Would you put your spare room on air bnb?

[EachandEveryone]

We are twenty minutes from Central London. My friend and I are sick of looking for flatmates and would quite like a break from living with other people! What do you think to letting out the spare bedroom?

Teenage boy.....bathroom.....he'll have used a lot of loo roll I expect. And have had his iPhone with him......

Don't worry about it, just a teen thing.

haha if it was that I wouldn't have been weirded out just annoyed! I swear it wasn't though, he didn't flush the toilet and my bathroom is properly creaky, you can hear any movement. The only thing I could hear was him whispering to himself. And the way he ignored my knocking and speaking until I said I was going to knock on the bedroom door was weird.

Yikes! God only knows what he was getting up to, but I do feel a bit for teens who have to share with mum and dad, having had a lot of bookings like this myself!

I can see that their hiding away could be unnerving. We've currently got a guest here for a similar amount of time (8 days) and because he's studying, he's shut away up on the top floor of the house all day. However, it does feel fine as we know what he's here for, we know he's busy, and we see him most days for breakfast time am thinking of asking him to stay here permanently as he's such a good guest

It might be an idea to mention in private feedback regarding the teen in the bathroom. Are they from a different country? Just trying to think of a reason why they are so shy or reluctant to have any interaction.

They are Aussies. I will have to say something about it I think mostly because I make t clear there is only one bathroom so consideration is needed and he blatantly ignored the fact that I was waiting and my attempts to check he was ok! Selfish bathroom use is annoying but the whispering was just creepy

So it would have been daytime back home? Ringing his g/f maybe?

Yeah, he was on his phone playing a game or something. We had a friend and her teen for dinner recently and he 'went to the loo' and was gone about 45 mins. He had his phone with him.....

The boy may have had headphones on so not heard your first knocking?

You're right to bring it up re it being the only loo though.

I hadn't thought of talking on the phone. That's a really good point. And he wouldn't have heard the knocking. Maybe he didn't want his parents to know which is why he didn't use the living room. Well they are going to sucker!

Yep, I reckon he was def on the phone and didn't want his parents to know. I don't think I'd mind barely seeing guests tbh. Bloody irritating to hog the bathroom though.

Yeah! And I know in the cold light of day it's obvious he was on the phone but the whispered 'bloody hell' really scared me! I assumed two people were in there and one of them was having a trauma of some kind. I was imagining blood, shit, vomit smeared all over the place, somebody passed out, drugs... Did I mention it was the middle of the night?!?!

I encouraged a skint friend to put her house on AirBnB for while she is on hols, we can do the meet-and-greet - she put it on yesterday and already has a query for 9 days. Yay!

We suggested a friend put his two bedrooms on Airbnb while he is away for work during the week. And then we decided to put our spare room on it too.

We scurried about and did an enormous amount of work in both houses to clear junk and generally tidy up in order to get them ready before the golf Open began here last month. We managed it just in time.

He sold the double room for ten days at £40 a night and the single for three days at £30 a night.

My husband being the chancer he is put ours on for £100 per night and we had someone for three nights! Now its on at a much more reasonable price and we have a booking for mid September.

All three golf fans were great.

And because I'm doing the cleaning and meeting and greeting for our friend I am getting a cut of his

My friend can't do it because her insurer wants more money than it's worth, they want more for two weeks than our whole year's insurance!

Well our professional photos are up and they are good. The inside shots are way better than my old ones. I've kept my old outside ones on the listing though as mine were taken on a sunny day so look a bit nicer. And we totally should have mowed the lawn before we came! Definitely worth it, it's free and you can edit the photos on your listing as normal. Our photographer was out within a few days of making the request and it has taken nearly 3 weeks for the photos to appear.

Let us know if it makes any difference to the bookings

I think it will be hard to tell as we've only got 5 nights free in Aug (inc family/friends staying) and Sept is starting to book up already.

I saw this the other day which reminds me a bit of the 'lifestyle' shooting style that Airbnb photographers seem to like

Rocky I saw a thread on MN the other day about the perils of living somewhere nice and having the world and his wife visiting you - did you see it?

It's funny, now that we're entering our peak time with Airbnb, I feel less inclined to do it. Got my big room booked for about 50% of August and the second room has the calendar closed for the rest of the month after this weekend. I've only got a few more weeks til I plan to return to f/t work and it currently occupies so much of my time, and am running out of time to get anything else done this summer. Today went like this:

6.30am - woken up by DD
7.30 - get up, have breakfast, empty dishwasher and lay out breakfast for guests in room 1
8.00 - make up bed in room 2 for guest arriving this morning
9.00 - give new guest directions to house (due to arrive at 11am)
10.00 - greet 3 x existing guests good morning and show them breakfast stuff. DD (2) asks one of them if he's done a poo.
11.00 - welcome new guest to house, say goodbye to existing guests
11.30 - race upstairs and strip room 1 (2 x double beds, 6 x towels)
12.00 - put washing on, give DD her lunch
12.30 - hang out washing, drop duvet cover in flower bed
13.00 - race around to get room 1 made up and ready for guest arrival at 1.30pm, put more washing on.
13.30 - guest says she's arriving at 2pm now.
14.00 - guest says she's arriving at 2.30pm now. Hang out more washing
14.30 - guest will now go into town first and arrive at 6pm
15.00 - go to allotment for rest of afternoon
18.00 - go home to meet guest, who arrives just as we screech to a halt outside house. DD hasn't had a nap and is minus clothes and soaking wet after an incident involving a bucket of water at the allotment. While I'm showing guest around her room, DD has screaming fit, removes nappy and insists on sitting on guest's sofa.
Midnight - dishwasher on, clean table and surfaces and check we have everything required for breakfast in the morning.

So yes, winding things down a bit from next week onwards...

Oh Eagle, that sounds horrendous! We only have the one room so easier to turn round in about half an hour. I lay out breakfast stuff the night before though and don't get up to greet guests. I'm a lazy cow by nature so if the kids are having a lie in then I will too! I show guests where the bread/milk/toaster etc is on check in and leave everything else out for them on the side. Very low intervention works for me! I'm actually finding it easier during the holidays. We're almost full for the first week of term in Sept and I have DC2 starting school and DC3 starting nursery, it's going to be frantic!

And no, I didn't see that thread but all the other 'incomers' here have said the same and that it will wind down after the first year or so. We wave a week's lot of family off shortly this morning and welcome some friends for 3 nights later this afternoon. Hectic. And these guests aren't even paying!! And a family member managed to flood the en suite in the guest room (by sheer incompetency) yesterday which soaked the adjoining carpet so I'm really hoping its dry before our AirBnB guest arrives on Tues. Sigh...

I've had two rather odd family bookings the last few days for my double room - one from adult daughter and her father and then just now from an adult brother/sister. In both cases, I wonder if they read the listing properly as they both asked about parking, even though it's clearly detailed in the listing regarding parking.

I dunno - just can't imagine sharing a bed with a male relative!

Eagle, I have a mother and her 14 year old son sharing our double room in a couple of weeks time. And yes, I did double check!
Sounds like you have your work cut out at the moment!

Rocky, like you I lay out breakfast the night before and then leave a jug of milk in the fridge. We have had some guests that want breakfast at 6am. I don't do 6am.

My friend had mother, father and preteen son sharing a double bed last week. We didn't know about the son until they turned up. If they'd mentioned him earlier I could have organised an air bed.

Luckily they were very small people.

God it's manic this AirBnB thing isn't it? Totally full for Aug here (inc friends/family) and it's pretty much a case of sitting back and watching she money roll in! When I started AirBnB suggested a starting price of £29 per night. I went for £35 in the end and after a few good reviews put it up to £40. Few more reviews under our belt and booked solid I went into the listing today to increase it to £45 and it suggested £47. Oh go on then, if you must. We charge an extra £10 for additional guests too. I can't believe the difference this has made to our finances. Enough to buy the family kayaks we were after, hurrah! I've been looking at various listings with a view to getting a night or two away in the autumn and I def think AirBnB is amazing and changing the future of travelling.

That's really great it's made such a big difference to your life! my takings pay the mortgage You must be exhausted though. I started feeling really drained recently, partly because we had so many one night bookings, and also because I was juggling the two rooms. I've now kept the calendar closed for the rest of the month for the smaller room, and just sticking to the 50% capacity for the month on the larger room. The good thing is that if I get any more energy, I can just open up the calendar and get some extra bookings at short notice. Meanwhile, our most recent guests left yesterday and we're not due any more until Monday so having a few days off which is heaven!!

some mornings I wake up in a bit of a panic as if it's been a bad night with DD, I can't remember if we have guests or not, or who they are. I've only got a few weeks left before I start f/t work again and it was just too hard juggling nursery days, get house turned around and wait in for guests days, plus DP away most of the time. Sorry I have probably moaned about all of this before! Oh and I feel really sick when I read reviews, and worry in advance that various things might have annoyed or upset guests, which is slightly ridiculous.

So am happy to deal with the bookings we have remaining, and then have learnt some useful lessons for next year. It definitely pays to open the calendar a little bit at a time, keep an eye on major events in the area, and also be proactive with events, organisations etc who may may need to accommodate guests. We don't need to do single night bookings any more, but there are some advantages to them so may still do a few.

And if I get the kitchen replaced in time, we might even rent out the whole house next year when we're on holiday. We live in tourist central, and house could sleep 10, so would be worth our while.

I fear I may have posted this before so apologies if I have, but this article is fascinating and a great insight into Airbnb culture.

Hello all, just checking in under my post-Jeffrey name change. It's Rocky here (as was). Had our first cancellation this week, boo. 3 night booking from a couple with a month old baby! Can't imagine why they cancelled.....

Hello RockyPigeon

That's a pain re the cancellation, especially a 3 nighter! Reminds me of when we took DD away for her first holiday - she was exactly 8 weeks old and we rented a tiny cottage in west Wales in the middle of winter. We foolishly took a pop-up camping cot with us, thinking she would just go in there and sleep... The bedroom was so tiny there was no standing room on the floor next to the bed and so we had to keep the cot in the lounge. Suffice to say she ended up in the bed with me, and DP slept elsewhere, could have been in her cot for all I know... It was bloody freezing and we mostly go on holiday to the tropics now, even if she is hellish with the jetlag...

Tonight's guests brought a Toblerone as a present and I have been scoffing some most of it this evening in the kitchen. WIBU to keep it for myself seeing as it's me who does all the washing, hoovering, making up of beds etc? DP moaning at the guests (not in their presence thank goodness) as they are from a country he has a massive issue with (politically) and so I think that's another good reason not to go near the Toblerone...

Sorry I should point out that aforementioned Toblerone is a Giant one, if that makes any difference to the story.