I did all the wrong things - Now I hate my guest!

[Paul154]

I just said good-bye to my most annoying guest. 

The thing is ... they didn't do anything terribly wrong!

I did many things wrong:

1. I allowed them to rent my master bedroom for 7 days for good money (it's graduation week).  I hadn't realized that my maximum stay was 7 days. 7 days is too long for me to be without my bedroom. I have now changed it to 4 days max.

2. I incorrectly checked "On- site parking". This is normally provided for the bottom apartment. Sure enough, he showed me that I had errantly checked it. Fortunately, I could rent my neighbors driveway for off-street parking. 

3. They didn't know how to "Chromecast", so I provided another smart TV. I had to order an attenna, cuz he wanted to watched the local weather channel (He has cable...)

4. He made me install my window screen (we don't have insects or bugs). 

5. He asked if I provided breakfast, cuz his wife thought I did. He correctly proclaimed that I probably didn't, but there it is...

All of these things are standard . From a business standpoint, I should be grateful that his complaints made me improve my listing. But, after two days, I purposely tried to avoid them. I realized I was not up to snuff 😞

I am so grateful that other guests have accepted "My house" as my house. Most guests take it as it is and realize that I don't need to live up to their standards. 

But now I don't know....

[Linda108]

@Paul154   It seems like you are having a "mid-life crises" as a host...:P  I hit the wall last year when I realized I am not cut out for anybody to stay with me over 7 days. So after I suffered through a 20-day stay of 2 really unpleasant men and a pleasant 2 week stay of a delightful couple, I changed my max setting.

[Sarah977]

@Paul154   When I first decided to host, I thought about setting up 2 listings, one for the single room (1 guest only) and one for my room, which has a queen-size bed and is much larger. I'd link the calendars so if one got rented, the other would be blocked, and I'd just move between the 2 bedrooms myself depending on which got booked. I'm a minimalist, so it only takes me about 15 minutes to move my personal stuff from one bedroom to the other (I've done this many times when friends or family come to visit).

I'm sure that would have brought me more bookings, and certainly would have been more lucrative, as I could charge more for a couple in the master bedroom. But then I thought, do I really want to not only be cleaning the rooms, but having to move all my stuff back and forth all the time? (when friends or family stay, I don't clear my closet, don't have make sure it's squeaky clean, just that they have clean bedding, and can go in and out to get stuff whenever). So I decided that I'd just list the guest room for 1, and see how that goes. If I was depending on Airbnb as a major source of income, the single room wouldn't bring me enough $, but I get lovely guests who don't complain about anything, so all is well.

I remember your post about going on vacation and staying in a number of Airbnbs and that you realized you were the kind of guest that hosts complain about, as you didn't read all the listing info, and made assumptions about which spaces were shared and moved furniture around to suit yourself. 

You should write a book- Confessions of a Terrible Host and Guest 🙂  Although I doubt if you could be considered to be either. But your self-deprecating humor is entertaining and refreshing.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Paul154 

Sounds like it's time for a break. Henry has been going thru a crisis-of-sorts, so we decided not to host this summer. Henry will go on a solo trip AND stay in a hotel for 2 weeks instead 🙂