Cases over the white beds: How to deter guests

Marco65
Level 5
Rome, Italy

Cases over the white beds: How to deter guests

Could you suggest some extremely polite words to ask guests not to put their backpacks and luggage (less cleaned) on white beds? The grease of the casing rollers, on the other hand, is difficult to remove. And, yes, call me picky.

Marco

18 Replies 18
Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Kimberly54you make some really good points! I've often thought about the expectations of the guest staying in my Airbnb v staying in a hotel. Some guests get that it is my home. Others expect to get the full hotel service at the cut price they are paying, e.g. my current guests who think nothing of messaging me in the early hours of the morning for non urgent matters. I guess they think a 24 hour reception/concierge/housekeeping service is included in an Airbnb as well. Paradoxically, they expect me NOT to be here. I am not sure if they think I should be camping around the corner somewhere, ready to respond to them at any moment.

 

I agree, it's very true that people act differently when out of their own home environment. They do things that I'm pretty sure they would not do at home, e.g. leave the front door open, the fridge open, the oven on, the bathroom lights on every time they use them, flood the showers... the list goes on.

 

Also, I find that many guests are not environmentally conscious. Maybe some of them are at home, but not when travelling. Do they change their towels every day at home? Do they have the heating pumped up to max 24 hours a day and then leave the windows open because it's too hot? I don't know, but I'm guessing generally not.

 

We are all different though, as you say. I would not consider taking soap from a hotel as 'stealing' as I see the toiletries as complimentary, but I would never take towels, robes or hangers and I know that many people do. I also don't tip at hotels, but always do at restaurants. 

@Huma0, I'm so glad you opened this conversation and hope it won't get lost in the thread because you've brought up SO MANY 'LITTLE?' items people stumble over!

 

* I'm SUPER environmentally conscious.  Truly, I am way over the top... except that I can't sleep in a room without a window just cracked open--even if the heat is on.  Fresh air.  (In most high-end hotel rooms you can not do this; it's CLIMATE CONTROL.)

 

* Items provided, in my mind, are for GUESTS convenience if they would/need to use it, but not for the taking.  Can you see how people can suddenly disagree?  I totally understand your point, but never saw it before you said this.  (Why would anyone need 5 bars of soap and 50 Q-Tips?)

 

* I don't know where you live, but in 'most' restaurants in the US, the tip (18%) is automatically included, even though the TIP section is still open.  You're paying twice. 

(Gotta ask, otherwise, $$$ 2X and you didn't even know it.)

 

* Also, I think more people are slobs than we might imagine, and in ways we might not have imagined.  Most of us hosts keep a pretty darned tidy house, right?  RIGHT. 

 

WOOPS!  This is a big wake-up call.  A lot of really nice guests don't know what a tidy house means (not talking hotels anymore), and what truly good manners are.   And then there are cultural differences!  (Oh, MY!)  :-))) 

 

No judgement, just go into these interactions with open eyes, open heart, and clear communication as you can manage. (DO NOT expect that they have memorized [or even read] your House Rules.)

 

Great topic.  Thank you!

 

Best,

 

 

Kim
Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Kimberly54maybe we are going slightly off topic here, but I think it's all along the same theme.

 

I also try to be fairly environmentally consicous. I always was (brought up that way) but used to work for a company that educated people on energy efficiency, so after that, I've been all over it! I don't leave the window open overnight in a heated room, but it drives me CRAZY when I stay in a hotel room where I don't have the option of opening the window to let in a bit of air.

 

Lol, I've never stayed in a hotel where I got five bars of soap and 50 q-tips, and that includes the 5 star ones, but I suppose if you were devious about it, you could get them to provide such a stash! I stay in a lot of 4 and 5 star hotels because of my job and I have found that they are cutting back on the toiletries. They give you the basics and next to them is a card saying if you need other things (cotton wool, q-tips, toothpaste, sewing kit etc.) you can ask. I think that's a clever tactic. People will take it if it's there even if they don't need it, but can they be bothered to request it?

 

I live in London and here it is now almost always standard for a 'discrentionary' 12.5% service charge to be added to a restaurant bill. That means you don't HAVE to pay it, but it is automatically added and you have to make a fuss if you don't want to pay it. I'm sure very few people make that 'fuss'. I've only done it a couple of times due to TERRIBLE service, but the reaction I got was complete astonishment, e.g. "What do you mean you don't want to pay the service charge even though we've given you the worst service ever?"

 

What I meant was that, even before this automatic service charge was added, I always tipped in restaurants, even when I was very young and had no money. I guess it's becaue I've waited on tables, but I've never cleaned a hotel room...

 

Thank you for bringing up the point re slobs. You are so right. As hosts, we need to keep our places immaculate, so maybe we are cleaner than the average Jane or Joe. That being said, the slobbish guests still generally expect to stay in a place that is immaculate. I understand that. They are paying after all. What annoys me are the guests that are presented with an immaculate space, make a mess of it and then rate you down on cleanliness for the mess that they made!

 

I have certainly learnt that guests do not read/memorise the rules and even though I try to go over the most important stuff in my welcome tour, they will still forget a lot of it. I am having quite a few issues with my current guests, who can't seem to digest any information and are therefore causing all sorts of problems, including damage to my home. When I suggested to them that perhaps they hadn't actually read the rules as requested, the response was, "Yes, we read them. That doesn't mean we have to remember them." 

I've had similar experiences. 79 guests this year, I can remember each one and especially the ones who expected hotel VS home as well as the ones who kicked up the heat to 80 and air down to 68. i've got Solar panels for my home, so I try to maximize their usage and not the furnace which is gas, so I have a couple of electric space heaters but seem to have folks who either don't understand how to use them or ones that think a comfortable sleeping temp is 80F.

 

I have gotten into the habbit now of providing only towels for the number of guests who are planning to stay. And I've added a house rule that the dishes must be done, that the recylcling bag is in the closet and trash must be removed when they leave. Now, i'm going to have to stop having so many blankets for them because i'm using too much water washing and drying the linens with every successive guest. Water, electric, gas, recycling, I'd like to conserve some of these things, thank you very much.

 

As for the white linens, I use them, too, but haven't had the experience yet with anyone putting bags on the beds. Either they do and they have clean bags or they don't. I have one dresser which is lower specifically for bags, but the other two rooms are too small for luggage rack.