I need to vent about guest not respecting time

[Sion2]

Twice this month I have had guests let themselves in via the keypad and drop stuff off. One walked into the guest room that was occupied and dropped of their lugagge! So creepy.  For a 1.5 years NO ONE did this they all arranged to meet me at the door.  What is in the air this year? More requests for free stuff, lower prices and early check in with no regards for previous guests. I am in a hot area and have a high end room and bath and 99% 5 star rating and am seeing less views and bookings then last year. I think its the economy and people just being rude. Thanks for listening. 

[Sion2]

 The 2019 guests so far have been high maintance and rude ( the current one now fits into this too:(...I wonder if Airbnb is not instructing them how to be respectful and use common sense? I was told years ago by a former Airbnb host who I asked what should I know before becoming one and she said "people do not come or leave when they say they will". 

[Sion2]

To do this means I will have to end early luggage drop off unless I want to waste my mornings waiting around for them..uhgh...

[Irene2]

I usually dont let my guests do an early check-in before 11 am, which is the checkout time for previous guests. Then they can leave their luggage downstairs until I let them know the room is ready. Each of my bedrooms has it's own lock so, because I'm around a lot or my cleaner who helps is, we would lock that particular door until cleaned/ready. I'm talking about  individual rooms of course, not a whole house,  which is a different story. And of course when my guests go out, they take the bedroom door key with them, so noone except me could get in anyway.

[Duane4]

@Sion2 your place is awesome.

I have to agree with you that the guests have changed and a few other things feel differently than last year. The hosts have also changed as there are a lot of new hosts, in my county about 250 in 2017 to over 500 in 2018. A lot of them have no idea why we developed the rules that we have or what it costs to run the business. I also work for others but I'm now very selective as to who I'll work for.

The new hosts offer discounts, cheap prices and do a lot of things I'd never do because they think you compete with margin, not quality. I looked at Sion's reviews and those are the same reviews ("my best AirBNB experience") that I aim for. I have no desire to be the lest expensive stay, I want to be the best stay and I make that clear in many ways. I'll tell guests that I spend lots of money on maintenace because it's true.

I put my early checkin, late checkout and dropoff rules in the house rules with an extra service charge for those services. I can always decide to waive the charge if I want. But there is a starting point in place ahead of time for any subsequent negotiation and I refer to the rule in my booking thank you message and my morning of check-in message. IOW, I gave them a value. I also stipulated a penalty for doing these things without prior approval. I use a phrase similar to, "Everyone wants to come early and stay late but we have to respect the departing guest and the arriving guest." with the guests. I'll also say things like, how would you feel if I let someone came before you left and interfered with your stay, or, how would you feel if the previous guest was still here when you arrived because they decided to stay late.

 I'll also say the sure way to know you can come at 10am is to book the night before because for me to insure you can come at that 10am means I have to block that night. Something I cannot do unless I'm paid to do it.

[Sion2]

Thanks so much! In San Francisco (where Airbnb started) we now have intense new regulations and a hotel tax added to the fee. Other cities are moving in our direction because so much affordable housing was taken off the market and hotels  got pissed they pay 14% per stay and we didn't. We no longer have a glut of rooms and homes avaialable, as you have to live in the place you are hosting. So that really makes me think something else is effecting us this year here. If you under price you will burn out and attact the less mindful guests so I expect much of them to go under fast. 

I would LOVE to charge for more serivices like early bag drop off or what I did for current guests arrange flowers and Vday gifts. How do you do that?  Explain your  penalty program too. I have paid for a previous night due to needing a early check in and tell people to do that as well.  

[Duane4]

@Sion2

You might want to consult with an attorney concering this as. I'm not an attorney and this isn't legal advice, nor should it be considered such. I don't have any experience in CA on any of this. This is just what I do.

Yes we also have some regulations, more all the time, and a hotel tax of 9%. I've never had a problem paying my hotel tax. All the booking agents, AirBNB is defined as a booking agent, are now supposed to collect all the taxes and remit them. This makes it easier.

I think the taking affordable housing off the market is mostly a myth, it certainly is where I live as there are too many houses. They need to find other uses. Also the multi-million dollar 5 bedroom house that people will say wouldn't that be great if a family lived there instead of it being a vacation home isn't going to happen because other than in San Fran and a few other markets people can't afford to live in a house like that. Same with a lot of other houses that are being rented in this market. Almost all were tried as traditional rentals or owner occupied and didn't work for some reason.

It's also possible we are a leading indicator and even though the economy looks good it's not as good as it's stated to be.

Without copying exactly. For early checkins and late checkouts I put rule in the house rules that says something like:

1. Everyone wants to come early and leave late. Generally we have someone leaving the day of your arrival and someone coming the day of your departure. We have to be fair to everyone that stays with us. Check-in is normally at 4pm and checkout is at 11am. If you want to come early or leave late there is an extra service fee of $xx (I set this at about 50% of the ADR) if we can accomodate the request. We can only offer this service with prior approval to insure everyones privacy and comfort. Thanks for understanding.
2. To deal with those that stay late I copy the AirBNB terms of service, reference them and say someting like. In addition to the normal charges for leaving late there is an additional $100 (or more) penalty due to the disruptoin of our schedule and your imposition on our follow on guests.

Is there an Inn Keepers act in your area like we have in PA be sure to post a copy of that in your listing.

duane

[Suzanne302]

@Duane4

You hit on a very good point...the quality of hosts is going downhill as well. It's like anyone with a spare room thinks they can drop in and make some extra money with little to no effort. They are not serious about hospitality, or being "good", only about making that extra cash when they can.

It's crazy how little people will charge in my market. And even though my rate is VERY modest ($40-$60 per night depending on time of year and how booked I am) someone charging $25-30 per night makes me look expensive even though I'm providing much more value.

[Duane4]

@Suzanne302 

Exactly. I was working for someone. The guy told me that he didn't care what he got for the 4 bedroom house as long as he got $63/night. Which is a mortgage payment. The house is sitting empty better to make a little money, bettter to make some money he told me. People look at the fixed costs, not the varible ones.

This winter he had the house advertized for $63 a night and he got booked. Great. Meanwhile I had a house 1 mile away at $175 a night. I also got booked and I know how many nights he had and I had more. So he went to making all the changeovers happen and all the things that need to get fixed between guest to pay the mortgage. Something is going to break sooner or later and take him out because he never made enough money to replace the heating system, the well pump or any of those things.

I tried to explain that he won't make money at that. But he knows better.

This is the same thing that you're seeing. People have no idea how much it costs to do this. They might understand the mortgage payment but they have no clue about the wear and tear that having guests imposes.

[Glen-N-Penny0]

We have the Nest system in our home - smoke alarms, thermostat, doorbell camera and the keyless lock. We love it! You give everyone an individual code and you can program it time/date when to start and stop. I send it to my guests before they arrive reminding them of check in times and ask for an ETA (like you, don't always get that). We also have the door constantly on autolock (bit annoying for us sometimes, but worth it). 

I am not sure this is an airbnb problem, just people in general. They don't read all the rules/descriptions and then complain when they get there! I saw one post from someone that said 'write everything down in your rules etc then they can't come back to you/airbnb.' I had one guest complain there was no tv in her room (read the description... no tv!). 

Still.. guess we have to go through the harder ones for the joy of the brillilant guests we do have! Good luck and keep in touch!

[Duane4]

@Suzanne302 and @Sion2

Of course AirBNB doesn't really help things when they send these emails out.

They just accelerate the race to the bottom.

I've asked them where is the email telling me about the places that went for more money per night than my base price. Of course I've never gotten one of those.

[Sion2]

Yes, I have given this exact feedback! They also discourage tipping or fees for extra services. I might not last this whole year as a host. I can get paid 20 bucks an hour for five hours doing child care 5 days a week and make the same amount of moneywith no overhead costs and no loss of privacy. And I am saying this as a highly rate high occpuancy host! 

[Synnove0]

What about an old fashioned key box? The code can be the same but when a guest is still in the property or using it, they will still have the key. So the new arrivals will find an empty key box. 

This works for us 🙂

[Duane4]

@Synnove0

Old fashioned lock boxes work ok when you aren't that busy, and until a guest loses the key and you have a guest coming that afternoon. Which is why we all went to electronic locks.

Is it hard to get keys duplicate in Norway? It's really easy here in the US unless you buy a very expensive lock with a keyway that's not generally available.

I do use an old fashioned lock box as a back up to the electronic lock just in case as I have had an electronic lock fail as well.

[Synnove0]

Good point @Duane0. 

We’re fully booked the whole Summer with two apartments in the same building. It’s a family business for us since my aunt and uncle own the apartments and I do the technical stuff for them. The locks on a building like that luckily have restrictions, so the keys can’t be copied. The key cutting place just wont copy it unless you prove you are the owner. So it works ok for us here, but I know it’s not like that in most countries. 

We haven’t had any lose the keys yet so fingers crossed 🙂

[Sion2]

Guests lose key here often:( I do have a lock box with a overide key in it should the key pad entry lock fail.