Long-term guests eating all the WiFi

[Lawrence-and-Kristy0]

Hi All,

For various reasons beyond our control, we needed to move from short-term to long-term stays. Definitely missing those short-term days LOL

We have had three guests in a row (young adults) who seem to spend all their free time in the separate downstairs area reserved for Airbnb on the internet, watching videos, playing games, etc. They all had very part-time jobs, did not leave our property, and continually were online. As a result, it impacted the internet in the house and the other guest downstairs who rents.

We have extremely good WiFi and have an additional router midway through our home to help. But the behavior is problematic.

With this being said, my question is: What language could/should I use in my description that suggests a friendly "Hello, if you are hoping to be a hermit and drink our internet dry, this is not the place for you"? We are staying long-term and are looking to be mindful for the other guests who stay with us.

All jokes aside, is there a way to preemptively deal with this growing problem, as well as when it is occurring in our home? Thank you for your help!

[Helen427]

Write to your Government @Lawrence-and-Kristy0  and tell them that outdoor exercise is far better preventative measure for overall health than a 24/7 lockdown!

Perhaps you need to have an allotted amount per guest and when that's used up, that's it.

Do you give each Guest a different password?

Use related keywords in the Searchbox here in CC as others have touched on this issue before with great suggestions.

All the very best and encourage them it's important to take a walk, get Vitamin D and exercise self care which doesn't mean staying locked up inside like a chicken in a coop

[Helen3]

You could do that but it would not be true. The very best and safest preventative measure is for people to self-isolate at stay at home unless going out for essential food, medication and a short period of local exercise.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Lawrence-and-Kristy0 

My experience is.... most guests don't care about how much data/wifi they use. As long as there is connection and speed is good, they will abuse it. Henry and I hosted a lot of exchange students staying for entire semesters in our single occupancy private guest room so we were pretty sure that asking nicely to not "hog our bandwith" would help at all. 

When we started hosting Henry tweaked our router so that we (1) have a separate channel for guest use  (2) limit the # of devices that can be connected to the guest network at once (we only host 1 guest at a time and set it at max 3 devices) and (3) adjusted the bandwith of the guest-use only channel. (We adjusted bandwith for different guests - we had one that would play RPG online all night so Henry adjusted the guest bandwith to a barely tolerable level at the end of the 1st month)

Henry and I have our own channel and is set so that only our own registered devices have access. 

You should check your router's user manual to see what functions are available. Hope this helps~

[Melodie-And-John0]

Thats a tough one @Lawrence-and-Kristy0 , is there a possibility of adding a wired connection to the guest space or even your space to plug computers into?  The throughput should be much faster and wont tie up the radio (WAP) as much.  That said, your total is only as good as your pipeline to the world and here at Bearpath Lodging, its pretty limited (5 meg).  Good luck, stay well, JR

[Cormac0]

@Lawrence-and-Kristy0 

Get on to google, and research the capabilities of your modem software, you can block or limit access to the router/modem for individual IP addresses.

All this information is contained on the modems software.

Its a good idea when you have a lot on traffic on your modem to switch it off for "one minute" to clean up the connections once in a while.

"THIS IS NOT THE SAME AS A HARD RESET"  which can end you up with a whole world of hurt.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Lawrence-and-Kristy0 

There lots of 'Control' measures you can take, but they take some setting up and supervision, also guests who struggle with wifi will let it be known in reviews.

If you can increase your bandwidth and data for not much more cost, that might be simplest solution?