What would you say to a guest who is demanding bottled water?

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Julie143
Level 10
Princeton, NJ

What would you say to a guest who is demanding bottled water?

The tap water here is safe to drink. Whether or not it’s delicious is a personal preference. I drink it, but am not picky.

 

For anyone who doesn’t care to drink it straight from the tap, the fridge has a water and ice dispenser in the front. Both are filtered. The filters are changed religiously. I also put a filtering pitcher in the fridge.

 

If someone *really* wants bottled water, there is a nice grocery store that is a 3 minute walk away. 

 

The guest is saying I should include bottled water. They haven’t said anything specific is wrong with the tap water, or the filtered water from the fridge or the pitcher. They just think I should have given them some “as a courtesy, like in a hotels and the other 2 Airbnbs” they’ve stayed in.

 

Well, I don’t like bottled water. It’s a waste of money and natural resources in places with safe tap water.

 

1 Best Answer
Mary-and-Col0
Level 3
Alicante, Spain

Just when you think you have thought of every detail to please your guest, hey presto! Demand for bottled water.  Would just say a big  NO we do not provide bottled water, you are welcome to buy from local supermarket.    Add to description NO bottled water, however filter provided.   

 

We had an incident with  guests staying recently, who demanded sun loungers in winter!!!!  We do not provide sun loungers guests are welcome to use them at the communal pool. However there was one in the garden they broke and did not replace expected us to.  Garden is not big enough for four sunloungers. It got very heated with messages going back and forth, final answer to them buy some and take with you.  The reply from guests, 'This was not the deal, sunloungers are part of the deal'!!!  We resolved by borrowing one from the communal pool.  Thinking of our review rating (black mirror).   We did not get one. As said we thought we had covered every detail then there it is how did we miss that.  

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61 Replies 61
Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Julie143  I would tell the guest politely that you don't provide bottled water because your water is perfectly safe to drink and that you try to adhere to environmentally responsible practices. Also that you aren't a hotel. Perhaps you could provide some empty re-usable water bottles the guest could use if they feel the need to drink out of a plastic bottle 🙂

Honestly, some people are so entitled and find the most absurd things to complain about.

 

Marie21
Level 10
Dublin, Ireland

@Julie143 I think drinking bottled water is sometimes just a habit than if the water is safe or not, myself mainly drink water bottler.  I provide to all guests bottle water and soft drinks, only in low seasons I provide less but a min of 2 anyway. For me also he just depends how ur price your apartment/room and what type of guests u want to attract, in some apartments I am interested in business traveller.

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@Anonymous  That would be a really good photo to put up in our listings with a note under it saying "Dear guest, this why we don't provide individual plastic water bottles. Please help yourself to the filtered water on the counter and the fridge".

Or a photo of the dead whale that was recently found with something like 130 pounds of plastic in its stomach. 

A picture tells a thousand words.

Oh, only 88 pounds, I misspoke.

 

"The 1,100-pound whale, measuring 15 feet long, was found in the town of Mabini with plastic bags and a variety of other disposable plastic products inside its stomach. Darrell Blatchley, owner of the D’Bone Collector Museum in Davao City, attended a necropsy on the whale and called it the worst collection of plastic inside an animal he had ever seen.

“The plastic in some areas was so compact it was almost becoming calcified, almost like a solid brick,” said Mr. Blatchley, who has seen other marine mammal post-mortems. “It had been there for so long it had started to compact.”

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Sarah977  @Andrew

 

Well there you go, that photo Andrew would not ever happen here because every one of those plastic bottles or cardboard cartons is worth 10c. Deposit legislation has been one of the best things for Australia. Even if we are too lazy to avail ourselves of it, there are always those who go around cleaning up the environment to take advantage of it!

And what do we do with all that plastic.....

https://www.ekodeck.com.au/

It goes through a recycling process and we make it into imitation timber decking....never rots, discolours, never needs re-painting.

Everyone is a winner here when you put a price on that packaging....even the whales!!

 

As to the rationale behind drinking bottled water. In many countries (Australia included) a gallon (Litre) of bottle water is more expensive than gasoline. If someone is prepared to pay that much for water that is possibly less pure than the mains water that comes from the states de-salination plant well, more fool them!

 

I am part of the problem though because I do provided a plastic bottle of water in the guest fridge, but I can guarantee my bottle does not end up in a whales stomach, it ends up looking pretty good around someones swimming pool....and I don't feel too bad about that. And as I said, if the guest is willing to pay for it in the listing amount, I will provide it!

 

My only issue here is, I wish the government would bring McDonalds packaging under the deposit legislation!

 

Cheers.....Rob

@Robin4  You are quite correct, hitting people in the pocketbook is the only way to get the majority of people to comply with recycling efforts. It's nice to think people are becoming more environmentally aware, and some are, and more so in some areas of the world than others, but it's a drop in the bucket. Canada also has a deposit and return on plastic bottles, juice containers, wine bottles, beer bottles, all of that, so most do recycle. But that photo Andrew posted? That's what far too much of Mexico looks like, altho they tend to keep the tourist beaches fairly clean. The highways are lined with litter thrown out the vehicle windows and every pull-out is a trash heap. It's quite shocking.

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Sarah977 

My feeling is though that it is catching on around the world Sarah...'most' developed countries now have a considerable emphasis on sustainability and environmental protection.

 

The ironic thing is, when some of Australia introduced deposit legislation almost 2 decades ago there was not a use for all this plastic waste that did not end up in 'whales stomachs'!!

Instead, it ended up in warehouse storage facilities in China and the Phillipines and in more recent times it had built up to the point where they cannot handle any more and started to refuse to accept any further plastic recycling.

Then our bright entrepeneurs developed this eco timber making timber looking products which are actually better than the products they imitate. All of a sudden everyone wants to get on the bandwagon and get a slice of this newer technology.

These countries that were telling us where to shove it are now screaming out for further supplies.

The problem is, every time a 'Flint' debacle comes along it sets back the environmental cause considerably....nobody wants to use water out of a dirty polluted creek, and there is a surge towards sealed supposedly pure water!

 

But with recycling, the beauty is, greedy people can still be greedy, there is a slice of pie for everyone around the table.....I just hope it comes to you in Mexico sooner rather than later Sarah!

 

Cheers......Rob

@Robin4 We do actually have a recycling facility where I live. I can recycle most plastic, cardboard, glass, and metal (the metal I take to a metal scrapyard where they weigh it and pay me for it) But the average national just chucks their garbage anywhere, and that crosses all socio-economic boundaries. The poor do it as well as the well-dressed middle-upper class driving brand new SUVs.

You might be interested to know that my father, who was the principal mechanical engineer of a huge research facility in Kansas City, which contracted to NASA and many other big names, was working on a project to turn recycled plastic into 2x4s and other building timber when I was a child, that would have been about 60 years ago. I remember him telling us about it. Maybe your factories producing this stuff are using some of the technology he developed. He had a number of patents, I'm not sure if this was one of them.

It's rather astounding that if they were working on this 60 years ago, that it's only been implemented recently. I guess things have to get to crisis point before humans feel the need to change their ways.

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Sarah977 

I would love to think that was the case and that your father was actually involved in getting eco-wood off the ground. 

What they are doing here is using a combination of about 48% recycled plastic and 45% reclaimed timber, so more than 90% of this product has lived a previous life!

 

It doesn't take the Chinese long to get onto a good idea and the main suplier around the world is a company based in Shanghai called Seven Trust. They manufacture in South Africa and now export these TPC products to most countries.

 

I think the fact that they have only recently started using this is purely economic Sarah! Until recently it was cheaper to use timber than an alternative. Now with there being so much stockpiled plastic waste available it has become rational to find a use for it ......what is that old expression...'Everything old is new again'!

 

Cheers......Rob

@Robin4, for once I am going to disagree with you. South Australia has a deposit scheme, but nowhere else as far as I'm aware (certainly not Western Australia). We need to stop using unnecessary single use plastic, FULL STOP. Plastic bottles, straws, coffee cup lids, shopping bags, the list goes on and they are clogging waterways and as @Sarah977 said, killing wildlife, especially marine mammals. In fact, microplastics have become such a problem that they are beginning to be absorbed into our bloodstream from the food we eat! Why not provide your guests with a glass bottle of filtered water that they can refill?

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Kath9 

Hi Kath, at present the Australian states that have a deposit legislation in place are...The ACT, NSW, Queensland, South Australia and the Northern territory. Western Australia has passed legislation to introduce deposit legislation in 2020.

The only states in Australia that do not have or do not propose to have a deposit scheme in place are Victoria and Tasmania. 

South Australia was the first, as I said 2 decades ago.

NSW are thrilled with the results of having it on board and their scheme is better than South Australia's in that there are far more collection points and the collection points are linked to shopping centres for easy access.

More than 70% of Australians are now covered by a deposit legislation scheme and when you people over there in the west come on board next year that will increase to 80%.

In a global sense we are still behind Kath but we are doing our bit. Just a pity we can't make up for nations like China and India. 

The weird thing is all the internet information is suggesting that China has banned the importing of any further plastic waste, but a person I know in the Environment Protection Authority says this is simply a ploy to push down the price of the raw material! Their production demand at the moment is outstripping their stockpile! They are expecting governments of exporting countries to subsidise the cost of this resource.

 

Cheers......Rob

@Robin4, that is certainly good news but it still doesn't mean everyone will use the scheme. As you have rightly pointed out, recycling in this country is a bit of a joke, with recycling facilities failing to cope with the enormous amounts of waste and countries such as China and Malaysia now refusing to accept our waste. Consequently, it is being stockpiled in warehouses and even being dumped on private land (including in the Murray Darling Basin) of landowners who are being paid to accept it. We need to REDUCE first, before reusing and recycling, which also comes with huge energy costs. Plastic bottles are among the worst offenders and are utterly unnecessary - I haven't bought a plastic water bottle in years, even when travelling in 3rd world countries (I now use a Steripen when travelling, which uses UV light to disinfect water - look it up, they're brilliant). I'm happy to hear that you do take advantage of the recycling scheme, but I bet you anything your guests just chuck them in any old bin when they take them out.

@Julie143I was about to say that plastic bottles are a scourge on the planet but @Anonymous's photo says it all. People are idiots. Do not provide them with bottled water.