Oh no! A local news station wants to do a story on our place?!

[Donald28]

I know this would be awesome for our publicity and for gaining future bookings but being on camera is worse than pretty much anything on my "bad list". Even public speaking & death! 

[Lawrene0]

It really does increase bookings, @Donald28 . Had it happen here, so I know. The problem was that they were all locals, and some were good, some were not. A lot of locals tried their best to convince me to let them come outside of the system, but I wouldn't because I expected I would not get paid. 

Anyway, one trick to ignoring the camera is to pretend to yourself that there is something wrong with it and it isn't recording. Try that and see if it helps. 

[Sarah977]

@Donald28  Cool that they want to do this, but I'd feel much the same. If you don't want to do it, then just don't. As Lawrene said, it may bring you more hassle than would be offset by the number of good bookings you get from it. 

But if you do decide to go for it, break a leg, as they say.

[Lawrene0]

Yes, @Sarah977 , and I forgot about the "just lookers". People were able to approximately locate us, by doing internet and through-the-relatives searching, and I headed off maybe five carloads of couples, grandpas with the grandchildren, that sort of thing, in the months after the story, who thought they could just come and see the treehouse. 

There is no money in that, and heaps of annoyance. I suspect the same sort of thing might happen to you, @Donald28 . People will "just want to look at" your setup. 

Sorry to cast a cloud over this. Do think hard about it. But if you go with it, have fun. It's a fun day, and the crew will be nice.

[Kelly149]

@Donald28  I’d be another vote for skip it. 

My listing (not me, not the barn, just the listing) was featured on a local morning news spot. 

I didn’t even know it was going to happen! But I got ONE local person angry as they inquired about why weekend pricing for multiple people was more than the two people on Tuesday pricing that the newscaster had featured. 

If if you did it I’d vet carefully that what will be said lines up with your marketing goals

[Donald28]

The more I think about it, the less I am interested in doing it. It would be showing my tinyhouse, arcade and property to people who might want to do the same thing on their property. I'm sure I'd be inundated with questions about permitting, code enforcement and charities wanting to bring their youth groups here for free... etc etc etc. 

[Kelly149]

@Donald28 how did that whole code thing work out when they wanted to shut you down??

[Donald28]

It was strange to say the least! The code dept had me convinced that I was going to have to remove the tinyhouse. They told me at least 5 reasons why and they were all pretty much valid... no proper setbacks from property line, shipping containers cannot be placed on a property at all in this county, allowing people to sleep in our "pool house"... a pool house here can have everything except sleeping arrangements evidently and a few other things. 

I was so sure that I actually called the crane company and asked how much it would be to hoist it out & off it's treebound location. They said $2k. It cost $6k to have put in but they had to remove a few trees first. 

Then, our property taxes went up $1200 annually AND the county said we were a business and started charging us $100 a month "inventory tax" on the items we allow our guests to use. 

My accountant husband wanted to fight the $2400 new taxes BUT I told him that if we did that the county would surely continue to hassle us and probably make us remove the container home. 

We've paid the new taxes without question and have not heard from the county since. It's been about a year. They know that we bring tourist dollars to the county and know that we're not doing anything "dangerous" here so I think they've chosen to leave us alone for the time being. 

The very 1st person from the county to come out (after someone turned us in) was the assessor. It really is all about the money. They just want more money and more money.  And I am OK with the new taxes because it allows me to make almost $30k this year on our 1 airbnb.