Breaking house rules

Breaking house rules

Hi fellow Melbourne hosts

 

What are your thoughts on guests breaking house rules?

 

I have a guest who is staying for 9 nights and has a boyfriend in Melbourne. When booking she did not mention him, and I told her upon arrival no guests in the house, not even her boyfriend. It is in my house rules on my listing.

 

I come home and the toilet seat is up (we are both female) so he has been in whilst I was away (unless she was cleaning the toilet but I doubt it!)

 

What are your thoughts?

 

Kristie

29 Replies 29

@Teri0 and Aaron

     Dear Terri,

     You are spot on about the decline of quality of guests booking thru Airbnb

I have been mentioning this to Airbnb for 2 years now but it seems the more global they get, the less they care about hosts.

We have been hosts for 5 years. 1st 3 years went swimmingly. We had a strong vetting process but the fact is the travelers that were most keen to use Airbnb were from a niche market of well traveled people, interested in a home share experience. 

    Worse still, is that Airbnb has removed  the ability for hosts to view the profile photo of a potential guest, or the review that potential guest wrote of their prior stays. This means I haven't got a clue whom I am interacting with or what their expectations were of the spaces they chose. Hosts who were involuntarily used to participae in the 'study' had already been active hosts for years and had already proven we have chosen guests not based on race, ethnicity, age, nationality or sexual orientation but rather by whom we felt represented themselves in a manner we were most comfortable with sharing our home with. We based our decision  using all of the tools provided us plus our strong vetting process, which is to read between the lines, engage guests in a short chat and ask questions if there are red flags. We ask guests to review our house description and rules BEFORE they to book so all is clear from the start.  we look for the general mindset, attitude of those making the request to share our home with us

    I can relate to you biting your tongue and for many reasons. Both me and my flat mate are non cronfrontational. We will bite the bullet, especially with short term guests. But sometimes we have given gentle reminders to guests, only later to receive totally unfair and undeserved star ratings EVEN AFTER SAID GUESTS WROTE GLOWING REVIEW and specifically commented on the fair price and quality given and warm hospitlity service. If hosts have to given 8 gentle reminders, most guests appreciate them and still give the ratings and reviews deseved but there is still a large number who fear that they will receive a poor review so to savewface, they write an untrue and snarky review or a good review with low star rating. We are reluctant to write a poor review if someone breaks the more minor rules or whom can not quite adjust to the top 5 requests we make of them, that they agree to BEFORE booking the room. We do not expect guests to change their habits overnight so we are understnding when guests are a bit less clean than they swore, or they forget to remove their shoes or they keep wet towels or clothes on the furniture and bed or they totally forget to clean uo after themselves after using the kitchen. We do not expect perfect people but we do appreciate guests who have manners and the decency to try to respect our home norms and mores as articulated to them from the start.

       Airbnb is becoming less and less host friendly. Especially for the home share part of their business.

But even those of us who are not timid get burned. I have a serious rule about strong scents (many give me migraines) and it gets broken over and over, as does a "please keep noise down/no kitchen use" request for late night/early morning hours. I take none of this personally (and don't take other requests personally when I am a guest) but many guests seem to. 

 

I have given feedback for years now and nothing has changed. I have suggested that guests who break rules shouldn't be allowed to leave star ratings. But airbnb has done nothing. Most guests are great but those who break rules also seem to like blaming the host. 

Andrea9
Level 10
Amsterdam, Netherlands

@Erin117

Oh God, those scents! My female guests (around 90-95%) have been great, but it was the guys who ended up leaving their aftershave scent forever! Just 3 days ago guests checked out, and it was almost impossible airing enough  to get rid of the remaining smell before the next guest. It was as if it got absorbed into the wall paint... and even this morning still, I thought I caught a little whiff of it upstairs!

And the other 2 heavy-user guys over time took mega airing to finally clear the space.

 

Maybe you already do it and build in the part about it being a shared space in a private environment with need to respect quiet time and restricted kitchen hours. I've noticed that ever since I bring up things whilst I show guests the space during check in, either "Please feel free to xx" or "As you saw in the description I have to insist xxx" it makes the situation clearer for guests and repeating that

it's in the description signals that it was a condition of booking.

Guests, even the best sometimes don't read or forget which accommodation had or allowed what.

It's difficult to remedy things after the fact, so being pro-active has really improved things for me.

Personally i think hosts should not interfere in other peoples lives. Its your apartment but their life.  As a person who is living in airbnb plasces all around the world for more than 18 months now by choice, because i can, and yes i am a home owner myself with tenants, well, people have lives, you have apartments, be glad to get the money. In a society where it is perfectly normal to have a partner, a husband, a wife, a boyfriend a girlfriend whatever then i think airbnb should not allow any extra charges for extra people except where it goes above 2 (children, which are also a perfectly normal part of someones lives for practical reasons usually you need bigger apartments and more beds, and that for sure can be reflected by an extra charge).

 

In all other circumstances such as not having people who smoke, because there is a material effect on your house, or your ability to rent it out next is impeded, fine. But there is no effect on you to have some one extra stay where they supply their own towels, share the same bed, and live perfectly normal lives.

 

Telling guests you will charge them to have someone share their bed is basically a pimp tax, and that is never going to happen.  It is undignified, unjust, unfair, disrepectful,  and plain wrong and i should hope very much that airbnb management read this post.  

 

The Human Rights Act is a UK law passed in 1998. It lets you defend your rights in UK courts and compels public organisations (including the Government, police and local councils) to treat everyone equally, with fairness, dignity and respect.

 

And yes, much like a housing association airbnb would be subject to it, and since this act enshrines the european human rights convention it applies across all of Europe.  In any case, it is right for airbnb to apply this worldwide since we are all humans and dignity should be afforded to all.

Jason, I assume that you're referring to renting an entire apartment? I am a live-in host, so any requirements I have are meant to keep my home livable for me. My apartment is small, so a second person would absolutely affect me, which is why I simply don't allow more than one guest. But even in a private rental situation, additional guests mean more wear and tear, higher water bills, etc (at least I think that's generally the case, since landlords often have restrictions on occupancy numbers because of utilities - I'm not a homeowner though).

 

Also, for hosts who do all of the cleaning, prep, etc themselves, setting guidelines is a way to keep hosting fun and enjoyable, while also serving guests' needs and feeling that it's worth it. Point: not everyone has the same hosting situation, so blanket statements about letting guests do what they want don't work for everyone.

Andrea9
Level 10
Amsterdam, Netherlands

@Jason346

@Erin117  has well said it's a different ball game for many hosts than you think. If somebody has never been one themselves they might easily be prone to think the same applies as with commercial establishments with all kinds of personnel on a daily basis, even 24/7, and who can more easily distribute their costs onto rooms. Which is why the price for a single person is often the same as for two. Though not everywhere.

As a private host utilities use counts pretty much double with 2 guests, as well as the amount of laundry, and it's more traffic through my apartment. I don't wish to burden my single travellers with extra fees to keep it fair, so yes, I charge extra for the 2nd guest.

Everybody is free to design their own fee system, and whoever would rather pay a higher cover fee for more expenses than are calculated is welcome to choose places that do that 🙂

 

Hello Andrea

 

Thank you for your answer, it was with expected content i'll add, so i'd like you to consider the following.

 

We all have our life experience to take into account. I said i have my own properties, i am a family man too, older family now hence my travelling. It might be that some host on here is actually subletting my homes on airbnb, i haven't checked, against the contract i might add. I'm a long term travelling guest with airbnb, but not because i am poor and have no idea about host costs or owning properties. The cost of multiple people vs one is well known to me.

 

If we delve into the cost of a single person, it varies enormously, with the time of the year as much as with their lifestyle. People who stay in your place (assuming it's your place and you have the right to sublet) working on their laptops all day, then watch tv during the evening, cook their own meals, will use more electricity, gas and water than those who leave it in the morning, come back at 4am with a random partner, sleep together, then both part ways to be off to work in time.

 

Honestly, this is very much nitpicking, and to request that a guest needs to ask permission and pay money everytime someone shares a bed and towel with them is as noted an undiginified proposition. That it doubles the cost of utilities is well wide of the mark since equally it could halve your costs depending on how that person lives their lives. In this thread the words "bad guest" is somewhat overstepping.

 

You mentioned commercial establishments. They pay commercial rates, own huge buildings and employ lots of staff, charge similar prices for rooms as hosts do, often less actually, are subject to much stricter regulation than airbnb hosts are (and yet many hosts are indeed commercial establishments too), which includes having to have fire extinguishers, gas masks, legal standard signage etc, local government approval, well, they almost always allow two people at no extra charge (except say for breakfast). I say "almost always" since the closest you'll get to the pimp tax being prosposed is in places in high prostitution areas which display signage stating they charge money for prostitutes to enter their hotels with guests, think thailand. I don't think we should have airbnb behaving like pimps.

 

Second guests which require excta bedding i'd charge for, but not where bedding is shared (that's the same as with hotels). Personally if i were a host i'd always supply a second set of everything such as towels and toothbrushes as i would want my guests to be comfortable. Just because there is an option on airbnb to charge extras doesn't mean you have to tick the box. If a host worries more about the extra euro a second guest cost them today, rather than the 50 euros they made, consider that they'd not likely have made the 50 euro in the first place were it not for the "bad" guest.

 

As for the cost of a second guest, we can discuss costs of the first too, such as the cleaning fee? You don't need to answer because i get it. In china the cleaner costs about 4000 yuan a month and does all your properties for that, including the one you live in, and yet the airbnb hosts there often charge 200 to 300 yuan for the cleaning cost even if you stay one night.

 

If you read the entire post, many thanks 🙂

Andrea9
Level 10
Amsterdam, Netherlands

@Jason346

Like I said before, it's up to each host to make a calculation. In my case it's a room, and if there's a second guest they DO make a dent in my water usage and the gas required to heat it, or in the amount of towels and bed linens (laundry) used. In my situation it's as also an extra pair of legs walking through my apartment - wear and tear, less privacy for me. 

If I include my extra guest fee into the coverage for one night, it'll be too high to be competitive in my area. 

So I hear your reasoning, but again, you should also accept that every host situation is different. There's certainly no blanket solution.

 

And your example of bringing home a random unanounced or pre-booked partner, as you say, wouldn't be possible with the room in my home. Some hosts might be okay with finding an unanounced stranger in their home. I'm not fine with somebody I haven't met just walking through my private space.

 

 

someone's home is not a space for people to do what they want, including sex. If you dont like that, get a motel... 

Two people instead of one needing the bathroom. Two instead of one needing breakfast (if offered). Two instead of one lots of laundry. Two guests to one home owner accepting or rejecting house rules. If two people need a life then it should be easier to settle into one without using other people's homes I would imagine.

@Jason346 @Andrea9 

 

Whoa! I think you've got this completely backwards. A guest should NOT impose their idea of what is right and wrong on a host.

The host gave you the respect of telling you their terms, the only thing you get to decide at that point is if you agree/abide with those terms or not. You can no more say you disagree with the rate or the view or the color of the walls. They have offered you a particular product (yes, you can have a guest or no, you cannot) and you can decide if you want that product or not. But you absolutely do not have the right to decide that your world view is right and theirs is wrong and you'll do whatever you ****well please. A host who has different ideas from yours is not Interfering in Your Life, move on and book elsewhere.

Fairness, dignity and respect requires that you abide by the terms that a host has offered you. Full Stop.

@Jason182

 

    Hosts have the choice of whether to charge for an extra guests and it is really up to the host and I would think depends on the space offered.

    A second guests uses more water, gas and electricity, towels, shampoo, toiletries, and kitchen ware than just 1 guest. We offer one of the lowest base rates factoring in our location and quality offered. It is a great deal for this area. The rate paid by 2 guests staying in our home is the same as staying in a local hostel in a shared room with 4 10 8 others. It is an incredibly fair rate and guests can decide to stay with me in their own room, or at a hostel in a shared room that costs so much more. Trust me, it is a fair deal and no one who has ever stayed with me has ever thought the price was not great. I have had couple who stayed where one goes to classes or work and the other is home almost 24 hours a day, using a.c all day and night long. 

    For some hosts, being able to charge for a second person helps as a deterent for guests to bring people they have just met while out and about. The home share experience does not provide the same leeways afforded to guests at 5 star hotels. 

     Guest who say with us have always been treated with respect and always leave with their dignity intact. They are complete strangers given a key to our home, have no restrictions that will deter them from having an excellent holiday. There is no curfew, they can party all day and night so long as they are respectful when returning home.

      Guests have an obligation to practice due diligence. Hosts have the right to expect guests to keep their side of the bargain, which is to excercise good judgement and be respectful of the space they are lucky enough to have at a fraction of the cost of hotels.

You will still get a bad review. Rule breakers are allowed to leave reviews and they will most likely be 1-star.

Alastair27
Level 2
Inverness, United Kingdom

i had an air bnb guest who started removing his clothing on the out side decked area  removed chairs from my kitchen ad was drinking with other guests in his bed   my house rules in no use of cooking facilities  was told this  arrives back with bacon and eggs ready to cook in the morning  of which i  removed from fridge and leaves me a very bad revue and i get suspended from air bnb   after working very hard to become super host

Mike-And-Helen0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Jason346 great sentiments that do not apply to a family home.

I am not up for accepting randoms into my home, and if a person wants to entertain these, there are more expensive, less restrictive ways of doing so.