Even people working at Airbnb tell this mistake is made a lot by guests.
It is a bad situation for guests and host. The guests think they have a super deal; very nice house for almost nothing per person. Then they arrive and they note the mistake. As a host you also feel bad since you want to give the guests the best experience and want to feel welcome in your own house.
Hosting is very nice, you meet new interesting people and have very nice conversations. But these situations are very bad and stessfull for a host. It even makes you consider stopping renting the private room.
Most of the time it is a specific type of person;
- a person who doesn't read,
- sees a deal to good to be true (very nice house, city centre for 25 euro's a person),
- and doesn't know what Airbnb is (think it's a hotel site).
With this experience in mind, as a host, you feel stressed because you did everything to prevent this mistake. You work very hard to give them a good experience. You try to get it out of the air and subtly try to make the guests realize they made the mistake. You explain about Airbnb, how it was born and show your listing etc. But in the back of your mind, from experience, you know these kind of people; almost always the type of people who wil not admit they made a mistake. These are the kind of people you know you give a 7-star experience but probably will end up in giving you a 3 star after a .... load of work to prevent getting a 1 or 2 star; just so they get their feel of "justice".
To prevent this situation you can try:
- fill in all listing details including shared space
- sending a standard message with information about the listing in which you again subtle point out that only their room is private
- note in the house rules and room details that only the room is private
- note in the house rules that common space like dining table can be used, but not for long dinners since you also live in the house and need to use it
But even this is sometimes not enough. So you could consider the following: in your listing photo's place a "photo" with text like: Please note you have selected an Airbnb "private room", not "whole house". So you will be my guests, welcome! Please read the house rules.
It would even be better if Airbnb just makes a pop-up to remind the guests while booking. House rules are on the booking page but still people don't read. A pop-up on private rooms would probably fix it. Maybe make it possible for the guests to turn off this pop-up.