

@Anonymous 

Yes, that's the tricky bit... Finding that balance and communicating that this is supposed to be a place where people can relax and enjoy themselves, without getting heavy handed with rules. 

Maybe it doesn't seem so on this forum, as I tend to rant and rave a bit about bad guest behaviour, but I'm definitely up for sharing my space with guests or I wouldn't do this. I love chatting to them over a glass of wine (or several), having movie nights or whatever... If they were up for going to the pub together, then I'd be delighted.

However, there is a distinction between booking a place to stay and then thinking you can totally take it over, whether that is throwing unauthorised parties or treating it like an office. 

Perhaps I should start with the living room or the outdoor spaces? E.g. say those are for relaxing/socialising but not for working...

[Anonymous]

@Huma0  That sounds like a totally reasonable approach. If I were one of the guests, I'd appreciate that the host took charge and set that boundary. I'd be really annoyed if other guests were commandeering the shared spaces for their work, but I'd never want to have to actually complain about it.

[Huma0]

@Anonymous 

That's a good point. The other guests never complain about these situations, so I tend to assume I am the only one that is bothered about it, but maybe they are just being polite. My guests don't tend to complain about each other in general, but might casually drop in a comment about someone else's behaviour once they are gone...

[Ted307]

@Huma0 

That sounds like the way to go. "No Work Zone" in the living room has a positive vibe! Not like it is a rule you have to put in your listing, maybe a funny sign or poster? "Cat petting zone -- No working Allowed"? 🙂

[Huma0]

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@Ted307 wrote:

@Huma0 

Not like it is a rule you have to put in your listing, maybe a funny sign or poster? "Cat petting zone -- No working Allowed"? 🙂

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That's a cute idea. I'm not too keen on signs though. But I agree that it could be presented in a positive way. 

I think that many of us find it difficult these days to separate work from home life. The guests who decide to work from the living room probably never think for a minute that they are doing anything that would stop others from enjoying the space. No one watches the TV in there, but some do take their laptop there to watch a film or TV show (which has become the 'normal' way to consume entertainment), so instead of others feeling like they can join in, one feels like you are disturbing whomever is in there if you enter.

[Anonymous]

@Huma0   I think that's part of the idea behind the "Screen-Free Zone" as I've seen elsewhere. Once you take personal devices out of the situation, people start making eye contact when a new person walks into the room, and if conversation doesn't emerge, the quieter activities like reading a book or sipping a coffee feel more relaxed and civilized.

I wouldn't take things that far in a normal homestay, as it's not really the setting to shove people so far out of their comfort zone. But I'd be interested to hear from hosts who have tried it out.

[Huma0]

@Anonymous 

Yes, the idea of telling people they can't use their phones in certain areas would be taking it too far in a homestay setting. I think they would freak out. But work free zones makes sense to me.

A few years ago, I was on a work trip with a bunch of other journalists. We had a rare break early evening and decided to go to a cafe by the river for drinks and nibbles. There were about eight of us sat at a round table outside. It was lovely. However, everyone was glued to their phones and not engaging at all (and we did all get on very well, so that wasn't the problem). 

Once everyone had done their social media posts, I hoped they would put down the phones, but no. So, I told everyone to put their phones in the middle of the table and that the first person to touch theirs would pay the bill. Everyone agreed, did as instructed, but it was only about three minutes before the first person cracked and grabbed his phone, followed by everyone else. Of course he refused to pay the bill! 

[Huma0]

Oh, and I forgot the guy who broke my wooden steamer chair (sun lounger) because he decided to use the roof terrace as his office every day and the foot section of the steamer as his office chair. I did comment to him that it really didn't look comfortable at all and why didn't he try one of the normal chairs instead, but he wasn't interested. When I noticed it was broken and mentioned it to him, he just shrugged and said, "Well, I'm sure it can be fixed." Erm, no. I had to get rid of it. 

The chair was similar to this. Why would you think the foot of that was a suitable place to put all your weight for hours at a time?

[Ted307]

@Huma0 

I can't even imagine crouching on the foot section, I guess that makes me an old person. I see our kids and grand kids contorting themselves while using their "screens". Does not look comfortable to me!

[Huma0]

@Ted307 

Yep, it's pretty odd to me too. It's not like the guest didn't have a normal chair to sit on (desk and chair in his room, plus chairs on the terrace). I have no idea why he decided that the foot of a lounger would make a suitable office chair, but he did. Problem is that he didn't think it was necessary to pay for it when he broke it.

Oh well. If it was easier to claim for these damages via AirCover or whatever they call it right now, I might have tried, but it seems to me that it's just not worth the hassle and the bad reviews for these smaller damages. 

I could have bought a new lounger for around £150 because I found one that was a bargain, but I didn't because I thought, until guests stop abusing my furniture, I'm just not going to buy any more...