How to deal with unexpected situations?

[Stephanie]

Hello everyone,

From time to time, unexpected situations are always going to crop up, such as your washing machine taking one look at the huge pile of washing and deciding to give up the go or your guests arriving much later than expected! You can’t prevent these from happening entirely, but there are some things you can put in place to minimise the risk of them happening and ways to help deal with them if they do.  

Things like great communication and doing regular home maintenance, along with some handy lists of emergency support numbers for local repair companies or plumbers are just a few examples. 

What things do you have in place to help you deal with unexpected situations?

Looking forward to hearing from you. 

Stephanie

[Blair18]

I'm rather disgusted that I can't find consistent reliable, correct information that a guest will receive from Airbnb when they make a reservation.  Not the things I provide, but that Airbnb provides, like my address,,, Some Guests call and want to know my address, others have rooted around and figured it out and come to my home.  I need to understand the logic and rules/procedures that airbnb follows  on this.  I have gotten at least 3 different answers from support.   It seems to me that it should be easy to direct me to the procedures and the logic for the structure.    

[Elaine701]

We get it fixed - somehow - immediately. Not always easy, and usually quite stressful. But we somehow pull it off, even if it means working late.

But also, we regularly perform checks of everything between each guest. Water, electricity, heating and cooling, insects, appliances, etc.... We often find potential problems that way, and try to resolve it before it becomes an imminent problem. Sometimes it might mean buying a new appliance (right now - today) rather than calling someone out to fix it, then getting the nonworking unit fixed in the mean time  and if fixable, either sell it or use it as a "backup".

In any case, I'd much rather go through the stress than cancel a booking at the last minute, leaving the guest to figure out what to do next - and not to mention Airbnb penalties for that.