When is it ok to call host at night?

[Inna22]

Obviously if there is a water leak, call me any time. What about this one though?

Guest messages that they need to check at 2 am (4 pm scheduled arrival on the same calendar day). I reply saying that they would need to pay for the extra night. The guest replies that it would be cheaper to rent a hotel. Odd but fine. 

At 1 am the guest starts bombarding me with calls and I answer number 4. It is cheaper to stay with me and they want to pay. I told them I was sleeping and would see them at 4. If this were simple I might have taken care of it since they woke me up already. It is not though. I would not have been able to do alteration because it was the new calendar day, money requests are usually confusing to guests and many can’t follow through. I also thought it was a totally obnoxious move. 

I woke up to an apology- they did not think I would be sleeping. Ok, fine, try me one time. Four times in a row at 1 am? 

[Normen0]

@Inna22 In my check/in instructions and printed Guidebook in the unit, I advise my guests that I am available to respond to messages, calls or texts between 6:30 am to 10 pm.  If it’s an actual emergency that requires it, call 911 and then bang on my door (separate apt).
For the other units offsite, I give them the hours I will respond.  My phone is on silent and away from me while sleeping.  If I had it near me, I’d never get any sleep.  

Very rarely will there be a true emergency and if so, emergency responders are more likely the best people to attend to it. If something happens in a unit during the night and they feel compelled to leave because of it, so be it. I likely wasn’t going to change their mind.  At least I had a night’s sleep.  
My only fear is a plumbing issue in the night that a guest cannot figure out how to handle - like turning the water off but in this technological world, one would think they can find the info.  If not, I guess we have insurance. These things are rare and I won’t live hostage to the phone for fear of this. 
Unfortunately there is a lack of logic with some people. Set clear guidelines and hours that work for you.  Some folks don’t want a 6:30 am message or call  but I’m up at 6 am so it’s fine for me.  

[Inna22]

@Normen0 I never sleep with my phone near me. If it is not on silent, I am the same way- I would never sleep. if I put it on silent, I will forget to turn it back on in the morning. I can hear it ring in the distance so if someone calls 4 times in a row like this guy, I would eventually wake up. 

My homes are bigger and we have extreme weather so there might be a burst pipe or some other issue that I would rather be woken up for and fix quickly than deal with insurance in the morning

[Gillian166]

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@Inna22 wrote:

I never sleep with my phone near me. If it is not on silent, I am the same way- I would never sleep. if I put it on silent, I will forget to turn it back on in the morning.  

Actually you should be able to put your phone into silent mode for whatever hours you want. My phone goes to silent 10pm-7am. you can set some phone calls to still come through as normal, as will anyone who calls 3 times. 

[Maia29]

@Inna22 I've found from experience that the guests that call at strange hours (ones that live in the same state as I do), are usually up to no good and not worth my time. 

The minute, the guest told you a hotel was cheaper, it would've been better if they stayed at the hotel. They are often "better suited" for a hotel (Airbnb host speak that I gathered from other online forums).

[Sarah977]

@Maia29  Even if they're not exactly up to no good, it shows a real lack of respect to call someone late at night unless it's someone you know well and are aware they are night owls. 

My attitude is that if a guest can't wait for an answer until a reasonable time in the morning, which for me is 9am, they aren't someone I care to host.

[Inna22]

@Maia29 they already had a reservation and were arriving later that day. Very few are perfect guests in every respect. Guest come from different back grounds and with different expectations. I can not just cancel reservations every time something is not to perfection. Calling at night was not ideal but not bad enough to cancel 

[Huma0]

@Inna22 luckily, I've very rarely had guests call me late in the night (I can only think of one occasion and that guest was a psycho - had I been more experienced at the time, I would have told him and his wife to leave) but I've had late night messages from a few:

- Rude, entitled girl who kept messaging me in the early hours about non urgent issues. When I politely asked her to please not do this, she responded that I didn't need to read the messages straight away but she would continue to message me when she felt like it. She was so obnoxious that Airbnb actually removed her horrible review without me asking them to!

- Crazy 'condom' girl, whom I posted about some time ago, kept messaging me at 2, 3 or 4am while I was away on a business trip, to tell me what a horrible person I was. She was told to leave.

- Nice guest who I suppose had a bit too much to drink and messaged me at 2.30 am to ask if he could bring his 'boyfriend' back, having forgotten that he already told me about his date, so I knew it was not his boyfriend at all but someone he barely knew.

- Most recent one was a guest who had actually checked out several days before and was staying in another Airbnb. She messaged me around 11.30pm asking if she could come over because she needed someone to talk to. I told her I was about to go to bed but asked if she was okay. She said she had been crying ever since she left and now 'something else has happened'. I was concerned and asked her what had happened? Was it urgent? Did she want to meet tomorrow? She didn't respond and eventually I went to bed. Later it turns out that the issue was simply that a guy she had met and wanted to hook up with wasn't interested in her. She had called a friend instead and didn't think to respond to me to let me know she was okay.

With the exception of the guy who got drunk on his date, all the guests who have called or messaged late at night or in the early hours of the morning have been unhinged in one way or another. It's just not sane behaviour to do this to someone that you - let's face it - don't really know for anything other than an emergency. The 'level of service' that certain guests seem to think they're entitled to when staying with a host sometimes truly amazes me.

[Sarah977]

@Huma0  I had a guest who was staying at another Airbnb on the  other side of town for a few days before moving to mine (so I  hadn't even met her yet) text me at 2 am to ask if I knew what the loud music was, as she couldn't sleep. 

Luckily I turn my ringer off at night so I didn't see the text until morning.

[Huma0]

@Sarah977 

Ah well, that guest was clearly confused. Perhaps being woken up at 2am threw her a bit and she was half asleep when she contacted the wrong host. It's annoying but I guess an innocent mistake.

I'm a bit of a night owl anyway and, while I don't appreciate guests contacting me around 2am for non-urgent matters, a message at 11.30pm is not likely to annoy me really. However, the last guest I mentioned above seemed to think it was okay to come to my house around midnight (or who knows actually what time she would have turned up if I had said yes) to discuss 'boy troubles' and she wasn't even staying with me anymore!!  Clearly her current host (also a homeshare one) was not in the mood to be kept awake by such a discussion. 

I suppose I should take it as a compliment that the guest felt comfortable enough with me to do this, but there are boundaries!

[Sarah977]

@Huma0  Oh no, she wasn't confused. The place she was staying had a remote host, and as she and I had communicated extensively, I guess she felt overly comfortable to ask me the question of where the music was coming from.

This was a guest who had sent me a numbered  list of 20 questions when she booked. The questions didn't concern things she had failed  to read in the listing, she was just high-maintenance. 

She is also the one and only guest who ever rated me 4*s in anything. It was location, as it was a 20 minute walk from my house to town, where she was taking a course. But that was one of the questions she asked when she booked-how far it was to where her course was, which I answered honestly.

I also went out of my way to offer her a ride with her luggage from where she was previously staying, which she didn't thank me for, or mention in the review.

Despite all that, she wasn't an objectionable guest in any other way, just a bit odd and not the type of guest who usuallly books with me. I was a bit wary when I saw her profile photo- very corporate-looking with suit and pearls. 🙂

[Huma0]

@Sarah977 

Oh, in that case, then it's just crazy. Even if the guest thought it was okay to message you at 2am with her issues before she's even come to stay (not okay in my book), why on earth would she think that you would know where the music was coming from when you are on the other side of town?!

I would have seen the long list of questions as a red flag. Even if it didn't mean the guest was going to be badly, it's a sure sign of a high maintenance guest and those guests are less likely to appreciate what they are getting as, in their minds, they could always have gotten more (even if it's illogical, e.g. a more central location when they chose the listing knowing the location).

Having said that, the high maintenance guest I mentioned did leave me 5*. She had a few nice reviews and communicated well. It was the reviews that she left for previous hosts (nice, but very focused on any 'extras' provided) that tipped me off that she would need more than most guests. However, once she was here, I discovered that she found the amenities to be lacking at several airbnbs she'd stayed at (I had to explain that if something's not listed, she should not automatically expect it) and that hosts had had issues with her when she helped herself to things she was not supposed to. 

Some people come with a lot of expectations, e.g. that a host they haven't even stayed with yet or are no longer staying with is simply there to solve any problem they encounter! I'd be happy to oblige if they were going to pay me a fee each time 🙂

[Sarah977]

@Huma0  I actually did know where the music was coming from 🙂 It was a big holiday week in this town and it culminates with a band playing in the ballfield. She was staying a block from the ballfield. The amps were turned up so loud, I could hear it out at my place, 2 kilometers away. 

But she didn't get an answer at 2am. 🙂

[Huma0]

@Sarah977 

Ah, okay. That makes more sense, but still doesn't justify her calling you at 2am. That's still insane. 

I do leave my phone (ringer) on at night in case there is an emergency. What if something really serious happened, or even a guest accidentally locking themselves out late at night. Even though the latter would be their own fault, I mostly host young, solo travellers, especially women, and wouldn't feel okay if one was locked out all night! 

Of course that then means that the occasional guest seems to think it's okay to message in the middle of the night about something trivial. Luckily it is only the occasional one...

[Sarah977]

@Huma0  I do have concern about my single female guests, and do things like ask them to text me when they are starting the 20 minute walk back from town if it's after dark, warn them about keeping an eye on their drinks at the bars, as some girls have had rohipnal slipped in their drinks in this town. 

But only a few stay out late after I've gone to bed, and as I'm a night owl, usually awake until midnight- 1am, if it's that late, I would hope they would spring for a $5 taxi ride rather than walk home alone at 1am.

They can't actually lock themselves out of the house, as their room has an outside entrance off the balcony, as does mine, so if they lost their key, they could just knock on my bedroom door. Also, I have an emergency key hidden outside that I show guests. 

Aside from Miss ItsAllAboutMe, I've never been disturbed by middle of the night communications from guests. I mostly turn my ringer off at night because I'll get those time lag alerts from Airbnb of a guest message at 3 am, even though the guest sent it at 9pm. And I mostly hate being woken up in the morning by my upholstery clients who think 7:30 am is acceptable for a business call, when I seldom get up before 9.  🙂

[Huma0]

@Sarah977 

Yes, the time delay on Airbnb text messages is super annoying. 

Like you, I'm a bit of a night owl and usually up later than my guests. However, if they are coming home after I've gone to bed, there's no way they are going to be able to wake me up as my room is at the top of the four storey house + faces the back garden rather than road. Even if I am still awake, I most likely have headphones on as I don't want to disturb my guests when I am watching TV/a movie. 

I guess the hidden spare key is one solution but I am a bit nervous about that. My front door is visible from the street, which is a fairly busy road and gets plenty of footfall. It would be quite feasible that some 'dodgy' person witnessed a guest using said key and used it to enter the house.

I suppose we could add into house rules something like, "Please do not call or message your host between X and Y time unless it is an emergency," but I feel like that's stating the obvious. Most guests wouldn't think to do this anyway, luckily.