Use of Kitchen for my guests?

[Deborah23]

Hi 

I have a booking for two related families due to arrive on the 10th December to the 16th December.  Originally when they enquired they thought the booking was for the whole house until I explained it was a shared house, bed and breakfast only.  I had ticked that there was also shared kitchen facilities, however, I had ticked this because many of my guests have needed to use the kitchen to make some dinner rather than go out after a long day and I have been happy to accommodate this.

Because I provide breakfast, I don't expect my guests to use the kitchen for breakfast and I don't expect them to use it for lunch - otherwise what was a 'bed and breakfast' booking is now becoming effectively a 'self catering' booking.

The guests arriving on the 10th December have come back to me and advised me that they intend to use the kitchen to cook their own breakfast, lunch and dinner every day!  I think this is unreasonable and I have already been very accommodating not charging them for the child that will also share their room which they did not indicate when booking.

I have advised them that their request to use the kitchen for anything other than cooking their evening meals does not work for me and that if they wish to cancel their booking they can.

Please tell me, am I being unreasonable and what do i need to do to prevent this happening in the future?  I have now removed the kitchen facilitiy altogether from the listing.

Deb

[Andrea9]

@Deborah23

When ticking an amenity it means they have free use of it. If you also hadn't clearly described any time-related usage or other limitations to this you will unfortunately have to suck it up this one time. You can't dangle an advantage in front of a guest's nose as it were and not deliver.

Another thing - I noticed on your listing that you state 2.5 bathrooms for the guest room. Does that mean that the guests may use all of them?

The Airbnb settings for stating what is offered and shared or not shared are quite misunderstandable. For this reason you might want to flesh out your description to repeat again that the room is in your home and that for ex. bathrooms are shared or that they have their own guest bathroom that isn't shared. So much clearer and weeds out some misunderstandings in advance. What my couple years hosting has taught me is pointing things out, if need be more than once. 

[Paul154]

Hi Deb,

Of course you are not being unreasonable to limit your kitchen privleges. It is your house, you can set any limits you want (just make sure you disclose upfront) . This is Airbnb - Once the guests see your offerings and demands they can choose your house your rules or go elsewhere.

And you are very wise to limit kitchen privleges for many reasons:

1. You don't need to offer your kitchen  at all. Think about it - comparable hotel rooms don't have kitchens.

2. You don't want guests in your space. People getting in my way in my kitchen is annoying as is the frying pan they "choose" to let soak in the sink...

3. You don't want guests that are in your house all day long. You want guests that wake up and go see the sights. You don't want to entice them to hang out by letting them cook breakfast, lunch and dinner.

4. You don't want the excessive garbage that cooking creates.

5. You don't want cheap guests who should be saving on eating by renting an apartment with a private kitchen.

6. You don't want guests to put your kitchen under the microscope and then complain to Airbnb that your silverware drawer is not tidy.

So many problems can be solved by not allowing kitchen privleges or by saying "light cooking only", "Frying discouraged"

"limited refridgerator space"

I do allow kitchen privleges, but am seriously considering removing my stove and oven.  The microwave is the only thing my "good" guests want. (They eat out and only need to reheat their leftovers...) I think removing the stove will solve many problems for me