Guest think I am a control freak

Pallav27
Level 2
Stockholm, Sweden

Guest think I am a control freak

Hi, 

 

Its my first ongoing hosting. It is a independent villa in the countryside in Sweden.  Midway during the 45 day hosting, I get compaints from my villa's neighbours that the music is too loud on the weekends, another neighbour saw that the doors were not locked when the guests left the house. I have sent them reminders of these, plus more reminders about not smoking since they have been smoking in the patio (another report from neighbours). 

 

Additionally, they electricity consumption have been too high, since they have been using a private electric heater. All in all, I have to remind them one thing or the other every two three days. 

 

Now they are annoyed with me sending too many messages, how do I perceive this? I am mainly concerned about smoking, and the house rules says no-smoking, I can't do much at the moment if they smoke in the patio, but would I be entitled to Airbnb Cover for hosts if I figure out that the patio fabric is damaged etc? 

 

Also, I live 500kms away from the villa so I don't have the possibility to physically go and check. 

 

5 Replies 5
Ted307
Level 10
Prescott, AZ

Sounds like many house rules are being violated on a continuous basis. I would ask them to vacate the rental and refund them the unused days. Not worth the neighbors reporting you.

Ted & Chris
Amanda660
Level 10
Auchenblae, United Kingdom

@Pallav27  it sounds like your neighbours are giving you some helpful feedback.  Would they be interested in getting onboard and co-hosting - giving you some ears on the ground?

@Pallav27   It's not really enough to simply say "no smoking on the property." Like it or not, a significant portion of your guests are going to be smokers, so it helps to say in your listing - and personally show upon arrival - where the nearest place guests can smoke is. If that happens to be off the grounds of the property, then so be it, but ideally there should be a waste receptacle there to prevent butt litter.

 

Your House Rules would be much more effective if they were streamlined and simplified - all the conditions and exceptions are just confusing, and might be putting off some good potential guests. If you really need to have a different set of rules and amenities for longer stays than for shorter ones, create a second listing with the minimum length of stay set as what you consider to be "longer," and link the calendars to prevent double-booking.

 

I'm afraid it's not really tenable to demand excess electricity charges on Airbnb. You may request any fee you want, but Airbnb won't back you up if the guest declines it, so all you get for your troubles is an angry review. What you can do instead is raise the room rate to cover high power usage but offer a rebate at the end of the stay to guests whose usage falls within certain guidelines, as an incentive to conserve energy. 

 

As for being a "control freak" - well, unfortunately it comes off much more that way when you have to nag guests remotely based on secondhand information. This is where it would be better to employ a friendly local co-host who can meet your guests in person on arrival and attend directly to anything that comes up during the stay. That makes all the difference between making people feel looked after and making them feel micromanaged.

 

 

Pallav27
Level 2
Stockholm, Sweden

I totally agree to all your points, I’m soon gonna update the listing with lesser rules and I’m in the process of finding a co-host which hopefully will make hosting better. 

I do think that airbnb should introduce an option of allowing for separate electricity charges, most importantly for longer stays like how I have, 15 days+. One can always pre-charge, but it’s falls against the competition if you’re listing is too costly at the moment, so if a guest searches and puts a filter, my listing won’t be visible. 

with the rising fluctuation in energy/electricity prices, and considering that my hosting is in north of sweden which is very cold and it costs a lot on electricity, i do not have a lot of choices.  

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Pallav27 

 

Do a search on this forum for key words like 'energy' and you will see some recent discussions on the subject. Perhaps you will find some useful suggestions there.

 

Here's one for a start:

 

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Share-the-ways-you-are-coping-with-increased-expenses/td...