Difficult time

[Lilly28]

Lizzie Hi @Willow and Cor from Netherland,

I need help! I have gusts with a child 7 years old. Tomorrow they are leaving with check out at 11.30 a. m. and I have another guest the same day at 18 p.m.  My problem is with the guests with the child. They have told me that I will have no problem with them and have send so nice comments untill now. Their booking is for 3 days.

Today they hang the child,s sheet out of the window, I have send them worning that they should not do this, no reply - then send them new message that I have to enter to bring down the sheet because one of the neighbours had complained. They have immediately removed it and messaged me that did so.

Now I wonder if the sheet was hanged because they have a child who gets drunk(wet) at night. If this is so - my two down duvets will be all over wet with urine, as I have put him 2 duvets instead of mattress - I told the mother that I can provide other bedding but she was excited of the way I had arranged the sofa for the child. I have a deposit.

Can I ask them now for the purpose of hanging the sheet and if the down duvets are not wet as well? Shall I ask them to do the check-out earlier with half an hour? Or should I leave the matter for tomorrow at the chech-out time - and if really my suspects get right - how I should handle the matter?

My duvets are down and feather - one and a half  year old.And they cannot be dry cleaned - but only washed, but NO WAY to find someone to do this - they refuse to do this job, therefore if my suspects go right - I have to buy new down duvets, oh that hurts me - on the other hand I non stop am asking myself - am I not a bit too suspicious and touchy...   But if the child really is one who gets wet at night - was not his mother responsibility to tell me that so that I would provide the bed with special plastic - I asked if they need s-th - no, they told me. What to do now?

[Willow3]

I think you are stuck at the moment.  I would imagine though, that if the child had wet the bed, they would be attempting to dry out the duvets as well... no point putting a clean dry sheet on wet dirty duvet.  So I am hoping that it was just a minor issue and you will not find a disaster when you go to turn the apartment over.  

If it were me, I would NOT contact the guests, either to ask nor to request an earlier checkout.  I truly hope that your duvets are not soiled, but this is the kind of thing I had in mind when we were discussing your Le Crueset pan... precious things to us, are not always precious to others.  I do have high quality linens and duvets in my space - and I will cry a little inside if they are destroyed by guests... but I knowingly take that chance and so the ultimate responsibility is on me.  Now, I am able to charge a fee which allows me to replace things... and sadly, your area does not support this.  

I hope for the best for you!

[Christine615]

Keep another set of linens (lower quality, maybe down alternative?) on hand and a bed lining that is waterproof. Use those for guests with young children.

I didn't, and now regret it. One kid had a small accident I was able to clean and sanitize (didn't go past the regular bed liner but we steam cleaned the mattress anyway.)

I do think if the sheet was out the window, it was an accident. But I've also had a guest (grown women) spill red wine on my new sheets and carpet. So it may have been a different kind of accident.

Fingers crossed it is the latter.

[Lilly28]

Willow and Christine,

Thank you for your help!! I need someone to discuss with, someone who had more experience than me and to advice me what to do. They are a nice couple - young father and mother, she told me she is a perfectionist for her home - that the child - sweet, blond hair, so nice - is more interested in books than in TV or toys.  I was more than helpful for their 3 days stay-they are from Oregon - and just that accident... and my worries... And today was a splendid spring day - warm, sun shining - but they stayed the whole day at home! I am also afraid that something else might have happened - the child might have vomiting, for me - good news, but thinking for the poor child!

I have ordered them a taxi for 11.30 a.m. - usually the taxi is getting either just in time or 5 to 8 minutes earlier. I think I will better write them tomorrow at about 10 a.m. or later on that I will be for the check-out 15 minutes earlier as to have time to say goodbuy and in case the taxi gets earlier.

Do you think this is a good idea? And should I look at the child.s bed to see if there is something wrong or I have better to ask the parents straight away what was the problem that they had to hang the sheet?

[Sandra856]

@Lilly28 

I'm from Denmark and my guests are also sleeping with duvets also made of down. 

I wash my guest duvets very freqently (ones a month) in my own washing machine using detergent for sensitiv fabrics like wool etc. I don't have my own dryer because my apartment is quite small. But luckily there is a landromat only 100 meters from my home. It is quite expensive because it takes quite a while to get the duvets completely dry. 

In Denmark people wash their feather duvets all the time on 60 degrees. I thought it was a common thing to do?

Best, Sandra

[Lilly28]

Sandra!!! You helped me a lot!

So I have to wash them 60 degrees with wool detergent? Is that right? Or should I wash them at a higher temperature? I asked at several firms doing drying and washing but they refused to take care of my down duvets. They have told me it takes about 3 hours to dry. Can you please ask someone if I can dry in my own dryer making more cycles - because I have not got a program for longer drying period. In fact I have never used my dryer although I own my combination washer-dryer for almost 10 years. 

[Lilly28]

Sandra - one more question. The first duvet is 50 or 75% down and 50 or 25% feather - I have forgotten the exact porcentage. But the second one is all feather. I have heard that feather is very, very difficult to be washed and that afterwords there is always bad smell - is that right? Thanks if you answer!

[Sandra856]

Hi @Lilly28 🙂

I'm glad you could use my help! 🙂

Yes, 60 degress will kill dust mites etc. so no need for higher temperatures.

You can easily use your own dryer but it takes as the dry-cleaner company told you quite a while.

My parents do that. They have a normal sized dryer.

The laundromats in Denmark have these really big dryers. When using those it reduses the drying time quite a lot. It sounds strange but I always put 3 tennis balls inside the mashine as well. If you have a laundromat in your area with those big machines I would definetely recommend one of those instead of your own normal sizes one. 

I just borrowed this from the internet to explain 🙂

• Go to your local laundromat and look for a large commercial drying machine. Put the duvet inside and set the settings. Put a couple of tennis balls inside the machine together with your duvet. Doing so will lessen the chunks of down and feathers inside the duvet while the machine spins it. Don’t forget to put the tennis balls inside white socks because the color of the tennis balls might also transfer to the duvet.

[Sandra856]

@Lilly28

About the feather duvet I have never had a 100 % feather duvet only a combination or 100% down. 

So it is difficult for me to know.

I think the problem with the smell could be that the duvet wasen't completely dry?

If it was me I would look at what the washing instrutions says on the duvet. And if it says 60 degrees I would just wash it and make sure it was completely dry before taking it out of the dryer 🙂

[Lilly28]

Sandra, THANK YOU!

[Sarah977]

@Lilly28   Hope you find that the duvets haven't gotten soiled.

I raised 3 kids and I really have a hard time understanding how parents manage to let their babies and kids pee on things. When they are young enough to be in diapers, a diaper should always be on inside the house. If they are older, and wet the bed at night, obviously there needs to be waterproof bedding and parents need to bring this with them when they travel, or notify hosts that they will require it.

There's actually no reason for a child out of diapers, unless they are in some state of emotional trauma, to be wetting the bed at night. It's not hard to train a child to get up and go to the bathroom when they have to pee in the night, most parents just don't understand that.

[Robin4]

@Lilly28

Maybe best not to jump to conclusions! If she is the 'perfectionist' she claims to be, she would have made sure the duvets were not damaged Lilly, but washing them is an easy procedure as @Sandra856 has said.

And on that topic, Sandra be careful if you use a commercial laundromat to dry your duvet. A laundomat here recently caught fire because an unattended duvet has left for 30+ minutes on a hot temperature setting. Home dryers do not generate enough heat to ignite a flamable product....but commercial dryers do! 

Lilly if you wish to address your post to another particular contributor, push the 'shift' and the @ keys at the same time and a box will appear with the tags of other contributors on that thread. You can click the contributor you wish to reply to and their name will appear in your reply in blue @Lilly28 and that person will receive a prompt that you have replied to them.

Some times I have been asked a question that has gone days unanswered because I did not know they had contacted me. It is called 'tagging' and is a little trick you may like to remember.

Cheers.....Rob  

[Lilly28]

@Robin4

Oh, Thanks for that trick, I really was wondering how to address persons. I made two suggestions in another discussion - to change the rules for reviews, because the rules are now set in a way to smash our human dignity because of some future pennies from virtual future guests.

First, I suggest that guests not leaving a review must be punished in some way - i.e. taking away one star from their previous reviews, and second - I think it is fair that we, as hosts would have the right to read the review a guest has left and after that to leave our reviews for the guests. What do you think about that?

[Robin4]

@Lilly28 There you go, that makes it a bit easier and a bit more personal!

You are on the right track Lilly but taking a star away from the guest doesn't mean anything because hosts don't get to see their star ratings. Maybe make it prominent to guests, if they fail to leave 5 reviews they will lose the ability to 'Instant Book' or 'Split payment' (pay less up front option), penalise them in a tangible way!

As far as the review question is concerned Lilly there are a large percentage of reviews where you know which way it will go so you can be positive with your review. There are some that you don't know how the guest will review you so in those cases it is best to be generic and not make any statements one way or the other......"communication with xxxxx was good, I hope there were no issues with their stay and I wish them all the best for the future"! Just leave it at that. So often we have seen the host give the guest a glowing review and when the guests review turns out to be less than stellar, the host then does an about face and launches into an ugly tiraid with the review response. The host ends up looking like a fool, either the guest was great or they were not. You can't have a bob each way!

And that is the reason reviews are structured the way they are. You as the host always have the right to a review response, and that response will show on your page directly under their review. I always leave a review response to every review. To me Lilly it is like finishing the chapter and closing the book. Leaving a review response is an essential part of the review process for me.

Cheers......Rob

[Sarah977]

@Lilly28   Respectfully, I don't agree that the hosts should be able to read the guest's reviews before writing theirs. I think the blind review system is actually one of the better policies of airbnb. While most hosts are professional in the way they deal with guests, there are some who are not, and may not even be what most of us would consider nice people. So if a guest writes a bad review with untruths and so on, and the host gets to read it first, there would be way more nastinesss going on in the reviews from both sides, I believe. As it stands now, you do have the option to respond publicly to the guest's review, so do use that option if you feel you need to.

I do agree that if hosts can be punished by not having enough guests leave them reviews, guests should have some sort of repercussions for not bothering themselves to write one.