Things I find unusual about my guests

[Kamilla8]

We have been AirBnB hosts for about 4 years and there are three things I find unusual:

1.  people sleep on the pillow with the sham on it. There are plenty of pillows on the bed or in the closet without shams. Why do they choose to sleep on the pillows in shams?
2. Most people don’t shower even if they are there for 3-4 days. Ewww! Why?  There are loads of towels and I can supply more if needed. 
3. Many people sleep either on top of both sheets or on top of all bed covering. It doesn’t save me any work. I still change and wash everything. 

Maybe I’m naive. These things just don’t seem normal to me. Do these things happen in your lodgings also?? 
Just curious. 😊

[Anonymous]

@Kamilla8 

1)  Everyone's a little different there, but personally I hate finding decorative pillows on a bed. It just seems ridiculous to make a bed with items that someone isn't supposed to sleep on, while leaving the items that are actually useful in the closet. You might think it's nice presentation, but your guests are stuck with the tedious task of putting those pointless pillows somewhere off the bed where they don't get dirty while still finding enough room for their stuff.

Imagine you're at a restaurant, and your table is covered with candles and flowers, and then when the main course arrives, there's no room for your plate, so you have to stick a bunch of vases on the floor, and then your meal is hiding under a few beautiful green leaves that may or may not be salad. Does that sound weird? Yeah, well to some people, so are your shams.

2) There's no right or wrong frequency for bathing. But what most guests can agree on is that it's "not normal" for a host to be monitoring their bathing habits when they rent an Entire Home property. Some might even find it creepy.

3) They're probably not trying to save you work; they're just doing what feels comfortable to them. The more variables you make possible with all the different layers and types of bedding, the more variations people will come up with to customize it to their own comfort. Everything that goes on the bed has to get washed at changeover anyway, so I'm personally inclined to keep it simple.

[Sarah977]

@Kamilla8  I concur about useless decorative pillows. I find them a bizarre concept. Why have things in your Airbnb you don't want guests to use? They're just supposed to sit on a chair and admire them? How is a "sham" different from a pillowcase? Because it matches the bedspread and has some flange around it? How much of their vacation time do you expect guests to waste taking pillows they are not meant to use off the bed, and then putting them back on again? If that is something you don't mind spending your time on in your own bedroom, that's up to you. At 5 minutes a day, including washing the covers, that's 30 hours of one's life a year dealing with pillows no one is meant to actually use. 🙂

https://www.google.com/search?q=along+came+Polly+decorative+pillow+scene&oq=along+came+Polly+decorat...

How is it that you are keeping track of your guests' bathing habits? As a home share host myself,  I can usually hear the guest shower running, but it never occcured to me to pay attention to whether or how often my guests shower. All your listing are entire homes- how are you even aware of whether your guests had a shower or not?

Not everyone is accustomed to the same bedding style. For instance, not everyone uses a top sheet and a blanket or quilt. Europeans and many younger North Americans just use a bottom sheet and a duvet. I had a guest from Prague who charmingly asked me to please explain what she was meant to sleep over and under- she was confused. 

But other than her, all my other guests haven't been at all confused and sleep between the bottom and top sheets. What is odd is that you seem to have so many guests who don't. Maybe they don't like the sheets you use. (If they are microfiber, or smelled like dryer sheets or fabric softener, I wouldn't want to sleep on them myself)

[Lorna170]

@Kamilla8   People will sleep on the pillow shams.  They will also use any throw pillows for their pets.  They will sleep on top of the bedspread, under the bedspread on top of the blanket, under the blanket but on top of the sheets, actually between the top and bottom sheet, and sometimes on the mattress pad...

I stopped trying to make the beds in the vacation rental the same way that I make the guest beds in my home.  No more bedspreads, decorative quilts, throw pillows and fancy shams.  We purchased pretty duvet covers and washable inserts.  The pillow shams are also washable cotton that match the duvets.  People sleep on them, and they get washed with every guest.   

P.S.  My older guests know that they are pillow shams and will remove them to get to the clean pillowcase inside.  My younger guests have 1-800-no-clue that the sham can be removed.

[Nicole2223]

@Lorna170 - If you don't mind sharing...what brand of duvet do you use and what size beds? 

[Lorna170]

@Nicole2223   The duvets, inserts and pillow shams that have held up the best (washed in hot water once if not twice per week) were purchased from IKEA.  Three years and still going strong with no fading.  I have also purchased duvets from Utopia bedding on Amazon.  The beds are King, Queen and Full.   

My sheets are from Sam's Club, and they are replaced every year whether I "need" to or not.  The "older" set becomes the quick change over bedding stock.

[Kendra114]

Or what about leaving the shower curtain outside the shower to flood the floor? And leaving doors wide open with the heat/AC on? You know people don’t do that at home. If they do they’re destroying their property & their wallets are empty. Or someone is cleaning up after them & paying the bills???

[Laura2592]

@Kamilla8 I agree that I find all of those things a bit unusual. I don't see them super frequently but I have seen them with certain guests. I will add to your list:

1. Guests doing hairdressing (cutting/dyeing) at an ABB. I assume this is because they think they are paying someone to clean up after them and don't want to mess their own home with dye splotches or bits of hair. I find this super inconsiderate but also really odd. As a woman who has dyed her hair so long she no longer could tell you the natural color, it would never occur to me to take my equipment to a hotel or someone else's home. Same with my hair cutting scissors. 

2.Guests who cook huge meals or fussy baked goods in a strange kitchen. I have said many times we aren't the space for family and friends to hang out for Thanksgiving. But even without a meal holiday I have some guests whose sole vacation purpose seems to be to use a an unfamiliar kitchen for elaborate food prep. I know some people cook as a hobby but I should think they would choose somewhere other than my space-- maybe something with a gas stove at least or a food processor? We are decently set up but basic. Guests can make a dinner but not cater a small wedding. And honest to Pete, some who have stayed HAVE catered things for a wedding from our kitchen! I do not understand at all.

3. Guests who freak out if they see an insect. Who are these people and where do they live that they have never seen a fly or mosquito? There are a lot of them. And I am not talking insects inside. I am talking outside. In summer. This was so typical we had to say something in the house rules about it.

4. Guests who bring a pet and then abandon them for long periods of time. We have started to say no to guests booking for a local wedding or big event if they want to bring a pet. Why lock your dog in a strange space for 8 hours or more while you go to a party? ] I love traveling with my own pet but would not leave him alone for long periods at an Airbnb. These situations are the only times we have had pet damage.

[Kendra114]

Yes on the insects — & I’m on the Gulf of Mexico. My thoughts when that happens are — if they only knew 🙄

I have an opossum that lives somewhere around my property. I consider him an employee because they are great at pest control, but if a guest ever sees him, it’s probably going to be bad. Sometimes I think people are trying to get a refund when they make a big deal like that. 

[Nicole2223]

My experience with the things you're describing:

1. I think Lorna170 said it best. And I've had 'waves' of this happening....and then long stretches where it doesn't.  Almost every beautiful AirBNB photo I see has a bed made up quite decoratively, but I go the middle road, offering a few matching shams just in case someone wants to read in bed and needs more cushion.  Plus we don't have a headboard so it makes the bed look a tad more finished than it would with just the sleeping pillows. 

2. Maybe your guests bring their own towels. 

3. I agree with some of the comments below - what I've learned since starting almost 2 years ago is that people have different expectations about what goes on a bed and where to insert themselves.  Because we started hosting during the pandemic, I went through a phase where I would place the clean sheets at the foot of the bed and asked the guests to make their own bed in our checkin instructions. I was trying to follow a recommendation but felt really uncomfortable with it. During that time, I only had one stay where the guests did not put the sheets on the bed...they slept on top of the comforter and used the shams for pillows. After that, I started making every bed in the house and asking people to not sleep on top of the bed covers. 

Another host gave me the idea of setting my beds up 'euro' style - a bottom fitted sheet and then a duvet sandwiched between two oversized flat sheets.  If I hadn't invested so much money in quilts and shams already (for 2K, 2Q, 4 Twin), I'd be doing this.  Certainly when we're ready to replace items, I'll be switching to this method! 

[Huma0]

@Kamilla8 

I have not often experienced any of the things you describe, but guests frequently do things that I think are just plain odd. It's part and parcel of hosting. Firstly, there are cultural differences and I have learnt through hosting that these can be far more significant and diverse than one might have imagined. Secondly, people behave differently in an unfamiliar setting because we do so many day-to-day tasks on auto pilot back home. So, closing the front door properly can become a challenge for some.

I have a current guest who had already been here a month before I discovered that she thought that the dishwasher was 'extra storage' for dishes and was therefore putting all the clean dishes in there, despite the fact that I clearly showed her the dishwasher when she checked in.

I have had very lovely guests who used my brand new towels to polish their shoes.

I have had guests store sushi in the bedroom wardrobe or all their perishable food in the bedroom during mid summer even though they are provided with fridge space and even found Scotch eggs that expired two weeks before in a desk drawer or food packaging and waste stuffed behind radiators.

I have had more than one guest who wanted to eat the cat food.

I could go on and on. There has been more weirdness than I can possibly list here, so sleeping with the pillow shams (not really a thing here in the UK - I personally like a decorative pillow but this seems really unnecessarily fussy and elaborate) or over the covers is the least of my worries as a host.

[Anonymous]

@Huma0   OK I really need to hear the story about how your guests decided that they wanted to eat the cat food, and how they proposed that you provide it to them. 

Is it possible that some of your guests were actually Freaky Friday'd with your cats?

[Huma0]

@Anonymous 

Ok, so they don't actually request that I provide cat food, but more than one guest has been far too interested in it when I have been feeding the cats (happened again quite recently too). It only happens with the wet (not the dry) cat food.

They stare at it and say something like, "Oh, that looks really tasty... That smells good! Mmm, I would eat that!" Only, they say it repeatedly and can't take their eyes off the cat food.

I have to tell them firmly, "Please do not attempt to eat that. It's for cats. I'm not sure it's good for humans. I don't think you should..."

I have never actually caught a guest eating it, but I can't watch them 24/7..

[Kendra114]

Bahahahaha!

[Sarah977]

@Huma0  That is truly bizarre.