After careful consideration we decided not to include use of the kitchen for our listing, this is reflected in our listing price. Our listing also does not include the kitchen in the ammenities and states that the guests have access to the bedroom and bathroom. I am generally a flexible and easy going person. The problem is that out of my last 7 guests 4 have asked to use the kitchen or fridge. It is clearly becoming a very consistent issue and soon it will be 5 out of 9 guests. My last guest didn't ask to use the kitchen, they just used it, and whatever they ate had a very strong and lingering odor. I had one guest simply ask for ice for their lunchbox, which was completely fine. The problem is that people tend to assume that I am going to be ok with them using the kitchen once they arrive and I believe that when I say no it is hurting my feedback. I have a 4 star rating top to bottom from a guest when I initially started hosting, I was upset but you can't make everybody happy. All my other feedback has been 5 stars with the exception of one that rated me 5 stars on everything and 4 stars for overall experience(... how does that make sense?). My only reasoning is that this is due to the kitchen issue. Today I have added the following notation to my listing under guest access:
"Guest bedroom and bathroom. Please be mindful that we don't offer the use of the kitchen as a part of our listing. We do supply some water bottles in the room for your convenience."
Do you think it's worded delicately enough? Should I add it to my house rules as well? I feel like maybe my listing isn't clear enough, or people just don't take the time to read the listing. Should I just increase the price of my listing and include use of the kitchen? What are your suggestions and experiences? I have one more guest checking-in who assumed that the use of the kitchen was included and, unfortunately, I somehow missed responding quickly and decided to make a one time exception.
I apologize for the long winded post. Here are the reasons we originally decided not to include access to the kitchen. Are we being unreasonable?:
1. We work from home and our kitchen, work area, and livingroom is open concept. We thought that having guests coming in and out of our work area to access the kitchen would be disruptive and possibly uncomfortable for all parties.
2. We used to have roommates that did not clean up after themselves, lost our kitchen utensils (Idk how they managed that) and damaged our pots, pans, and appliances. My listing is competatively priced without access to the kitchen. If I were to allow guests to use the kitchen I feel I would have to raise the price for the extra work I would do cleaning and to budget for possible damage to my appliances.
3. We have a small kitchen and we use it multiple times daily.
4. We felt like it like it would be a little invasive to have strangers helping themselves to our kitchen. We also read about some guests helping themselves to the host's food, which seemed odd, and we just didn't want to potentially deal with that.
5. There are plenty of restaurants and coffee shops nearby, within a one mile radius.
6. All the furniture and bedding is relatively new, purchased not more than 6 months ago. I would prefer if guests didn't eat or drink in the bedroom to prevent potential stains, damage to the furniture, and criters. We do think allowing access to the kitchen would probably increase the likelyhood of guests eating in their room. We thought a no food in the bedroom rule was being too strict and "nit picky" so I actually allow for them to eat in their room, I just prefer that they don't. I also provide bottles of water because they don't have kitchen access and we all need to stay hydrated. I ultimately want my guests to feel comfortable.
7. Our guests tend to be short term guests and feel that for that reason access to the kitchen was not necessary. Our listing limits stays to 2 weeks because we do not want to have a situation were a guest ends up over staying and then obtains renter's rights. It also allows us to host our friends and family, who mostly live out of state and visit often. While we have been extremely lucky and have only hosted overall wonderful guests so far, we also thought it would reduce the time period we would potentially have to deal with any negative guest/host experience.
8. We always keep the house tidy and clean. I have a 5 star cleanliness rating. The guest's bedroom and bathroom are always spotless. Our kitchen is our personal space and because we use it so often it would be difficult to keep it spotless all the time. I would feel obligated to clean it to a higher standard then currently suits me. (Ex. I don't mind keeping a dirty cup in the sink for a few hours until I clean up after dinner but never allow dishes to pile up. I also like to let my dishes air dry on a drying mat or allow a dirty dish to soak for 30 minutes to an hour, when necessary. I would not do any that if a guest were permitted to use the kitchen because I think it would be rude on my part and when I had roommates they took that as an invitation for me to constantly clean up after them.)
