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?

'guests are like fish. Both begin to smell after three days' (according to Benjamin Franklin)

I don't have a max limit on duration of stay but most of my guests stay just one or two nights. I've got a couple of longer stay guests coming up next week though and looking forward to it as it will be a bit of a break from the relentless turnarounds.

I had two guests leave earlier today and they left their room in a bit of a mess and I felt quite cross. Loads of stuff which should definitely have been in the bin provided just chucked around the room, wet towels thrown everywhere and worst of all a glass of water spilt on the floor and just left. I've been polite about all of my guests so far in reviews but I think I'm going to have to say something this time. They've never done Airbnb before and are embarking on a long tour so can imagine it won't be long before they seriously piss off a host.

EachandEveryone - how many guests have you had to stay so far? And now many bookings have you got?

guests are like fish yep these ones ate tinned fish and left the tins unwashed in the recycling bin every day. I should have said something the first time but I didn't and then it was pointless

Can you lovely lot advise me re fair feedback?
Just stayed air b&b for our 1st 3 venues ( 2 nights each) in Norway. Apartments. Very miffed that 2nd stay we got just one hand towel and one shower towel. Texted host says " could she please drop a 2nd set of towels round soon as they seem to have been forgotten" after asking us if it was kitchen towels we needed (uh?) she was only able to bring one shower towel at 8pm the 2nd night.
I get its not a hotel etc but a hand towel and shower towel per guest is to be expected isn't it ? Sharing wet towels isn't nice !

If this had been the 1st host ( lovely older lady) she'd have been round in a flash im sure- but there was a cupboard full of towels anyway ! ) . This host was very young. I guess maybe she doesn't understand what's needed or something

Should I mention it or just in private feedback ?

That should be in the private feedback. Etiquette seems to be that public feedback is generally positive but any niggles are mentioned in private.

marking place shamelessly

(and am a tax accountant if its of any use to anybody)

Hi Talkinpeace

Do I recognise your name from the 5:2 threads?? I haven't posted there for ages but 5:2 still part of my life!

Yup, its me - the fasting accountant

Btw my messy guests asked for more towels hours after arriving

Can you guess what my answer was...

Aha - I do have a good memory for names!

Do you plan to host yourself, or are you just enjoying the horror stories re insufficient guest towels?

I am not planning to do hosting just yet, but I am staying as a guest in an airbnb next week - and have done so before.

The one where they let us look after their cats was quite fun

My son and DIL have set it up, they use a key safe, is working very well for them however, I have done washing for four beds for them this weekend. There is some work involved.

Have you considered letting mon-fri to a regular lodger instead? I let two of my rooms in my old house and had great tenants. If you choose wisely in the first instance it's a great arrangement and you still get the house to yourself at the weekend.

We haven't had anyone stay yet but we have two bookings for a month each. I just want it too start now. I had someone stay for the night last night not through air bnb but it was someone who was supposed to stay for two weeks through a friend. She left today saying she couldn't cope with the traffic noise outside. She had landed from Australia yesterday morning. My room is at the front and there's no traffic over night apiary from the night bus every thirty minutes. It's made me pretty anxious now although it does state on our description that we are on a busy road. Is it bad to supply earplugs? It's because the fronts not double glazed.

It can't hurt to supply disposal earplugs, but I wouldn't worry about it really.

I had a M-F lodger in my last house, in fact I had five over the years, works really well, especially as I was away for work quite a bit and so were they. And they fed the cat when I wasn't there, so that was helpful.

Bloody hell, we have FIVE guest free nights between tonight and the end of August. Some of those are family/friends but still, it's going to be MENTAL!! And I'm still surviving on the one set of guest towels... Well, that's not strictly true as we have various mismatching ones which will be fine for our non paying guests. I'm still ironing the bedding for the paying guests too, I know I know. I'm assuming things will calm down a bit down here after the summer (the rest of the county does). Got a few bookings for Sept and Oct though.

Put. The. Iron. Down.

I iron pillowcases, then chuck a throw over the duvet to hide the creases. Things are bound to be quieter after the summer, but on the other hand the number of reviews you have will increase and you will become more sought-after. Keep an eye out for local events, big employers, places running workshops and courses etc as they can all be potential sources of guests as well as passing tourists.

Since my messy guests left, we've had a run of really lovely guests - a German doctor who was off to do some hiking, a father and his 5yo daughter who are here to help her learn English, a pair of violinists who arrived in the middle of the night and now we have an academic who plans to hole himself away on the top floor for a few days writing his dissertation. They are all the sort of people who I feel comfortable giving the run of the house to, and DD has loved having another child around to play with. I do feel a bit like the old woman who lived in a shoe at times though - came home this eve and realised there was 3 different parties of guests on 3 different floors of the house (I have two Airbnb rooms but inbound and outbound guests were both here at the same time for a while)

I'm going to be really picky about who fills any gaps for the rest of august as it's only a few weeks til I stop doing Airbnb for a while and enter the corporate world again. Got loads of things I planned to do over the summer but duvet wrestling has taken up more time than I anticipated.

Rocky - it can be really overwhelming at times with a high turnover of guests. I'm sure you have your own survival strategies but mine are: get breakfast stuff out and ready the night before, get beds stripped, bins emptied etc as soon as guests leave, make sure you only do room turnarounds, house tidying etc in the mornings (I don't feel my days are eaten into too much that way) and duplicates of all linens and towels ease the pressure on getting everything dry.

My linen arsenal now runs to: 12 towels, 4 duvet covers, 5 fitted sheets, 10 pillowcases and one posh throw. The throw alternates between rooms - I tend to put it on the bed of whichever guest I think will like it the most and is less likely to damage it!

And of course our own bedlinen/towel collection is mismatched and fairly scrubby. In fact one of the towels in the cupboard was my parents' wedding present and they got married in the 60's. Maybe we can make use of all the nice stuff in winter when the guests have gone...

Funnily enough my strategies are much the same although I waited until tonight to remake the bed as I wanted to potter round the garden a bit. I'm still waiting for my pro photos to magically appear on my listing but the photographer said there was a backlog so will just wait and see. And I realised I'm half a star down on my reviews, bah. I bet it was the earplugs woman.

So I have a question: our room is a double en-suite so listed as accommodating 2 people. I say in the listing that there is plenty of room for a travel cot but I suspect with it listed for 2 guests that is redundant as it won't come up when people search by a number of guests exceeding 2 (which I assume they do if travelling with kids). My BIL and SIL have been staying with us for 4 nights and have had their baby in a travel cot and their 3 year old on our roll out mattress in the room with them and said there was plenty of room. We are doing the same with my best mate and her family next week. So it made me wonder whether I should offer the use of the roll out mattress for a second child. I've amended the listing to include that but to make it work I have had to update the listing to accommodating 4 people. Which it doesn't really as its really 2 adults plus 2 children. Any views?

That's v interesting as we had a similar conundrum. However, we are able to list our room as a triple (sleeping 3 persons) as there's a double bed plus a sofa bed making another double (albeit a small one). I also say in the listing that we can supply a travel cot if required for small children/babies (my friend has one I could borrow if needed).

But here's what I think people do when they have children and are looking for accommodation... People with young children don't want to pay full price (or anything at all!!) for any children in their party and often when enquiring they say their child will sleep in the bed with them. So I think when they're searching they just go for rooms which sleep two, but they can enhance their search by filtering by 'family friendly' to show only listings which would take children.

You could post a question to Airbnb on one of the forums or groups to see what others do? Or keep it as sleeping 4 but make it very clear near the top of your listing that the additional beds would be for children (else you will get coach parties turning up!)

Regarding the pricing of children, I can see it from two different perspectives - when we were looking for hotel accommodation recently, I searched for double rooms as DD hasn't slept in a bed of her own yet (she's in a cot or our bed sometimes). Searching for rooms sleeping 3 really complicated things as rooms much more expensive and hard to come by. And guests who have booked one of my rooms usually see their (younger) children as invisible and irrelevant to the booking. But invariably, you will get extra noise, DD's toys being tipped out everywhere and LOADS of extra food eaten at breakfast!

I may have mentioned them before but had a couple from the US with 3yo twins and in the booking they said no problem, the kids sleep in bed with us. And so I let the kids go free. Then they arrive and the dad does a cat's bum face at the bed (standard double, as per description and photos) and insists the sofa bed gets made up straight away as a separate bed for them. And they ate just as much if not more than their parents at breakfast time! It was pretty exhausting having them to stay and after that I thought more carefully about children and bookings.

We've had a 5yo staying a few days (until today) and she went free as well (although I didn't give a discount on multiple days to make up for it). Have to admit to feeling a bit drained, especially after this morning when I couldn't even get dressed as she and DD were running around my bedroom and refused to leave!

I had a booking enquiry this eve for my double room for a family of 4. No details given as to age of children, just an assumption that they would all happily sleep in one bed! And the profile had no verifications, no country of origin, no photos, nothing. I said no, but please let me know if you would like me to send them your way

Ha, thanks! I actually have instant book on at the moment as I thought that might improve bookings. Might go horribly wrong though and I'll end up having to cancel a booking for 4 guys on a stag do...

Ah yes - that is the risk with instant book.. Much easier to decline an enquiry than to try to cancel an inappropriate booking, although one hopes group bookings would check with you first!

Oh I don't know whether to have instant book on or not. The reason I put it on is that there is no 3G where we live so if I'm about and about I often can't respond to enquiries for several hours and I was worried that was losing us bookings. The enquiries do come through by text but I only get the first part of the message (assume this is the same for the rest of you?) and daren't just reply accept in case they have asked a question they are expecting an answer to.

Oh dear I'm having my first slightly uncomfortable experience
Got a family of 3 staying, mum dad and teenage boy. they booked for 3 nights last month now here for 9 (leaving Tuesday)
They have made me feel slightly uncomfortable as they literally never cross my path. It's like they wait until I have left to get up, back after 10pm every night. Eat breakfast in their room. None of that is too weird but it's just odd to have people staying and not see them at all.
Tonight I woke up 25 minutes ago for a wee. Bathroom is occupied. No sounds of shower running or movement. I waited for 10 minutes, thought maybe I made a mistake with the door so tried it again, definitely locked. I can hear talking, whispering. It's quiet but I can hear 'oh bloody hell', it sounded like the mum.
I left it 5 more minutes with still no bathroom sounds but inaudible whispering. Starting to freak out in case one of them is ill and there is some kind of serious problem.
Knock softly on the door saying I need to use the bathroom, is everything ok? No answer. Knock and ask again twice. Third time I say I'm going to knock on the bedroom door downstairs as I'm getting concerned and there was a reply from the boy 'oh yes sorry I didn't hear you' sounding very odd in his tone.
I went into my room with the door ajar and could see he came out alone. No signs of bathroom use, loo not been used, sink and shower dry.
What. The. Fuck.
Kindest explanation is that the boy needed some time away from his parents but there is an empty living room right next to the bedroom. I guess maybe it could be a mental health issue but it's made me feel really weird and uncomfortable.
Thankfully they are leaving day after tomorrow, do you think I should bring it up? Or just mention the things that made me feel uncomfortable in private feedback?

Sorry forgot I NC I am on this thread! Going to NC back at some point