@Ute42 @Ellen33 @Letti0 @Rene17
I am still a new kid on the block having only seriously hosted for 2.5 years but in conversation with others I seem to have had a random lot of guests, and for me a pattern has appeared. About every 15 guests I will strike one out of left field!
It's never a man, it's always a woman in her 60's.
She will tell me she found an old web and my cleanliness was not up to par!
She will tell me the cottage wasn't exactly where she wanted it....it really should have been in the next town so maybe it wasn't worth what she paid for it!
She will tell me the polished concrete floor was cold and I should have thought to provide guest 'slip-ons' to avoid this happening!
These guests are going to give a me a 4 anyway and there is nothing I can do about that....a bottle of Chanel No7 as a parting gift wouldn't alter that!
But there is another category that you have to protect yourself from.
She will accidentally up-end a bottle of nail polish remover on a quilt cover leaving a fist sized white spot and hope I won't notice it!
Despite there being a resin cutting board, she will slice up a bunch of asparagus on the timber benchtop leaving score marks in it and proceed to tell me she doesn't have worry about that at home because she has grantite benchtops....why don't I!
She will leave her clothes draped across the bed on departing and expect me to mail them back to her at my expense!
They seem to come around as regular as clockwork....and the only problem with IB is, they are on you before you get a chance to put the 'lock on the door' barring their entry (declining their booking)!
So, how best to handle them! I have said in other posts I build a 'sinking fund' into each stay to cover the physical damage that 16th guest will do, so, I don't bounce them, I don't demand anything of them, I just put a big red box around their name to remind me to make myself 'unavailable' for them to stay again in the future.
My main concern though is to antagonise them as little as possible before the review. The ones that do damage will hope they dodged a bullet and if I let their indiscretion go I will probably still get a 5 star. Sure it might cost a few dollars to put it right again but, the wheels on the bus go round and round and I maintain a steady stream of bookings.
As hosts we are all going to end up with this scenario sooner or later and it is my firm belief the important thing is the score line at the end of the game....not that free kick you might have scored before quarter time!
I hope that makes sense!
Cheers.......Rob
