Does anyone have any nice guests in?!

Paul1255
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

Does anyone have any nice guests in?!

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Having had a couple of “dud”’bookings/guests over the past few weeks I’m happy to report lots of wonderful charming guests in my listings at the moment:

 

-a fabulous Russian student here for a summer course at a University in central London, she loves the apartment as it’s her first time living outside of home!

 

-4 very charming French ladies here to explore London for a few days, keen to make the most of every single moment. 

 

-A great German guy, who’s in for a long stay. The washing machine broke down and had to be repalaced and he’s taken the whole thing in his stride and with very good humour.

 

-The coolest guest from Beijing, staying in my private room listing! She’s up and out early every morning after breakfast making the best of every moment even though the weather has been terrible here in London!

 

Anyone else got any good guests?

 

Paul 🙂 

 

 

136 Replies 136
Cathie19
Level 10
Darwin, Australia

Hi @Paul1255. I do hope the rain is easing and that you are sleeping well!

I’m managing my singular listing carefully this tourist season. I have four days from Sunday to Friday available but I just closed my book on them to avoid too much wear and tear on myself. (I’ve got incoming from “everywhere”, here next month for a family wedding reception on site)

 

I’ve had a run of lovely people this season. Great families with primary school aged children who have been delighted to have a swimming pool just next to their living space. Swimming at night after a days running around, even though you couldn’t pay me to get in (too cold for the locals...)! 

 

A couple who stayed last year came back for just under a fortnight, and currently I have three Aussie adults here who are having an old Darwin catch up.  On Friday I have a family returning for 11 days, who find the space a home away from home, whilst visiting family in town: a friendly and relaxed cohort...  

This season, unusually, most of my guests so far, have been southern Australian families, escaping winter. But I have had British families, and professionals from Brussels coming in for conferences.

 

The theme for me has been they are all paying reasonable money and travelling far to get here and enjoy themselves, so they make the effort to relax and enjoy themselves. So I think we are both happy!

 

 

@Cathie19  Isn't it so nice to get guests whose focus is on relaxing and having a good time? It would never occur to them to look for a square centimeter of dust somewhere that you missed and mark you down for it 🙂

Paul1255
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

Morning @Cathie19 !

 

I have just started to dry out 🙂

 

That's great you are closing shop for a few days and managing your own personal wear and tear- so important and I don't think as hosts we do this enough (I manage my pricing so that I can be shut for at least half the month, and enjoy my bed more but still bring in the same amount of money)

 

Sounds like you've had a great season of guests, fully agree when guests pay a reasonable amount they appreciate what they have bought into and therefore appreciate it more.

 

I need a holiday ahahah 

Great thread Paul! We are in California near Yosemite. We have a lovely couple from Florida tonight, very interesting conversations; we joked, plunged into the deep end of the pool a bit,  and when we disagreed,  we did so amiably! They feel like old friends. 

 

Last week, we had a very fun and educated guests, with six people with PhDs and other graduate degrees among our nine guests. A very cool Anglican  priest stayed with us last fall. He runs a hospice,  more interesting and deep onversations with a genuinely kind and thoughtful person. Our favorite guest so far this year is a very outgoing and fun lawyer from Brazil. He got us and a quiet couple from Alsace to join himfor day of hiking. That was followed up by a potluck barbeque and a late night of  conversation and wine on the porch. 

 

One of the nicest followup notes we've received was from a taceturn and slightly prickely  German woman who stayed with us a month ago. It didn't seem that we had clicked with her at all, and I didn't think she had enjoyed her stay. But in her note she gushed about how welcome and comfortable she felt. A life lesson there. 

Paul1255
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

Hey @Charlie231  sounds like some wonderful guests!

 

Hiking and BBQ too, sounds like a great day to me.

 

I find the last guest you mention in your post the most interesting! I have had many similar guests, thinking they didn't enjoy themselves or really "got" the idea of Airbnb, but turns out in their own unique way they did have a good time even if it didn't show at the time :))

One more Paul. We had two sisters from Florida stay with us last year. They make their living as artists, doing live chalk art at conventions, and selling prints of existing drawings. I joked that I'd trade them a stay for a work of art and they took me up on it. The mural they drew of Yosemite is about seven feet wide and four tall. I had to build a custom frame for it. And it is amazing. I'll have to post a picture. They brought cousins and stayed for four or five days. 

 

Yes, we have some duds. But the good guests enrich our lives and renew our faith in our fellow humans. 

Manasui0
Level 10
Bali, Indonesia

I got guets like getting candies from a jackpot machine.. you never know the combination you might get.. 

 

thank you for asking that question some times we got too carried away to much.. I forgot to apppriciate the good ones that has taught me alot in this short period of time.. I have not been a host for a long time, but I tried my best and yet the world found away to teach me with a devestating hard lesson to swallow.. then again.. same like my guest.. I can said they were races guest, bully guest, unbelieveably annoying guest, guest who treat you like no human, and sooo on.. 

 

but at the same time it also bring me pleasure hosting the diversity of it, cause some times is like 3 guest in a row who litterally bullies you, and suddenly you just have guest who like to be left alone, like taking a breake while earning, some times the condition comes at the wrong moment. 

 

but there are too many wonderfull guest who made you go to the villa as if you are seeing a friend.. there was a german person his travel buddy got stuck at some country with the passport issue. The german guy is already arrive in Indonesia, alone at a 3bdr villa, so I kept him company as much as I can, we end up become friends and not so much as a duty and the pay-er 

 

other great guest, when I was just started the hosting thing I don't know what to do, the room is locked and the guest could not go in after check in... it was 11 PM at night they were patience enough to wait and help me with me being panic actually.. It's Bali is the second night and there are no technician available any where in bali at that time, normally it takes three days for them to come and fix the problem.. They were easy to please and we had agreat laugh and share many stories.. They wanted to extend but the villa was full.. but we did keep in touch no matter the condition after that, we become neighbour for a month actually.. it was fun.. They help me to over come the sorrow from loosing my my daughter at that time.. I was lucky and would not be so lucky if I'm not greatfull toward the group. 

 

It actually aliminate the consious mind, the memory of reality about the existance of racism or inequality that exist are actually being lifted for a while and the world just become easier, simpler, and lighter.. the gift of good karma.. by doing right at the smallest masure, we are bless with a gift by gratitude, the short break from the pain and suffering the world has always burden us as long as we live no matter our status nor money.. 

 

All I can say so far is thank you, for the experience, is never easy, and not always nice, nor always safe.. but it is worth it.. 

 

Airnbnb create an oppourtunity that is so huge for people who deserve it, work hard and achieve it.. I'm not letting any one keep me down and accept that I am better down.. because I deserve of my dream and is mine to earn it.. 

 

Cheers... Happy Experience

 

sincerely, -MANASUI-

Jeffrey Bong
J-Renato0
Level 10
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

@Paul1255 

Currently, I am hosting great guests! 🙂

A couple from France, a couplefrom Germany and a couple from Ukraine.

It is a good time when things are doing well !

I wish the same to you now and for ever! 🙂

J-Renato0
Level 10
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Just updating! All the guests I mentioned above gave me great reviews ! All 5 stars 🙂

John1902
Level 8
Aldeburgh, United Kingdom

Greetings to all from sunny Aldeburgh, Suffolk's best rated and the UK's 8th best seaside resort (thank you Which magazine!).  I have two rooms which I let mostly to tourists, or to people coming to weddings, family parties, music or literature or food festivals, cycling tours, nature holidays etc.   I have been doing this since September, during which time I've hosted 92 stays over 120 nights and that must equate to around 150 people through the door in the nine or so months.  I'm so glad I did this as having Lived in South london which while friendly is beset by oddballs, my Airbnb experience has restored my faith in human nature, I have not had anyone objectionable and I'd say with very few exceptions all my guests have been thoroughly nice.  Currently I have a couple here on an ovenight stay during their cycling tour of East Anglia and a gentleman who is here with his brother and sister in law (staying in a mobile home )  to go to three concerts at Snape Maltings as part of the Aldeburgh festival. None of them want a cooked breakfast so I get the morning to myself. Later today as my guests cycle off a young couple from about an hour away are  looking for an overnight near the coast and studying the one night and when my gentleman guest leaveson Tuesday he is replaced by a lady travelling from Seattle for her first trip outside America who is also visiting to catch some classical music at the festival.  

 

I've been very lucky with my guests and the worst I had was someone who did a small bit of damage to the bathroom and dropped make up on the light carpet in the bedroom which left black oily streaks when vacuumed.  Pet peeve though is when a guest gives you a four star review for a particular reason which had they told you at the time what was wrong you could easily have rectified it. Happens very seldom fortunately. I keep my fingers crossed that momentum continues well into the future .

 

Nice to have a positive topic here thanks to the OP. 

I hosted a guy named Hector a while ago. He was friendly, intelligent, but stubborn, impetuous and sometimes tending to overestimate his travels.

 

A profile with positive reviews from all over the world, he spoke seven languages, including Russian. He was a man with a million interests and the attention span of a cocker spaniel.

 

As soon as he came in he’d started talking, well, bragging about his journeys: "You have no idea ... that’s an incredible thing … I have to tell you ... I have been on the road for three days and I only slept a couple of hours ... I have been traveling around the world for three years, I guess ... that’s unbelievable ... you have no idea”

 

However, I had already got an idea of Hector after just five minutes. I tried to cut the discussion short. I asked if he wanted some food, but he wasn’t hungry.

 

"Thank you very much! Why don’t I cook dinner for you? Come on, I’ll make you a plate that I learned in Turkey, in prison ... that’s an incredible thing … I was arrested unjustly... you have no idea ... I spent a week in jail… that was an experience, but I wouldn’t want to go through that again …when all was clear I went to Peru to see a shaman … I’ve been up to the Amazon for a year on a raft built with my own two hands ... that’s an incredible thing …. then in Indonesia, I built myself a pile over the water so the fish could watch me do it … I survived abduction in Iraq pretending to be a deaf-mute Arab ... you have no idea”.

 

In short, throughout his stay, I could barely get a word in edgewise. Only once I could shut him up when I asked if he had ever worked in those years. "Well you know, my father cut me off ...  I was forced to go to work to support myself on a farm in Armenia and I had to learn Armenian (the eighth language) ... that’s an incredible thing ..."

 

One evening I took him out to dinner with my friends, and, incidentally, one of them was Aram, a boy of Armenian origin. When Aram found out that my guest Hector had lived on a farm in his country, he didn’t even believe he’s hearing this,  therefore, he walked up to him and said: "Barev, anun's Aram e, shat hatcheli e!" (Hi, I'm Aram, it’s very nice to meet you!")

 

The panic in my guest's eyes while he looked around him, lost and scared, and replied "What did you say?” was simply priceless.

 

Because sometimes incredible things really do happen.   

Quincy
Community Manager
Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

@Paul1255, I actually had a repeat guest from Glasgow a while ago. He booked my place about 3 times, and he was a lovely chap to talk with :-). 

 

I hope to welcome him back sometime in the future! 

-----

 

Please follow the Community Guidelines // Volg de communityrichtlijnen

Paul1255
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

Nice @Quincy sounds really great! He must like you and your place for sure 🙂

Melanie568
Level 2
Broken Arrow, OK

Thank you for posting this I only started hosting in March and I am about ready to call it quits.  I've had amazing guests who have raved about how lovely our house is and especially how comfortable our bed is.  But the last guest we just had who I might point out hardly said more than two words to me even though her husband was very friendly went off on me on her review saying that the bed was awful and that the mattress needed to be released ( mind you they didn't relay any of this to me) and then she also went on to say that I was not welcoming and never spoke to her.  I wanted to scream and cry she was soooo rude and only gave me 3 stars.  Very dissappointed and wanting to quit.  

My experience is that some people enjoy the power of holding reviews over others...their idea of being honest is actually petting their own ego.  Respond professionally I.e. below....lol...not sure if my response is actually professional....critique please 😉

 

”Apologies for your unhappy stay in my home.  Your feedback during your stay would have very helpful in rectifying some of your discomfort DURING your stay.  Next time you are traveling you might consider a hotel that will be precisely perfect your requirements.  To be transparent, Airbnb might not be the best fit for you. We are a box of variety chocolates for sure....we all try our very best to help you feel at home and comfortable but leaving negative items for the review period will never help make your actual stay pleasant....it’s too late to be changed, you see?

Good luck in your travels....I can wish you are kinder to the next host sharing their home with you. “