Anyone booking my place who requires a bed , sheets & towels & plans to use power/water/gas is considered a paying guest.
No matter how tall or short they are!
My beef with these guests is they just took it on themselves to not include their 2 children (6&8yrs) in the booking as guests; thus giving themselves a significant discount without first asking me if “kids stay free” is my policy.
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Exactly, any discounts are up to me as host, not the guest. I’ll often decide to only charge for one extra guest instead of two for kids depending on length of stay and the kids’ ages, but that’s up to me. Recently we had a family of 5 stay and I only charged for 4 as all the kids were piled into one bed.
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Interesting. I think this
[quote=“cabinhost, post:98, topic:6616”]
Many of the hosts live on site and are able to control sitiuations if they get out of hand.
[/quote] is particularly important. The issues that hosts encounter when renting an entire property can be vastly different from those of live-in hosts. I get what you’re saying about sensible business practice. The clearest example I can think of is stag and hen party groups (bachelor/ette parties). There are few places that willingly take them! Many bars and restaurants in my city will refuse them entry. But discriminating because of past experience has to be based on an adequate sample size, I think. What numbers of uncooperative guests from country X are we talking about? I’ve seen hosts declare that after two (yes, just two) sets of problem guests from a particular country, they will no longer take anyone else from said country. That’s ridiculous, in my opinion. I completely agree with your last sentence, btw.
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I haven’t had the experience that many hosts on here have (due to many international travelers). But I can completely understand where many are coming from. So I don’t think there is any hard or fast rule to the number of experiences before making a personal decision.
The most important thing for me (with being an offsite host) is to be able to honor my next guest’s contract. I rent through multiple sites, and also rent directly. So it is very important for me to have a reasonable assurance that when one guest checks out at 11 a.m…the next guest can check in promptly at 4 p.m.
It’s rare I get someone who is not American, but I can completely understand a host declining certain ethnicities if the the entire home is filled with smell of food, and they had to refund the incoming guests. For example…let’s say it happened the first time so host decides to take a different approach. Then the next time the host stressed the importance of using stove vents, etc. yet the same sitiuation happened again - I can see a host just saying “never again.” And I wouldn’t blame them a bit. It may not be fair, but the next guest may not be patient to wait and see if everything can be restored back. Host is out possibly a week’s worth of income.
I also don’t think it is fair to not expect that particularly ethnicity to be able to fully use a kitchen and cook however they want. But if you have to wash all the curtains and upholstery, etc. in order to restore the place within 5 hours, it is also not fair to the host.
Or the shower situation for example. If someone is on a limited water supply and guests can only shower 15 minutes a day - a culture where the norm is to shower 3 times a day may not be happy. Let’s say the host has taken extra steps to stress the importance, guest agree - yet time and time again the host finds out they lied and are just using the shower when host is away. This ends up costing the host money out of his pocket OR he charges from resolution center, and then it prompts those guests to leave a negative review with lies about the house being filthy. Now it is just hurting the overall bookings due to lies. At some point the host needs to look out for themselves and do what is in their best interest.
I kind of look at it from a standpoint of an an attorney or CPA. They may have an initial meeting with a potential client, then refuse to engage in business with the client - based on their personasl past experiences of whether the client relationship will be good moving forward, or if it will just be a stressful experience.
I just do not believe the hosts on this forum are racist, etc. I think the true racists are not even living to tell their experiences with other cultures, ages. - That’s because they just refuse to begin with 
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Boff… as the French say. I don’t know, I suppose you’re right but I can’t imagine cooking smells that bad. I love the smell of different foods. You’d hate my house. It often smells of something recently cooked - garlic, fish, fried chicken, whatever. To me, that is the smell of home. If it’s very strong, we just open the windows and air it out. Are you talking about some specific cooking ingredient that is so pungent and vile that incoming guests cannot cope? If so, what is it?? I know that durian fruit is banned in many places and for good reason. But I can’t think of much else, Ghee, maybe?
By the way, you still didn’t mention the actual numbers 
Ghee is just clarified browned butter. I think most people would think it smells lovely. The only spice I need to keep in several layers of smell proof containment is asafoetida. It adds umami to dishes in small quantity, but its pungent smell takes over the whole kitchen if left out in the open. Just to show you how different people can be; the most repulsive cooking smell to me is bacon frying.
Haha…No - I don’t hate cooking smells - I was only using hypothetical examples - lol.
For example, if an ethnic group is cooking non - stop for hours each day for a week, then without proper airing the smells can permeate into the fabrics/upholstery. Some “next” guests may not be okay with this, and patient enough to have the place restored back to no food smell. They demand to be placed somewhere else upon arrival. Like I said, that could be a week’s worth of lost income for the host.
I grew up with many Asian friends and in high school they always were so embarassed saying how their hair and clothes smelled like their house…lol. I always told them I didn’t mind at all because the smell didn’t offend me. It wasn’t unpleasant. But we know how guests can be.
I did address your “numbers” question and said there is no hard or fast rule.
But the smell of bacon frying is one of the best smells on the planet - what is wrong with you??
Just kidding!
Even, I have to say, to this vegetarian!
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Well, I’ll have to disagree with that. Numbers are numbers. “no hard or fast rule” is not only not numbers but not much of anything else either! Go on, admit it, you’ve only had two bad experiences with guests from country X haven’t you 
Haha…I respect your right to disagree. No… if you read my past posts you will see that I only get boring, entitled Americans…lol.
My only two international guests (in 3 years) were a family from Australia, and a family from Canada. I have no good stories to tell They were fairly boring and clean
OK then. So what’s with the whole guests stinking up the curtains, upholstery etc, thing? And the right to discriminate on that basis? Confused! Are you extrapolating from stuff you’ve read?
I was providing hypothetical situations only. My point being if the next guests cannot check in 5 hours later, then that is major problem for a host to be fair to the current guest, and fair to the following guest. You have to make sure each contract is honored to the best of your ability.
I am already very familiar with ethnic families and cooking from my own childhood. So no…I am not only going on the many threads talking about this very issue. I already posted about my personal experience with friends from Asian families.
I did use a cancellation freebie from Flipkey once based on the fact that the guest would not respond, and her estranged family said it was likely she would chain smoke the entire time for a week over Christmas. I could have taken the “risk” but I chose not to. Her unresponsive behavior somewhat implied she would also be willing to give up $250 to smoke. But could I get that odor out before next guests?? Again…I have to assess risk with each and every guest.
I tried and tried to get in touch with this person. But I decided the risk wasn’t worth it. I booked to another group for a week. The orignial booking was just she and her son in the middle of winter. The son is likely not to keep her in line with chain smoking inside.
So basically your comments are the product of your childhood experience and imagined circumstances. They are not based on any real experience as a host. Therefore they are invalid. This is disappointing, to say the least. I thought you were an experienced host by your assertions. I feel like I’ve been duped! Why are you positioning yourself in this way?
Reading my post back it seems rather rude, I’m sorry about that.
Magwitch…actually I am going to step fully away from this conversation after this comment. I don’t need others’ to justify my decisions. I dont need to follow an exact replica of what another host decided in order to decide my own business rules.
I am very confident in making decisions on my own based on what is best for my business. I don’t rely on another host to replicate another exact scenario; however, I am so thankful to learn from other hosts on here.
I just read your comment saying you thought it was rude. It doesn’t matter. Instead of me continuing to reply to your repeated questions…why don’t you answer mine??
What would you do if you rented out a place and the next guest didn’t want to check in and you lost a quarter of the month of income??
I would like those same people who are throwing stones to say how they would react the next time a guest takes them for a ride…again it’s not something we hear about. All we ever hear about is it’s…you are discriminating blah blah blah blah.
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And just to get it out in the air…your bathroom incident does not count at all! You got it under control. Tell me please about a situation where you were lied to and couldn’t get the next guest checked in on time!
cabinhost, I do apologise for being harsh in my tone. I do stand by the essence of what I said, though. Discrimination is, of course, a part of everyday life. But when you’re talking about excluding an entire ethnic group based on a couple of unfortunate experiences - that’s raising things to a different level. You cannot, simply CANNOT, justify judging an entire country by the actions of a few. Therein lies madness badness and a man with a hamster on his head.
I’m sorry, I can’t. It just doesn’t happen to me because I live here and know all the time what’s going on. I’ve had situations where guests didn’t check out and left their stuff in the room. I moved it all out so other guests could check in. I’ve had guests destroy my towels and bedlinen with make-up, weird stuff I don’t know about that doesn’t wash out. I haven’t had guests that lied to me, though. What exactly do you mean by that?