When you live in the same home as your guest space....

[Jim-And-Deb1]

We are trying to figure out HOW quiet we need to be when our guests are below OUR living space. I set quiet hours from 10 pm-10am, but we still feel rude when we need to do laundry or run the garbage disposal. Is noise to be expected by guests to a certain degree when they know this is your home, or do we need to whisper and tip toe the whole stay??  Any input from experience is appreciated!

[Sarah977]

@Jim-And-Deb1 It is your home, so no, you don't need to whisper and tiptoe around. That would be really stressful. Your quiet hours from 10AM to 10PM, sound quite reasonable. It might be a good idea for one of you to actually sleep down there one night, if you haven't already, while the other goes about normal living, to get an idea of just how loud footsteps, washing machine, etc, sounds down there. And some guests may have had to get up a 3AM to catch a flight and been travelling all day and want to sleep in til 11AM or so, I know some of my guests do. So you could always ask guests when they check-in and reiterate quiet times, what their sleeping habits are. If they're early risers and are clattering around making themselves breakfast or showering by 10AM, they likely wouldn't even hear you upstairs.

If you don't already, just make it clear in your listing description that as you live upstairs, outside of the 10-10 quiet times, they may hear some sounds of your family going about their normal routine. You could also provide earplugs for guests in case they wish to use them while they are sleeping.

[Jim-And-Deb1 · Accepted solution]

THANK YOU, Sarah!  All very good advice, and we have done that to a point, but not as you described about actually being our own 'guest' for a night to make observations.  We will do that before our next guest arrives! I do provide earplugs already, and a white noise machine, so we do what we can.  

Again, thanks for the feedback!!!!! Deb

[Sarah977]

@Jim-And-Deb1 It's always a good idea for hosts to try sleeping in their guest accomodation, even if it's not a noise issue. There are things a host might never notice otherwise. For instance, cleaning normally takes place during daylight hours, so a host or their cleaner might never be aware that there is a pile of dead bugs in the ceiling light fixture or wall sconce. But when your guest is lying in bed at night reading or watching a movie, they are quite likely to look up and see that 🙂 Or the bulb wattage you have in a nightstand lamp may be either too bright or not bright enough to read by.