I hate the guests I have this weekend!!! (rant)

[Michael956]

I have two guys sharing a queen size bed in one of my guest rooms.  I'm gay, by the way, so I have no problem with guys sharing a bed, but these are two straight guys.  Guess they're cheap. 

Anyway,  all my guests have been lovely...until now.  They didn't respond to my request via the Airbnb platform about their arrival time, so I ended up messaging them using their cell phone number.  Now I can't get them back on the Airbnb messaging system, and I've missed a couple of their "requests" as I always respond instantly to anything coming from Airbnb but don't always check my personal messages. 

So the first strike against them is "bad communicators".  Soon after check-in one of them asked if he could do laundry "at night".  He said it was raining so he'd need to wash and dry his clothes after being out all day.  OK, no problem.  I offer my guests full access to my washer and dryer, but when he said, "at night" I assumed he meant 9 or 10 p.m.  At 1 a.m. I am awakened by the sound of a zipper crashing back and forth in the dryer, and a loud cell phone video being played at the table near the laundry area.  (My house rules ask for "quiet time" after 10 p.m.) Thinking of my other guests in the room nearest the kitchen, I get out of bed and go, "shhh", there are people sleeping".   

Now he is on the fourth (and last) day of his stay, and he has done laundry all four days.  My house is not a laundramat!  One day he took all  my still damp towels and sheets out of the dryer, piled them in a heap, and put his own clothes in.  When I went to use the dryer, I carefully folded his laundry, which consisted of 3 pairs of socks, 3 pairs of underwear and 2 t-shirts.  We have a water crisis in California!  Then one afternoon I hear someone open and closing all the cupboards in my kitchen.  Fine, I thought, I tell my guests to feel free to look for cups, dishes, silverware, sugar, etc. in my many cupboards. 

However, later that evening I walk into the kitchen and find him munching away at my food, which i keep in the highest, most inaccessible cupboard.  The nerve!  Not only is my house a laundramat, now it's a restaurant!  I didnt' say anything because I was so embarrassed for him.  And this is after I went out and bought  a large fan for his room after he messaged me that he needed one because he "sleeps hot", even though it's a chilly and wet January outside.  They are both working my last nerve.  I've never left a guest a bad review, but I so want to punish them and warn other hosts. 

Sorry, I just needed to rant here.

I can't wait for them to leave tomorrow morning.  

[Rosanna51]

I say leave an honest review, keep it reasonably brief and be objective. Other hosts need to be informed  we owe it to each other. 

[Valerie290]

This sounds eerily similar to the guest I have this weekend. I wish Airbnb allowed you to contact previous hosts so you could get more info on your guests. The last 2 men I have had Stay have been total weirdos whose profiles did not line up with their actions and conversations we had after they checked in. Both were totally sketchy and yet had mostly good reviews.

[Linda356]

Nothing stopping you contacting previous hosts. Just go to their airbnb and send them an inquiry same way you would if you were inquiring about a stay with them.

[Linda356]

We should all just have a standard phrase for guests we would not want back. I just say best suited to staying in a motel. It is not rude and no need to go into any detail.

[Michelle-and-Ray0]

I used to think like you, that saying they are better suited to a hotel was enough, but it's not.
What you might find acceptable, I might find totally unacceptable, and vice versa.
 For instance, you might find it OK that they left garbage everywhere and didn't pick up after themselves, as long as they didn't damage anything.  I might find that totally unacceptable. In this case, If I write "better suited to a hotel", you would not accept them as guests when the reality is that you would find them to be great guests. Details are NECESSARY in order for future hosts to make an informed decision about whether to host a guest or not. It's not fair to the guests or the future hosts when details are left out.
In the example above, you might do well to write, 
"Guests left garbage everywhere and didn't pick up after themselves. However, nothing was damaged and it only took me 15 minutes longer to clean. They were otherwise great guests and I would definitely host them again."
I might write,
"Guests left garbage everywhere and didn't pick up after themselves. It took me 15 minutes longer to clean up than normal. Nothing was damaged and they were otherwise good guests. However, based on the mess left behind I would not host again.
See how that works?
Future hosts are fully aware of what they are signing up for and the guest is not getting a horrible review, just a factual, unemotional one.
It's never rude to leave an honest, factual review.

[Huma0]

@Michael956 

I've hosted a lot of long-term guests and they've been lovely, considerate and, when they did inadvertently break one rule or other, been very sorry when I mentioned it and that was that.

However, the young man staying with me at the moment (it is half way through his one month stay) is starting to try my patience. He is polite and repectful over all. However, he seems to have a problem following my house rules and small things are starting to build up.

I ask all guests to please turn off their bedroom lights when they go out and the bathroom lights off when they finish in there. He said, "of course", then went to use the bathroom and left the light on. In the next few days he repeatedly left his bedroom light on all day or evening when out, until I reminded him not to do this. He apologised, but still did it so I had to remind him again.

He always leaves the toilet seat up. I didn't want to mention this, but one of my other guests brought it up, so I asked him to please put it down, which he sometimes does, sometimes not. He somehow always seems to want to use a space while I am in the middle of cleaning it. I.e. he wanted to cook while I was cleaning the stove. He said he would clean it after and didn't. In fact, he leaves it covered with grease and food every time, leaves the toilet streaked with poo, and I can't keep on top of all the extra cleaning.

If he is home while I am cleaning a bathroom (bear in mind ths will be in the middle of the afternoon), he wants to use it. One time, when I was cleaning, he asked me for something, and when I left the bathroom to get it, he locked himself in there and started washing his clothes, even though he knew I had another guest arriving and that was why I was cleaning in there!

The biggest problem is all the packages he is receiving. He got five in the mail this morning alone and more a couple of days ago. My house rules say guests must not receive mail nor give out my address and we had a dicussion about it on his first day when he told me he would have deliveries. I had agreed he could have deliveries from Amazon only, but these are not from Amazon but from many random companies.

When I asked him to please stop, he got very upset. He said, "We need to talk about your rules," and that he could not live like this without deliveries and it had been fine in every other Airbnb he stayed in. After a lengthy and quite heated discussion, which included me having to contradict him when he said he lived here and remind him that he is a guest, he reluctantly agreed to "be more careful". 

In this conversation, he also said, "I need to do laundry!!". I never told him he could not do laundry. I just explained to him that I didn't want him to put on a load just to wash three t-shirts. I had instead washed his things with other stuff, dried and folded it and put it outside his door for him. I had also asked him not to hang his handwashing on my furniture and provide him with clothes airers for this purpose. He doesn't seem to be happy about that either and gave me a very funny look.

I know this is not the guest from hell, but I'm wondering what else I can do to avoid these situations in future. All of this stuff is in my house rules, which he said he had read and agreed to before booking, but clearly he's not happy that he is expected then to follow them.

Sorry for the long rant, but I'm feeling rather frustrated right now.

[Michelle-and-Ray0]

It sounds like this is just one of those guests that is not suited to your home. Clearly, his mama didn't do her job well with him. personally, I would end the stay and ask him to find somewhere else as he is not able to fllow the rules and be considerate of others. As for the parcels, tell him no more until he leaves. He should not have done it in the first place and the fact that you tried to be accommodating after the fact and allowed him to acceot his Amazon parcels only gave hm the green light to go ahead and order more stuff, regardless of what he agreed to.
The fact that he said "he said he lived here" is incredibly concerning. It sounds like he's trying to establish residency in your home, and and for that reason alone, I would be booting him immediately.
I'm not sure what the laws are in the UK regarding it, but you might was to find out and get him out ASAP.

[Huma0]

@Michelle-and-Ray0  thank you for your feedback and support. I think you are right in that, if we bend one of our rules slightly, people can take that mile rather than the inch. He just seemed so disturbed on the first day when I reminded him he was not supposed to give out my address, that I wanted to be acommodating. I had already said no to him having his groceries delivered from Ocado (notoriously bad for spam mail). Given that we have numerous sup;ermarkets nearby (less than five minute walk, some just 1-2 minutes away), I didn't see why he needed to do this and not a single previous guest has done so.

Re the whole living here thing, he did not expressly say, "I live here." I was explaining to him that mail addressed to someone else can be taken as evidence that they live at my property and can affect my credit rating, mortgage and Council Tax. He responded, "Well, other peole DO live here," to which I replied, "No, Airbnb guests are guests, visitors. They do not live here. It is not their residence."

Anyway, I don't think I will kick him out at this point. I have told him to use Collect Plus or similar services for his packages so he can pick them up locally and, if there is anything he can't have delieved that way, then I can order it for him, with MY name. He sort of seemed to agree. I am trying to be as reasonable as I can without submitting to things I feel really uncomfortable about. Let's see how it goes.

[Huma0]

PS @Michelle-and-Ray0 

In the UK, the law is very much on the side of tenants, even if they do not have any kind of written contract, and it can be a nightmare to get rid of them. You cannot kick them out, change the locks, throw out their stuff etc. You can get prosecuted for doing so. You have to go through a legal eviction process. However, a tenant is someone who rents a property where you do not live yourself as your primary home.

In contrast, the law is very much on the side of live in landlords. Anyone renting a room in someone else's home is a lodger, and does not have tenants' rights. The live in landlord can ask them to leave at any time, without any reason, providing they give 'reasonable' notice, which is not laid down in law, but is genearlly considered to be one rental period, i.e. a week if they are paying rent weekly and a month if they are paying rent monthly.

If they refuse to leave, you can change the locks, remove their stuff from the room etc. You then inform them and give them a chance to collect their belongings. You don't need to let them back in the house, only hand them the stuff through the front door. If they do not pick up their stuff after a reasonable amount of time, you can dispose of it.

So, I feel like I am adequately protected in terms of the law. Putting it into practice however, which I have luckily never had to do, is another matter, but I have found when I have occasionally had troubles with lodgers, that just reciting the law to them is enough. They leave.

[Michael956]

@Huma0What a pig.  He's very immature and inconsiderate (why do I  imagine him as a Trump-supporting American?).  Anyway, Someone as selfish and clueless as that probably isn't going to change his stripes in the next couple of weeks.  I"m the type who--unless he's a dangerous homocidal maniac--will just grin and bare it unitl he leaves.  However,  I'd also be preparing a wickedly bad review detailing all the juicy details.  Thankfully his type is very few and far between.  By the way, a couple of months ago after a long day of house cleaning with a houseful of guests I had a stroke.  It completely turned my life upside down, and I've had to make many changes.  I've just reopened the house to Airbnb guests, but it's a whole new reality  I rent one bedroom instead of three, no longer serve breakfast, only accept longer term guests (no more two night stays), and have drastically cut down my stress level and work load.  I realize now that my hosting style ("always the perfect Superhost") contributed to my high stress level.  i'll be losing my Superhost status soon (not enough stays this quarter to qualify), but have regained my sanity.  Airbnb hosting is wonderul, but only in moderation. 

[Huma0]

@Michael956 

I'm so, so sorry to hear about your stroke. I was wondering why I hadn't seen much of you on the CC lately and I'm sorry I didn't think to ask if everything was oikay.

You are right. Hosting can be stressful. Sometimes it is wondeful, but other times it takes its toll and you wonder why you are doing it. I hope that you do not have financial pressures that require you to host as often as necessary. Moving to less room and longer stays sounds sensible, and that is something I am already doing (trying to move to longer stays) and will be doing more of in the future once my finances allow (reducing number of rooms).The problem is that I do not currently host 'in moderation' as you put it.  My poor mother worries for me all the time. She says doing this will affect my health in the long-term. Turns out (as usual) that she is not so clueless.

RE my guest, no he is not a Trump-supporting American. Well, I don't know about Trump-supporting, but he is Chinese. I thought he was American when he booked because that was what it said on his profile and also his English seemed very good. I even made up the bed differently because American guests seem to have different expectations of how that should be done - like you, I am always striving to be the Superhost.

[Alice-and-Jeff0]

Oh @Michael956  - every pig and inconsiderate guest that has EVER stayed with me has been a middle-aged, white-haired, judgemental, liberal, elitist educator who assigns behaviors based on political ideals.   SHAME ON YOU!  Airbnb has no place for this kind of name-calling and discrimination. You know better!  

(judgement and name-calling made for point only)

[Michael956]

@Alice-and-Jeff0  I knew there must be a reason i've never been to North Carolina.  You've just confirmed it.

[Alice-and-Jeff0]

@Michael956 - transplanted here, not from here, and you clearly know NOTHING about Durham and know even LESS about me.  Shame on you.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durham,_North_Carolina#Politics

[Alexandra316]

@Michael956 Really sorry to hear about your medical issues. I wondered why I hadn't seen you around. How are you making out with hosting the one room?