Relatively new host giving advice

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Lulu81
Level 2
Minot, ND

Relatively new host giving advice

Hello

My name is Lulu. I’m a relatively new host and felt the need to start a thread for anybody looking for advice when starting to host. 
Honestly, most of my experiences have been quite wonderful, people come from all states and respect the rules. 
One thing I have been perplexed by is the amount of stains on linens

I purchased brand new linens and both of my sets of sheets and about 40% of my towels have been very quickly stained by guests. What are these stains?.... go figure. No clue. Never in my life, have I created stains of the sort I see while hosting, on my own home towels. 
I was given the advice, before I started hosting, to have white linens since you can bleach them. I bought Lacoste white towels and I have been left in awe as to the extent of irreparable staining that occurs after about your second-third guest. Brown rusty looking stains on a good percentage of them. What are people doing to cause these stains?? No clue. Truly. 
I have used chlorox, oxi clean to repair them and a good portion of them never clean up, therefore, I can’t put them back up on the towel rack. So sad. 
Also I have had 2 high end sets of sheets on the queen bed I have get greasy stains on the 1st-3rd EVER use, when they were new to begin with. I have soaked them for hours using methods found on the web to no avail.   
I truly do not understand the reason or the human habits/conditions that might be causing this damage 

I truly wish that I knew this beforehand so I can at east be mentally prepared for that 

Another thing I learned is how much I was to learn to despise providing washclothd for guests.  Sometimes I am confused as to whether to wash or discard the ones with heavy brown extensive stains on them. I’m still trying to gauge if that is a practice I will continue.  
As for everything else. There is a substantial amount of guests asking for early check in. I found that to be weird (yet realistic) because I have never in all my travels made assumptions that I had that possibility. 
After the amount of requests I have received, I have added a rule I never expected/wanted to enforce: 

$25 fee if early check in is >2 hours early. 
As of every other aspect of hosting, I have found that most guests are a pleasure to deal with and that they respect the home and leave it orderly. 
Do provide any insight or advice on how you guys deal with these kinds of shenanigans. I would truly appreciate it. 🙂

 

 

1 Best Answer

Hi @Lulu81.

I agree with @Sarah977 that a guest asking for an extended period of time is either naive, clueless or pushy. A hotel/ motel will not allow such variations  in times without charging a fee.

Bag storage or drop off is something different with documented choices noted and agreed upon. (Example: checkout must still happen; bags not left in the space, interfering with cleaning. Same with early arrival.) 

 

I actually charge a half day rate if someone wants to stay 4-12 hours longer, or arrive 4-12 hours earlier.

I do this by discussing it with the booking guest that I will offer them a half day rate, then if agreed, I go to the calendar and make the daily rate $ change. Then send them a reservation change of date/s, which requires them to accept, or it doesn’t happen. The time for arrival and or checkout will be documented so there can be no misunderstanding.  Anything under or over two hours is totally dependant on my goodwill and space, cleaning requirements.

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20 Replies 20
Lulu81
Level 2
Minot, ND

@Huma0 

wow. If that is the photo of the actual towel they got dirty... oh ! What were they doing with it?! People are something else sometimes. 
thanks for the solid advice!

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Lulu81 

 

Yep. That was a brand new, pristine white one. I just had to take a photo of it but, guess what? I got those stains out!

Lulu81
Level 2
Minot, ND

@Cathie19 

I love how specific you are. I will adopt that same policy. It’s true. There needs to be paper trail and payment needs to be modified and only through the guests agreement should we proceed to the more extensive early check in/or out. A rate change makes sense to me. Thanks for sharing. 

🔍✏️🔐👉🏼

@Lulu81 .

The reason behind charging for an extended time: early arrival /late departure, is that it’s being offered & promoted to the guest as an extra service. Early morning arrivals can make some breakfast here at a lesser cost than sitting around an airport, especially if they are with kids. They can relax and get to get comfortable or snooze earlier. If night departure, they also can relax, they can shower the children and settle them in the evening, before a late night departure to the airport. But an extended service also costs, so I need to cover costs, because I can’t rent the space across the next day and I won’t clean at midnight! 😱😳

 

As I’m permanently in a hot climate, the air cons, power, water, use of the pool, kitchen facilities etc all cost and are always utilised.

 

👉🏼Just ensure any late check out arrangements are specific. Technically the half day $ rate if changed and accepted on your calendar will “read” as a cheaper full day, where they do not need to check out till the NEXT checkout day.

This works for me on both those “special priced” earlier day check in and night check outs, as they have communicated they are arriving on a “dawn” or  similar flight, or they are departing on a “red eye” flight: 11pm-2am. So I know they are leaving. If they are arriving say 1-3am, they need to pay for the previous night’s accommodation at the full rate.

 

I hope this all makes sense and adds some more clarity to my solution.

 

@Cathie19 

it absolutely makes sense.  Thanks so much for sharing. I really appreciate it

Lulu81
Level 2
Minot, ND

@Emiel1 

who would have thought?!

thanks! Will have to buy that too for the extra stubborn ones. It’s crazy how creative one has to get to run a business or run your life in general. Haha!