Listing another room in my house. Advice about whether to notify booked guests. No shared space.

[Shannon187]

Hi Everyone,

I started Airbnbing a guest suite in my house in Oakland, CA in June 2018. It’s going great. There are no shared spaces, private entry. We have an extra bedroom that I’d like to make use of but I keep going back and forth about it. Here’s the deal, I would love your thoughts/advice:

• We live on top floor of the house, the suite is downstairs, and in the suite listing we state that we live upstairs and try to be mindful of noise while guests are downstairs but they may hear us from time to time. It’s very low traffic though, we’re hardly ever down there.

• The room we want to start listing is next to the suite, will be a single, will have its own private entrance, private downstairs bathroom, and no shared spaces w/suite or w/us except for the hallway, we use one room downstairs mostly for storage and working out.

• We’ve got a lot of bookings all the way through June (suite)

• I’m planning to list the room and suite as one listing (this would give someone access to most of the downstairs, two baths, two rooms, two entrances, but separate space if they want it), the suite alone as another, and the room alone as another and sync the calendars

My concern is that noise levels will increase and to some degree will be out of our control. We had guests showering at midnight last night. Ha. We also have a lot of Europoeans who stay with us and have a few days of jet lag to recover from. If/when we do open up the room and list it, do you think I need to send a courtesy message to everyone who has booked the suite just to let them know that we’re now booking the room next to the suite and that there will be more traffic downstairs? Also, if you have any advice about this grand plan I have…the configuration, the multiple listings, how to talk to potential guests about mindfulness of noise…I would love to hear it! Thank you!

[Sandra856]

Hi @Shannon187 🙂

I think if it were me I would snooze your listing so no one new can book. Then open up two new ones that explains the new conditions (with booking from June). Many hosts in here have more than one room/one listing listed. So maybe look at those listings. I think you maybe have to be firm about quiet hours etc. 

Best, Sandra

[Shannon187]

Thank you! This is really helpful. I didn't think of the snoozing and that's a great idea. It made me think that timing this is going to  be interesting. I may just wait to implement the changes in July. The room is not really ready, right now it's just full of our junk. Maybe I'll just tell the one person who has booked for July about the change and give them a chance to cancel if they wish. Then update my description re: the upcoming change, noting it will be in July. Now I have to go figure out how to set up multiple listings for same house and sync calendars and think about when I can do that. Oh boy!  Thanks again.

[Donna240]

@Shannon187 Since your conditions will have changed since some people booked, I believe you really should tell them, so they can make an informed decision to stay or cancel. I've informed all my guests for a year that there is a renovation going on next door and so many people have thanked me for "transparency", then booked. If you don't you can expect many low points in reviews on accuracy and communication.

It would be ideal to  spend some money on soundproofing the wall between the adjoining rooms. Even the most mindful person will make noise when talking or laughing and let's face it, most interior walls do not have soundproofing. If that's impossible my next suggestion is to find a large, thick rug to hang on the wall as artwork. It will muffle sound. It's easy to hang, just buy a length of wall to wall carpet tacking strips ( 1 1/2" wood strip as long as the rug with little tacks on it) and screw it to the wall with the tacks facing out and up, then press the top side of the run against the strip with a slight downward push.

Rugs in back hung this way4'x6' rug with 4' carpet strip

[Shannon187]

Brilliant! Thank you. I think I'm going to wait and implement the change in July, so I'll just notify the one person who has booked for July and if they want to cancel they can. This will give me time to get things in order. Love the soundproofing idea using the rugs. We're hanging a sound curtain over the interior door to the suite so that will muffle noise from the hall, the bathroom for the room is in the hall. The room's wall is the suite's bathroom wall and there's also a closet in that wall so there's a bit of a buffer between the "hanging out" areas/sleeping areas in each room. I go back and forth with this idea. Seems complicated and ike an extra load. I will have less control over the guest experience in terms of noise so that makes me anxious. It's hard to pass up the extra money it could bring in and it's a space we aren't really using. Hmm.

[Sarah977]

@Shannon187  Buy a bag of earplugs and leave a set in each guest's room or bathroom as one of the amenities you provide in case they are disturbed by noise.

[Shannon187]

Thank you! Great idea. I leave earplugs and a white noise machine in the suite because you never know what will go down in our neighborhood. Chinese New Year celebrations happened all over Oakland at midnight on Monday this week and it sounded like World War 3. I love the sound of the quick succession fireworks but they were coming from all over and just sounded like rolling thunder. Thank goodness the guest who was staying here was from NYC and was not too traumatized, I sent her a message as soon as I figured out what was going on. 

[Kelly149]

Also, if you are EVER, AT ALL in their area (hallway?) then that is not an entire space. 

One other idea. Have the small suite, the larger suite & the combination of them both but only ever rent them one at a time. If I did that I would open the most expensive room first, the the second & then just offer the cheapest one to fill in holes that haven’t booked with the others. 

So, more options, maybe more nights booked but none of the two groups at once headaches. 

[Shannon187]

That is smart! Yes, the room would definitely not be an entire space, we use the hallway. They'd have their own bathroom but it's not an ensuite situation like the other room.  The room would be a room in the house vs the suite where there are no shared spaces. After I posted this I thought about it a lot and I just don't think I'm ready to take the leap and have guests inside my house with me in a shared space. It's tempting because the money would be great. Maybe it was the influence of the Ted Bundy documentary I was watching but I'm just not ready to go there. It's different having a locked door separating the suite from the rest of the house. I applaud (even envy) people who enjoy hosting people in their homes, I'm probably too much of an introvert to do it well.