Cranking the heat and leaving lights on 24 hours

[Sherri14]

I have a long term guests, they are working nights and sleeping days.  They leave the lights on 24 hours a day and have the heat cranked 80 plus.  I want to address this, only 3 days into a 25 day stay, this could eat the rental amount. Anyone have an idea how to speak with them without making it a bigger problem?

[Anonymous]

@Sherri14 The best foundation for addressing utility-usage issues - especially with long-term guests - is to have some guidelines listed in your House Rules and reinforced during check-in. If these are already in place. you can use that as the starting point in your conversation with the guests. 

Otherwise, it's just going to come down to how you communicate (and to how reasonably the guests respond). You can start by offering benefit of the doubt and asking if they're having any difficulty with the thermostat and if the house is comfortable for them during the day - perhaps it turns out that they didn't work the settings correctly. I'd recommend framing the conversation not purely in terms of how the energy usage cuts into your revenue, since it's also an environmental concern. As a baseline, you may insist that the guests turn off the heating and lights when they leave the house. 

Most people will be willing to work with you on this without making a big issue out of it, and in the process of communicating you might find that there was an underlying issue that you have the chance to fix. But if the guests adamantly refuse to rein in the energy wastage, be sure to have your conversation documented in the Airbnb messenger and then weigh the cost/benefit of your options. There is a procedure for terminating a booking early when it's not working out, but it comes with the risk of a negative review on your record and dates that might not get rebooked. 

[Sarah977]

@Sherri14  The way you describe the situation, it almost sounds as if these guys are so exhausted after a night's work that they just fall into bed without bothering to turn off the lights or turn the heat down. and then when it's time to go to work that night, it's maybe still light out and they don't realize all the lights are on? I had a friend come to stay who regularly woke up at 4am, read for awhile, then fell back asleep. She invariably fell back asleep with the light on, then forgot to turn it off the next day before she went out, because in the daylight, you couldn't really see that the light was on.

So perhaps approach it from that angle- "Hey, I know you guys are probably exhausted when you come home, and then rushing around the next night to get ready to go to work again, so you may not be aware, but you are leaving all the lights on and the heater turned way up when you are out and also when you are asleep. Like all hosts, we base our pricing in part on average utility use, so we can't afford to pay for utilities that are left on when the guests are gone for 8 hours a day. Think you could make a note to yourselves, maybe tape it on the inside of the door to remind you to turn things off before you leave and before you go to sleep for the day? "

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Sherri14 

I state in my house rules that I will enter a guest room to turn lights off/close windows in their absence if left on/open when they are out. And while guests can adjust the thermostat from the guest room, I can also check and change the setting from the main control panel and override whatever setting they have :-)) 

I also mention in my listing description that heating/AC temps are set to maintain a room temp of 21~22°C in winter and 25~26°C in summer. So if I find the guest changing the settings I ask if they are cold/hot, ask if they want extra blankets or an extra fan, and make minor changes to the temp settings as needed. 

I'd take a casual approach first....... similar to what @Sarah977 and @Anonymous suggest. But you can't MAKE others act/behave the way you want them to..... so ultimately I suggest you find a way to be able to control/limit settings and usage (especially the thermostat) yourself instead of being fully dependent on the guest to do what's right. 

On a personal note..... I hate it when I'm half asleep in bed and realize I forgot to turn the lights off so when I was younger I would often pull the covers over my head and choose to get yelled at later~ Lol~  One of the first things I did to the guest bedroom was add a remote control light switch and place that button on the bedside table :-))) 

[Debra300]

I agree with the others and their suggestions to cordially approach your guests about utility usage.  We use mini-split systems in our rental spaces, and found that people were setting the temperature for the AC very low or the heat very high, and leaving the units on all day.  The per kilowatt price of electricity is 5-6 times more in St. Lucia than in the US.  It is customary on the island to run the AC only while occupying the room or when sleeping if there are bedrooms.  Since guests kept "forgetting" to turn off the AC while they were out all day, we installed keyed lock switches along the power cord of the mini-split.  The guest has to use a key to turn on the power to the unit, and must turn off the unit to take the door key with them when they leave the room.  We use small  locks as key rings for both the power switch key and door key so the keys cannot be separated.  In our Atlanta apartment, we installed a Cielo Breeze Plus smart controller.  It allows us to control the operation of the mini-split via our phones.  We can turn on the heat or AC an hour or two before a guest  is scheduled to arrive to ensure the temperature is comfortable at check-in.  It has a great feature to set the temperature range of the unit.  For example, it can be set to go no lower than 70F degrees for cooling and no higher than 78F degree for heating.   The guests can control On/Off, fan speed and temperature with the included wall controller. Although we remind all guests to turn off the lights and the AC/heater when they checkout, they almost always leave them on.  We just turn off the unit with the smart controller. We've not yet invested in smart switches for the lights, but that will be next.

[Alex1485]

@Sherri14 @Debra300 @Jessica-and-Henry0 @Sarah977 @Anonymous 

I'd suggest you send them an upbeat "just checking in/ how can we make your 30 day stay more enjoyable and close with.  ".We'd ask that you please consider the environment and turn off lights, lower the thermostat, when not in use.."

To combat our $400/month electric bills, 2019, we added APP enabled features to our AC, Lights, Heat so we could "adjust".    If you haven't already invested in NEST, etc products, now is the time! You could certainly attempt to engaging your guests in the solution--install NEST during your guests stay and have them be the  "NEST test case",  they might like the idea of being able to turn on the heat/lights 30 minutes before they arrive...

Whatever you decide to do, personally, when i need to address an issue with guests, I always take a moment to consider the guest perspective-how will they react to my message.  

In this instance, some guests may be very uncomfortable with the realization that you are "watching them", it may not give them the  warm/fuzzy feeling about continuing to stay with you. and check out. 

net/net...I'd be very cautious what you write.