Snow in Western Washington: What to do?

[Jess3649]

Hello, 

For my fellow hosts in Washington state, how do you handle snow for your listing?

We have a home in Lakewood, WA with a 70ft flat, single lane private driveway. We have a reservation for three travel professionals in the area from 01/01/2022-02/24/2022. Originally, we were leaving a large bucket of pet safe snow melt on the porch to handle any ice, and a snow shovel for light snow on the walkway if needed. We maybe get snow once a year, usually in February, and it usually melts quickly. We didn't anticipate having the cold temperatures and early snow this year, but it looks like it will be snowing intermittently all week. We are concerned it may be an ongoing thing through in January and February. It feels wrong expecting a guest to do it themselves.

How do you handle snow on driveways and walkways for your Airbnb? I read other posts about contracting with a local snow clearing service, but I can't find any. We also live in Georgia until next spring, so we are unable to shovel the home ourselves. We have someone coming to check on the home and handle the driveway prior to the guest arrival, but they live far away so it's not feasible to have them come back every time it snows over two months.

Does anyone have any suggestions? 

Thank you in advance!

[Patricia1375]

@Jess3649  We have a cabin in a mountain community.   We are 20-30 minutes from any kind of stores, businesses, etc.  While we get more snow than you mentioned you typically receive in Washington, people who stay at our cabin want to get out of our driveway and go places during their stays.  We have the sidewalk shoveled right before our guests arrival, and then leave them a snow shovel to keep up with the snow accumulation directly in front of the cabin.  We pay someone to plow our driveway if the accumulation is more than 6 inches (the common guideline for Colorado).  Many guests come here on business, and to recreate and I don't think they would come if they knew they might get snowed in and couldn't come and go as they please.  We do say in our listing about how critical 4wd or AWD is during this time of year, and explain the 6 in. guideline for snow plowing.  Rather than take a chance of having guests stuck inside for multiple days with no means to leave, if it were me I would do everything I could to find someone to plow, or offer the guests a refund and chance to book elsewhere. 

[Lisa723]

@Jess3649 our driveway (in Quilcene, Olympic Peninsula) is pretty much impassable to "regular" cars and drivers with more than a few inches of snow, and plowing it is impossible. We offer guests free cancellations when it looks like that's going to happen, and strongly encourage them to take it-- typically we are then immediately rebooked with someone with the vehicle and experience to handle it.