Room in a House- not whole house

[Lindsey4]

Hello Airbnb Community,

I have struggled with this for sometime and after an interaction last night I thought I would reach out and see what other hosts do with Room in House.  

I rent a room in my house with access to a shared bathroom and kitchen only to make coffee/tea in the morning, other then that the rest of the house is really off limits.  Of course if we welcome you in great- and a lot of times we do, but I work from home and after having guests sit on sofa facetiming aloud or cooking at 2am only to wake me up because they couldn't find a certain pot or pan- I had to draw the line.  My house rules are very clear.  What they are renting is very clear and yet, somehow they always seem confused or claim to not read and it is frustrating.  

One of my main rules and it is in my welcome email- is lock the door coming and going- not optional and yet they just forget... 

What do you do when you discover your house unlocked?

What do you do when you are hosting and come down with the flu?  I am in the situation right now and I greeted them and said, I have come down with something, I will stay away but if you need anything let me know.  The bathroom was bleached and lysoled and I was very much to myself.  All of a sudden it was late at night and I kept hearing noises- I got up and looked and they were in the living room watching tv and laughing with food and beveages in there, which we don't have normally in the house... but ok, I am sick I can let it go.  I went to bed.  I get woken up again an hour later.  I see lights on in the kitchen and dining room now and no one in there.  I turn them off.  Go to the restroom, come out, see the lights back on and so I go back down the hall and run into the guest of the guest who made the reservation.  I ask her polietly to please turn out the lights when they go to bed and she responds- I didn't turn them on! In a super rude and fight like tone.  I was taken aback.  I said, okay, well... then... I am going to have to inforce the house rules in order to turn the lights out and ask you to please remove yourself from the living room and kitchen as these aren't common areas or part of the room rental.  She got really fiesty and the guest who made the reservation said, is everything okay?  I said, not really.  I was asking xyz to turn off the lights but it seems she didn't turn them on and won't turn them off, so I am going to have to enforce the hosue rules.  I am sorry if you didn't read them but the living room and kitchen aren't included in your stay.  They sort of stormed off.  They are still here.  I am still sick and I just hate interactions like that.  

What would you do and how can I be more clear?  Do I not show the full house in the description?

Thank you

[Frank10]

@Lindsey4 Ok, you have mulitple things going on. Let me address the easy one: do not put pictures of rooms that your guests do not have access to, it's pointless. Second, I think you need to pare down your rules section to a bulleted list. People see all that text and they just gloss over it. I see you're trying to enforce the rules by tacking on penalties, but these are hard to collect, I wouldn't bother.

One big easy solution to your door lock woes is to just get an automatic lock. Then you never have to worry about it! It doesn't have to be fancy, it can just be something that locks every time. I use a lock that has a pin code that locks automatically so I never have to worry about keys either.

You can't expect guests to rememeber everything, it's not their home and they're on vacation. Yes, it's rude and unnerving, but the solution to your problem rests in your hands.

I'm not a confrontational person so the couple of times I've had situations where I found the guests to be less than desireable, I just wait for them to leave (because they have to leave eventually) and leave them a review that reflects their bad behavior. 

[Lindsey4]

Thank you @frank

I would gladly change the front door lock to self locking, however it is the original door to the house with the last locking mechanism (sorry don't know technical term) that fits the door. Once this one breaks we will sadly have to refit the entire door to take a standard lock. The charm and beauty of the old lock is so wonderful and sadly it doesn't allow for self locking...

How can you see my profile in these discussions? I've been trying to figure that out? Mind sharing?

So bullets and delete other photos- I feel like it eliminates curiosity and was suggested, but I'm open to all ideas.

Thank you.

[Ed-and-Hugh0]

We had a few guests forget to lock the door, so we just set the lock to lock itself. If you're worried about the electric bill, consider switching to LED lights. They use very little electricity, and there are many home control systems which will turn the lights off when no one is in the room.

[Lindsey4]

Also great ideas. Thank you.