conserving energy

[Karsten-and-Venus0]

We're new hosts and noticed that most of our guests don't care about preseving energy, dispite our house rules. The A/C and lights stay on all day when the guests are not home. We put up a sign to remind them of the house rules to save energy and it acually got worse. We have not red flaged those guests as of yet but thinking about it.

Is that just something you have to learn how to deal with as a host ?

Thank you for any advise,

Venus & Karsten

[Annette33]

@Karsten-and-Venus0,

Quite a few good suggestions in this thread, very helpful to every host!

We simply can't "make" people behave the way we want to.....they are on vacation and often enough, they will treat any lodging like a hotel room. It's nothing personal, maybe just raise  your prices a bit if the overconsumption really eats into the $$.

To make up long house rules, prefaced each one by "please" is rather ineffective in my opinion. To come straight to the point, in one liners, with either dos or don'ts,  work much better, I believe. It's not rude, it actually helps guests to see that you are serious and they can digest the info much better. Posting a short, friendly "reminder" about the AC on the way out is brilliant!

Good luck!

Annette

[Nina75]

I Agree with you this upsets me a lot. 

The way I solved the problem was very simple. I replaced 90% of my Light switches with Motion Sensors. Get the expensive ones not the cheap ones. The expensive ones come with a switch that allows you to  turn the lights off at night.

 2nd I tell all guests that if they leave the Air Conditioners on when they are gone I will come inside and turn them off. That worked like a charm! Guests usually do not want people in the house so they make a concerted effort to turn off the lights.

[Cyrus22]

We live in tropical St.Lucia and the climate here is warm and sunny year round. To ensure guests comfort I installed ceiling fans in addition to an ac on the bedroom. My last guests on numerous occasions were out for hours and left the ac running. They even checked out and left the ac running. Electricity costs here are very high. Since we just started out on airbnb, the nightly prices at times have not even been enough to offset the utility costs. However  some people believe that since they're paying to stay at your listing, there is no to conserve anything. I am now in the process of putting up reminders in strategic locations to see if that curbs such behavior. 

Cyrus 

[Linda108]

I don't know about you, @Cyrus22 , but reminders that are left around the place are not an effective way to instruct many people, me included.  Your listing is quite lovely and your many positive reviews reflect well on your hosting.  I notice that there is no information about electricity conservation anywhere on your listing.  Most of us do not live on a tropical island or any island and are not as attuned to the conservation of electricity and its high cost.  Help educate.  It is a hot humid environment that is both desireable and difficult for those not used to it.

I think you can add a note in the description.  You can add a picture of the air conditioner with a caption supportive of conservation.  You can add a rule about leaving the ac on when not in the room.  You can add a timer to the ac.

You seem to be the type of host to personally engage the guests and establish a rapport.  Perhaps you can also make it part of your messaging to the guest about how much you appreciate their cooperation with conservation of electricity and perhaps as you confirm the check out you remind about the ac.

You have power here as a responsible host and the biggest power is in communication.  Will it work 100%, probably not, but it might work most of the time.

[Kenneth---Edwin0]

I’m also facing the same problem