What has saved your hosting career?

[Alexandra316]

Last night, as I was making the Airbnb bed for the roughly 60th time this year, I thought about the hosting challenges I've dealt with and what's made me think about quitting, and what's made me reconsider or helped me to get through it. I love some parts of hosting (the communication, replenishing supplies, decorating the space, thinking up new ideas), but other parts not so much. Some have almost ended my hosting career. 

For me, one of the big things I hated when I started was laundry. I use hotel grade sheets from a hotel supplier, and they need to be ironed to look their best. They look and feel great, but not when they're a wrinkly mess. So every sheet and pillow case had to be ironed when it came out of the dryer. Flat sheets were folded immediately. I hated every single second of it. After I joined the (local, tiny) tourism association, one day I got a hand-written letter in the mail: Nancy, the owner of a local laundry service, was offering to take care of it for me. I jumped at the chance, and my laundry ninja has been taking care of all my washing ever since. I think if I still had to do my own sheets, I would have thrown them all in the bin and run away to join the circus long ago. 

Another experience that made me want to take down my shingle was with my 100th guest. They were a fellow Superhost, and I left them a card and a bottle of champagne from a local winery and thanked them personally for being a part of my milestone. Well, they were absolute prats and were rude and left me my first ever 4-star review. That one stung for a while. 

So what has been your joining the circus moment, and what's stopped you from giving up?

[Debra300]

@Alexandra316,

You posed another one of your great questions and conversation starters.  I've not yet had a guest experience that's made me consider ending my hosting career, and hope it stays that way.  The majority of my frustrations usually arise from dealing with the OTAs and my website host.  They each present their own challenges, usually around listing content and financial matters.

One thing that truly makes me feel good about hosting is that we are able to provide some income to the property managers at each of our locations, who both have health problems that limit their abilities to work a more conventional job.

[Ann72]

@Alexandra316  You just saved me from getting hotel-grade sheets!  We don't have a laundry service nearby and that would be a lot of ironing for...somebody.  Thank you 🙂

To be blunt, what's saved it is the money.  But if the guests were awful, there wouldn't be enough money in the world to deal with that.  So the guests too.

Yet in spite of the money and the nice guests, right now I wish they'd all go home so I could go to Maine myself.  From the time my girls were babies, we went every year for the last two weeks of August and it's my favorite time to be there.  Blueberries, morning fog, church fairs, lobster rolls, antiquing, swimming in the cold salt water...perfection. 

I usually block off the calendar and head up, along with whichever of my three daughters can get away.  But this year the guests are hanging from the rafters, and when the last two weeks were taken by one of my favorite returning couples, I had to postpone until next month.  One of the guests sent me some shots of the blueberries she'd picked for breakfast, so I'm living vicariously.  C'est la vie of an Airbnb host!

[Fred13]

What stops me from quitting is that it has progressively gotten easier and more profitable, and certainly demands less emotional involvement on my part.

I am constantly eliminating something or changing it to make it all simpler. Thank God because over time the enthusiasm has waned. So it is all in balance now, though the slightest 'event', like a monster guest will temporarily offset the perfectly balanced scale once again.

[Ann72]

@Fred13  Perfectly said!  That hits the nail on the head - progressively easier and more profitable.

[Huma0]

@Alexandra316 

Great question. To be honest, like @Ann72 , the income has probably kept me going more than anything else, but I wouldn't do it if I hated it.

There have been times when I've just been exhausted by juggling back to back guests with full time work, while not being able to find a reliable cleaner to help. The thing that saved me there was switching to long-term guests. Sure, it's a bit less money but that is more than made up for in the reduced workload (and that includes having to iron those bedlinens far less often!). Now I have finally found a great cleaner and I have next to no guests due to COVID. Still, I will be hanging on to her tooth and claw!

My joining the circus moments though were definitely when I had some very weird guests. The most stressful were:

- Two very painful, rude, demanding, dirty, destructive girls who ruined one Christmas and then left me a shocker of a review/ratings, which Airbnb removed (back in the days where they would remove retaliatory/untrue reviews).

- Condom Girl, whom I have posted about on another thread. I got Airbnb to tell her to leave, but I should have done it sooner.

- Batsh*t Crazy Girl, who started to give me grey hairs after two days and was supposed to be staying for two months! Luckily, she left after three weeks because she was crazy enough to think that a 10 minute tube journey (in London!!) was a long commute.

- Mr & Mrs Misery, who stayed for eight days, were actually my least favourite guests of all time. In hindsight, I should also have asked them to leave and been prepared to suffer the consequences. These two traumatised me far more than the others, but it was a lesson learnt. I decided then and there that I would never put up with that kind of cr*p in my own home again (hence asking Condom Girl to leave). I'd rather lose the money and have a 1* review than go through another eight days like that!

[Colleen253]

This is probably a little off track, but my guest book saves me. Whenever I get impatient or lose perspective or have a challenging situation with the house, whatever it may be....I open our guest book. It has the most lovely heartwarming messages that reset my focus and mood instantly. Here is an example, my favorite, though they are all special:

 

[Fred13]

@Colleen253 Our guest book are (we going on the 4th one now) full of great stories. The best of all time was when this little 5-year old girl (Angie) wrote how the family was happy, and 'Mom & Dad' were good to each other instead of fighting all the time. And her older 11-year-old brother finally took the time to play with her, which he never does; they went kayaking together for days. All our guests love reading the guest books.

[Colleen253]

@Fred13  Kids are always so honest, lol. Your place enabled them to really connect as a family, no doubt. The family who left the note I shared were on their first vacation together away from home. Youngest kid was 5, oldest 17 and all just so excited! Up to then they had only been camping. I just love that our house will always be associated with special memories for families. Makes it all worthwhile.

[Alexandra316]

@Colleen253  Yes! I look there too when I need cheering up. 

[Ann72]

@Colleen253  LOVE.  I only see the guest books when I go up, so they're a nice surprise waiting for me!