What time is reasonable to open the "Home Office" when there are guests ?

[Michelle53]

Hi all

I work from home, and my office is directly above my guest space. I don't generally use the office on weekends, since I have a laptop in my family room for personal use. 

My office hours are the usual - 8.30am to 5pm but, occasionally, I have to sort out issues for clients outside of those hours. 

I'm pretty quiet up here, and try to avoid loud phone calls which might disturb a guest early in the morning.  Any Zoom calls I have to do are well within regular office hours.  Sometimes there is printing and scanning. 

What are folks thoughts about what times are reasonable to be working when guests might possibly still be sleeping in ?

I don't currently have anything in my listing about that, but sometimes I do mention to folks booking that I work from home. 

[Laura2592]

@Michelle53 nothing you have indicated sounds unreasonable but you may want to add info in your listing. I have seen a few reviews where guests complained that their host was working from home or in the space a lot (insert eye roll.)

I also work from home and we don't start "on camera" meetings until 10am or sometimes 930am. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. Everyone has different habits and some guests may be jet lagged and sleep all day, but as long as you disclose what to expect, you should be in the clear.

We do occasionally do silly team building activities with music or games, but those are typically over a lunch period. If I had a guest who would be disturbed, I would just tell them as they arrive about the "zoom party."

[Michelle53]

@Laura2592  I'll think about where to insert something in my listing. I don't think it's highly important, except for highlighting that I am in residence and upstairs  - nobody has mentioned it in 5 years - but there's always that one....

I had one uncomfortable, rather loud call with an intransigent customer support department recently (not CS, haha), but luckily my guest was out when that occurred. 

[Pat271]

It is your business, and it is completely up to you what you want your business to look like, and how you want to run it. Within reason and legal aspects, you set the expectations, from the usual to the unusual. The more unusual or quirky, the more the aspect should be called out in the description, Things to Know section, House Rules, House Manual, messages to the guest, or all of the above.  Expectations are everything, and when expectations match reality, it makes for happy guests. 

[Anonymous]

@Michelle53  I think your bases are best covered by overstating in your listing and pre-booking correspondence how much work (or other activities) you may be doing in any spaces that are shared or audible to the guests. People who might be bothered by this are simply not a good fit for your home (or, for that matter, any other shared household). 

My worst-ever rating came from a guest who liked to go out late at night but apparently expected dead silence in the house for her 5 PM disco nap. This person was the epitome of "better suited to a hotel," but her review did prompt me to be more explicit in the listing that the common areas of the household are often in use and lively, and that while guests were welcome to visit the shared spaces, there would be times when other activities such as work took priority - for example, the kitchen might be occupied all day by preparation for a catering. 

Almost all of the subsequent guests were people who either appreciated the dynamic of the home or had full itineraries and only came here to crash out. Both were more than welcome.

[Michelle53]

@Anonymous   Hah - the "disco nap". Yeah, that would be my worst fear, really. I have many guests that go out at night  and come back in the early hours. Mostly, though, they get up reasonably early (I can hear the shower running through the pipe work).

My office is really only audible to guests through their ceiling, since it's not a shared space.  I try not to make it any more noisy than my 6 am coffee making at the back of the house (not above the guest space). 

One time I had a guest wake me in the middle of the night with someone knocking at her window (kids from the party across the alley, probably). She was able to hear me walk across the floor, but I would think that's to be expected in a shared home. 

Mostly, people tell me it's really quiet here. 

But, point taken, I should mention it somewhere in the listing. 

[Sarah977]

@Michelle53  Just make it clear in your listing, as others have suggested. 

If people want to sleep during times you need to be on calls, there are such things as earplugs. I never travel without them and you might consider providing them for guests in case they need them and don't bring their own. 

[Michelle53]

@Sarah977   I used to have ear plugs in the space - I guess they got used and I never replenished them.  Two years ago there was construction on the house next door, and they used to start pretty early. My guests during that period reported sleeping right through it all, even when the contractors back hoed half their front yard for new pipes.   I was hypersensitive to it, on guests' behalf 😉

[Pat271]

@Michelle53  Totally with you there. I’ve lost significant hours of sleep worried about outside sounds my guests might hear. Over the last 3 years, we’ve had hotel and shopping center construction, road work, roosters and other vocal critters, and at our downtown place, an abundance of late-night city fun and frivolity. Apparently I’m more hypersensitive than they are, since since these various sounds don’t seem to get mentioned, publicly or privately.

[Brian2036]

@Michelle53 

I would guess that if you say that you are likely to be present in your personal area “virtually all the time” it would deter guests who are planning to violate the house rules.

[Michelle53]

@Brian2036  One might think so 😉       Even with my ring doorbell, someone brought a date for a sleepover Saturday night (not allowed in house rules). I'm still trying to decide what to do about that (if anything).  The rest of the stay was pretty good - but failure to read the instructions. 

[Kelly149]

@Anonymous who was the lovely lady in Europe... who made things... denmark? Linda? the guest space was a ?tent? in a loft upstairs... gosh my dyslexia is showing... her listing had a great description of the fact that she would be working & guests were welcome but she'd be working

[Summer64]

I have quiet hours: 8am-11pm. I note on my listing (and in the info I send them when I thank them for booking) that I work M-F from 8 to 5 in my home office across the hall from the room. I do try to screen guests for why they are here before accepting a booking to make sure we're a fit, and that is one of the things I try to screen for. I have had some 'staycation' guests and learned that is not a good fit for house sharing....

[Anonymous]

@Summer64  8 AM to 11 PM quiet hours....is that a typo?

[Summer64]

Haha...yes. Quiet hours are 11pm to 8am.