Review for abusive utility usage? Part of it is my fault.

[Paul154]

I had a repeat customer. Yeah!

For 4 Thanksgiving days I got $130/night for a 2 bedroom house (top floor of duplex). Slightly low price for high demand Seattle, but reasonable.

Guests have access to the thermostat, which controls the whole duplex.  It has a schedule which is set comfortably, but on the cool side (69 degrees during at-home evening and morning wake up times).  I rely on guests to use plug in heaters in the bedrooms and the gas fireplace in the living room, which makes living room hot. I also am prepared for some guests to increase the thermostat heat. It is no problem because pressing the up button only increases the heat during that specific time period (Temporary hold), then reverts back to the schedule  after that period.

I have now installed a wifi thermostat. Yeah!  I love it.

I can see that these guests put the thermostat up to 75 degrees. This heats the whole house, downstairs duplex included.

Even worse, these guests are sophisticated. They override the normal "Temporary hold" feature by choosing "Permanent Hold". Meaning it will be 75 degrees during sleeping time and when they are out and about.

When I remotely turn the heat down to 72 for that period and revert back to the schedule, they reset it to 75 and "permanent hold" :(.

I know I am at fault.  I should put on a lock box over the thermostat.  I had wanted to give guests the ability to temporarily change the heat, but now I know that I cannot give guests that freedom because it also give them access to the "Permanent Hold" feature.

Now for my question to you all:

How do I rate him?  I allowed him access to turn up the heat. He chose high heat. He did not break a specific house rule, but went against the airbnb "house sharing" spirit. 

I will block him from making future reservations with me.  I can only assume he is highly abusive with water consumption also.

Do you want him as a guest?

[Marzena4]

No, @Paul154. 😉

I am about to think how to review a nice guest from the US who left the light on for a veeery long day. It's good I use eco-bulbs, but still against my common sense. As for heating, I have the same issue - gas heating (old building in the centre) but with fuel more expensive than in the UK. In my case guests can only increase the temperature on the heater, which is in the bathroom, but they will not decode the thermostat that quickly. Aren't you considering requesting money?

[Jann3]

@Paul154,

MAYBE (okay, not maybe... for SURE) I am a bit on the controlling side...BUT I would say something along the lines of:

X doesn't really understand the idea of home-sharing and may be better suited to a hotel where their heating & cooling preferences do not affect everyone else in the shared-home communal areas. 

I have a similar issue where people check out of the studio - yet leave the heat blasting at 75 degrees. (I can only assume they would leave the a/c blasting at 60 degrees in the summer.) Luckily I live next door and go check it immediately upon the guests' checkout.

Maybe that's just me.

[David126]

Verbage for a review, whatever makes you happy.

Issue is one of control, and I would never assume that a Guest would not do something i would feel is odd. In a property not designed for STR then you either change the system, may not be financially practical, or live with it as a cost of doing business in that environment.

I remeber going into a Home Depot a few years back, much colder than normal, I was talking to one of the Employees and he said they had been trying to get some extra heat but it was controlled out of Houston.

Hotels normally allow you to control your room temp, not the common areas. ditto here.

[Matthew285]

@Paul154, you have the right attitude in that you realize you gave the guest the ability to do this with the thermostat, and you are being very fair in mentioning that he did not break a specific house rule.

Those two things make me wonder if it would be fair to give the guest a bad review in any way. I mean, if there was no rule against setting the thermostat high, and the host allowed it, how would they know?

You are well within your rights to not host this guest again, and you are also well within your rights to disable guest setting of the thermostat and to make it a house rule.

But during the trip this guest took, it was possible and not against the rules.

By the way, after you discovered the high temperature setting, did you try to communicate with the guests to ask them not to set it so high?

[Joanna85]

Put lockbox on that thermostat, Paul!  That was the first thing I did before I started hosting.  I"ve only had two complaints in all these bookings I"ve had.  Welcome the guy back but he will find he won't be able to abuse the thermostat.  I feel for you.  I sometimes wonder if I am really super cheap with my utilities or if people just think becuse they are paying for the space it's 'all inclusive' which means they can just do whatever they want.  I am totally shocked sometimes when I hear about other hosts' guests and what people do...ultimately if I am a guest in someone's home I would NEVER touch the thermostat...if I was super, super cold I might ask if you could bump up the heat a bit, but I don't even know if I would do that.  I might be the minority, though!

[Nina75]

Box with Key...

[Marit-Anne0]

@Paul154

I feel your pain.  After 5 years on airbnb, I have received my steepest electricity bill ever !! I honestly do not know how they managed as I have no way of monitoring the consumption.  They must have had all the panel heaters on max 24/7 and emptied the electric boiler twice a day or so.  Beyond me - and Norwegians are not exactly known for low energy consumption.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Paul154

I would mention it and rate him accordingly. I'm sure you've seen one of my many recent "rants" about my current guest. These people would NEVER act like this in their own home if they were the ones paying the bill. Just because they are paying guests does not mean they can abuse and waste utilities in someone elses home. But I'm not their mommy and it's not my job to teach these people basic manners - I'l just continue to try and avoid these types as much as possible and I'd appreciate if hosts were honest about these things in their reviews.

For my current guest, I've already started drafting a review in my head and I will be including "wasteful with utilities usage" to describe him because this is my personal and honest observation - I have the water bill to prove it and I'm NOT talking about the occasional loooong shower. My water bill has nearly doubled and it's significantly higher than the water bill of an average family of 4 in our apartment complex.

And the fact that it wasn't in the house rules is totally irrelevant IMHO - I mean seriously~~~~ do we hosts really have to have a house rule for EVERY SINGLE THING like saying "don't leave the AC on with window open and then go out to run errands" or "turn the lights and TV off before going out"  - is there a culture/country where these types of actions would be seen as totally NORMAL and acceptable behavior?

[Kelly149]

@Jessica-and-Henry0 HeHe. I have both of those rules...

and a few more as well. Common sense is not always common to our guests. 

[BedandStay0]

I do have the same rules.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Kelly149

Yup~! Sadly I do too. And a few others that kinda fall under the same (IMO common sense) category.

My recently added favorite..... "Washing machine must be at least 1/3 full for 1 load, and please use the "small load" setting if the machine is less than 1/2 full. - Loads with less than 12 items are prohibited."

and 2nd favorite "Guest towels provided are for "use at home" only, to dry yourself after showers - do not take them to the gym/pool/weekend trips etc. and absolutely do not use them to wipe sweat during workouts!"

And then I have the popular "Please do not leave wet (damp) towels on the bed"

And I've printed out a sheet covering "how to wash dishes by hand" - in case I meet another guest like my current one.

BIG SIGH~~~~

[Fred13]

Tricky grounds. I just had guests that had zero clue where power came from, nor water; they were well-off city people. They probably have a secretary pay such mundane things. The way I looked at it, this is not who I would want as guests nor mostly get in my place (an island powered by solar power, principally dependent on natural precipitation), but if I lived as they do, perhaps I would have no clue about such things also. So no, their cluelessness wouldn't influence my review of them, since otherwise they were fine guests,  despite the fact I personally would not want them back, because they would have been 'just fine' for most hosts under 'normal' circumtances.

[David126]

Non ABB situation but I am on a well and usually it is fine but during suer busty times after a week my well can run dry and my storage exhaust, I remember trying to explain to somebody that the system was dry and would take some hours before it would refill, they suggested I fill the tank from another tap...

[Fred13]

David, there is the solution to all water issues, just add another tap. Proves that one always could learn something. (rolls eyes)