Guests being wasteful with my utilities

[Kurt240]

So our guests have been here for four or five days now and we noticed - for the third night in a row now - that the bedroom window has been left halfway open. It is 3 AM now and it's 20 degrees in Colorado. yesterday when we woke up, it was EIGHT degrees at 7 AM and the window was open, so we texted our guest to alert her to that issue. She did not respond, but the window got closed pretty quickly.

Our guest who booked the stay is not sleeping in that bedroom, another couple is. She may have told them to shut the window yesterday morning, but it is open again now and may have been open for hours. This is a common sense issue, so we never thought to include a house rule about such an activity. It's like having a rule asking guests not to leave the water running all day. Anyway, if we have guests cranking up the heater and then sleeping with the window open, we will not be making much money on this stay.

We plan to talk to the guest about it this morning but I thought I would pose this question to other owners about our recourse options. It is possible that the guest has some type of respiratory issue, but our concern is that someone is vaping or smoking in that room, which is strictly against our rules. We will find out when we chat with her, but that will be at least four or five hours from now.

Right now, my wife and I reckon we can ask them for a deposit in case we see a big bump in our electricity bill. These folks have booked a month-long stay and this is their first week.

Anyone have this type of problem before?

[Elaine701]

@Kurt240 

Yep, they do that. Not much you can do. If you confront them too strongly, then expect a scathing review, and in the worst case, some sort of refund. 

Be nice, don't pursue it beyond a friendly reminder. It can get much worse. 

Build it into your price, assuming they'll turn the heat up and open the windows. I've found that whenever I raise prices, inexplicably, I get more bookings. And they seem to be nicer guests, too. 

And in the future, you can indeed ask for a security deposit, which you can request through the resolution center, before they arrive. But be careful with that, too. You don't want to scare away the good ones 🙂

[Kurt240]

We are new hosts and these folks our just our fifth booking, so that's why I wanted to throw it out to the owners. We appreciate your thoughts about this.

We will be chatting with her this morning and hopefully find out what the deal is. The security deposit was mentioned to us the other day by friends who are also hosts in our city. All of our dealings with the lady who booked the stay have been great, but this question will be for the other couple in her party, so I hope they don't get too bugged. But we need to know why they would do something that seems so, ham, less than sensible. Thanks for your reply.

[Emilia42]

@Kurt240 Do you know what the heat in the bedroom is set to? I open my bedroom window in the winter sometimes but essentially the heat is off. I have more "wasteful" concerns with the guests who feel the need to set the heat on 75 degrees. I'd be interested to know your guest's reasoning. Also, be prepared that many people don't respond well to the feeling of being watched.

[Kurt240]

When we went into the cottage the second day of the guests' stay, two of our three mini splits were set at 74 degrees and that was during the day. I assume that at night, the guests have the heater set even higher, despite the window being open.

We are going to talk to her this morning. Thanks for your thoughts.

[Kim866]

Is it possible that the couple who booked keep the heat higher than is comfortable for the other couple to sleep at night--honestly I could not take 74 degrees day or night!  We actually turn our heat down at night and leave a window open a bit because our bedroom gets too warm.  I agree that guests do not respond well to being "watched" and that is exactly how they will take it.  You might suggest that vents in that room be closed off at night but I think I would just let it go for this booking.  Maybe in the future leave a note that the bedrooms are warm at night and suggest turning the heat down or closing off vents.

It is frustrating to feel guests are wasting your resources! 

Good luck,

Kim

[Sarah977]

@Kurt240  Why did you go into the cottage? You can't just enter the space guests have rented without prior notice, unless here's some emergency situation. Like a fire- open windows with the heat on isn't an emergency.

Airbnb takes issues of privacy breaches quite seriously and if a guest reports you having entered while they were out, Airbnb will suspend or even delist you.

[Kurt240]

Thanks for the advice but I think you have things mixed up. We went into the premises to hand off some extra linens to our guests - WHILE THEY WERE IN THE COTTAGE - and we noticed what the setting was on the heaters.

The nights that we saw the window open, we witnessed that from our house, which is adjacent to the cottage. We have since been told that when that window was open, the heater in that bedroom was not running, which we are fine with. Not sure if that was actually the case but we will be consulting our energy bill to see if we can figure out if our guests were running the heater and keeping the window open.

I am not aware of a list of that Air BnB has posted that describe what type of situations allow us to enter the building when guests are not present. A fire is an obvious one but there could be several other circumstances that could be identified as emergencies. If you could point me in the direction of such list, I would appreciate the opportunity to check it out.

Cheers,

KP

[Sarah977]

@Kurt240  Okay, I understand - the guests were expecting you. 

I don't know of any list of acceptable reasons to enter without notice, but emergency situations seem like they would be more or less universally understood- you see smoke or fire, a burst plumbing pipe, that sort of thing. 

I once went into my guest's bedroom ( I host a private room in my home), because it suddenly started pouring rain and I noticed she had left the windows open (not normally an issue, as I live in the tropics and have neither heat nor AC to waste)- I just didn'twant her to come home to a wet bed. 

But I texted her to let her know I was going to do that.

I read a post from a guest who was quite upset that the hosts had entered her cabin when she was out. It was a day before Halloween,and the hosts had gone in to "decorate". 

They obviously thought the guest would be happily surprised, but that was definitely an invasion of privacy. They should have just left a pumpkin on the doorstep or something.

[Kurt240]

Halloween decorations!? Hilarious.

Another host has left a link, so I will check that out.

[Colleen253]

@Kurt240 “I am not aware of a list of that Air BnB has posted that describe what type of situations allow us to enter the building when guests are not present.”

Refer to the TOS. 2.3 for what Airbnb has to say.

https://www.airbnb.ca/help/article/2908/terms-of-service

[Kurt240]

Thanks Colleen.

🙂

[Kurt240]

Thanks, Kim. I believe we have it worked out with the guests now. Fingers crossed!

KP