What have you learnt about hosting from being a guest?

Liv
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

What have you learnt about hosting from being a guest?

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Hi everyone,

 

I’m aware that many of you are occasionally Airbnb guests when taking some time off or travelling for work, and I’m guessing it must be quite interesting to experience hosting from another perspective. 

 

When travelling as a guest, you might have been able to have different insights and ideas that you later applied to your own listing perhaps. As they say, we learn best by example.

 

So I was wondering: have you ever seen other hosts making mistakes that you now try to avoid? Have you been surprised by a different way of doing things, or by a great idea that you hadn’t thought of?

 

Thanks,

Liv

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84 Replies 84

@Emilia42  I have a friend who came to stay with me who has a hard time listening to instructions. I had showed her how to light my gas water heater, yet one day she yelled and I ran out to see that she had done it incorrectly and it had shot out a huge flame and singed her eyebrows. (she also couldn't figure out how to open my door for the entire 3 weeks she stayed)

 

When I asked what she had done, she had ignored what I had told her and when I asked her why, her response was "I thought you said....". I told her she didn't need to "think"- what she needed to do was listen and follow instructions as they were given.

 

What's interesting is that many of the people who do this are actually highly intelligent, as is my friend. They have gotten so used to being bored by having to listen to lengthy explanations of concepts they grasped right away, from the time they were in grade school, that they tend to assume they don't require explanations- they tune out, so they aren't good listeners or thorough readers of information- they believe that they can easily figure it out for themselves.

LOL - is this person still your friend? 🙂 🙂

Haha, I actually haven't seen her in a couple years, but we did part on friendly terms. I know now not to offer her to stay with me again, though. We get along fine, but her spaciness and lack of attention drives me bonkers.

 

At one point when she was staying, she asked if she could help me out with anything, and as she's a good artist whose designs I like, I had a plain wooden chair that had already been painted with white paint and told her I'd love her to paint whatever she liked on it. I wanted the colors to co-ordinate with my house, so I went through my paint in the shed, and picked out about 5 colors. As those were in litre cans, and I know she's klutzy and inattentive, I figured I'd avoid any disaster by pouring some of each of those colors into small containers,. otherwise she'd likely spill them or get the colors mixed into each other. However, the red wasn't in a can, it was in a half-litre square plastic jug with a screw top, so I just gave her that one as is.

 

I set her up on the terrace with a drop cloth underneath to do the painting. Well, within the first 3 minutes, she managed to knock over the red container, there was red paint all over the place, and in trying to clean it up, she managed to get red paint all over my kitchen faucet, my outdoor metal staircase, and tracked all over the terrace. Then she got the hose which attaches to a faucet in my storeroom to wash off the terrace. But when she was done with the hose, instead of turning it off at the faucet, she just turned the hose nozzle and hung it back on the hook in the storeroom. But the hose nozzle drips a bit, and I didn't realize she hadn't turned off the faucet until 2 days later when I saw the floor soaked, the water had run under the concrete floor, soaking the dirt underneath, and a week later a long crack appeared in the terrace tiles.

 

She's a challenge, to be sure.

@Pat271

@Sarah977 Oh nooo, she’s a constant accident waiting to happen! Sorry that happened to you. Maybe instead of “A hotel would be more suitable”, for her it should be “A padded room would be more suitable”...

@Emilia42 yes, I have taped instructions on the door. Some still call saying they can't figure it out. Not the instructions were confusing- they did not even notice the note. 

I had a guest once ask where the kitchen towels were - even though she was standing facing the towels about 2 feet from her eyes.

I bet if you taped a $100 bill to the door, they'd notice that. @Inna22

so true!!

@Sarah977 simple but brilliant idea. I am going to have my daughter read through my house book and my instructions. 

Helen427
Level 10
Auckland, New Zealand

@Inna22  you have triggered my memories of the super nice hotel staff we had in Rome, Italy who I had to ask a couple of times to let me in our room as I couldn't get the jolly key operation right to open it.

 

There's a real knack to opening hotel room doors as they have Master Keys to the rooms not just 1 key used which can complicate easy opening of them unlike standard private home locks.

 

Reflecting back @Inna22 & others have you found the same challenges primarily where Master Key sets are used?

@Helen427 I am sure it is a contributing factor but I have had issues with all sorts of doors, commercial and residential

@Inna22  fantastic tip about the dining room table capacity. We actually talked though that when we were decorating our space to open it up. You never want to give the impression that more people can fit if you don't want to host that number. 

Liv
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

@Inna22 @Emilia42 @Sarah977 

 

This thread reminded me of how long it took for me to figure out how to unlock my building's front door. The landlady showed me how and the first thing I thought after she left was that I should have tried it myself while she was still there 😅

 

I can't imagine how frustrating it must be to have guests inquiring about how to open a door when you've already gave them instructions, but it seems that the key (pun intended) really is patience 🙃

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@Liv

To be honest, the most frustrating part is having patience and helping the guest through it (even though the instructions are right in front of their face) because you truly care AND THEN getting marked down a star because "the host should really have instructions for the door."

 

cc: @Inna22 @Sarah977 

 

@Emilia42 I could not agree more! The guest who I had to facetime to help open the door (despite the note being right next to it) and got off the highway to do that gave me 3 stars for her stay