Guests hanging around the house during daytime

Mine too - plus money-off coupons that I put in the rental for guests to use :slight_smile:

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Yeah theres some coupons in my leaflets too.

Donā€™t need bus timetable. Theres a stop down the end of my road that runs bus every 7 minutes all day. :slight_smile:

I mean county wide bus timetables and also the national express timetable from my town.

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He could be, thatā€™s true. So far he is like a gost, i never see him.

Iā€™m just seeing this thread and need to rant!
Guests arrived yday evening, went out three hours later then came back within the hour. No problem, yes? They did say they wanted to get up early the next day to make the most of their only full day. Well no, I was working from home today, and they have been in bed till now. First shower of the day at 15.15pm! They did manage to slip out for breakfast at 11.30am, then went back to bed!!! Whats the point of coming all the way to another country just to lay idle in bed! Or maybe they werent laying idle lol. Aghhh Sigh it annoys me so much guests like this. If they wanted to lounge around all day, book a hotel or a whole apt, not a hosts private home! GRRRRRRR. Good riddens tomorrow I say! And they neednt think theyre sleeping past 11am!

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I know what you mean! Luckily I have many one night guests so they are on their way the next day. My favorite guests are like the one I had Monday. In at 11:45 pm, out at 9:15 the next morning. We didnā€™t even meet.

I suggest you put wording in your listing to make the kind of guest you prefer more obvious. Maybe say you often work from home and will be up and making noise at 8 am. I say quiet hours are 10pm to 6 am and that the dogs and I are early to rise at 6-8am. Iā€™ve said that this might not be the best choice for light or late sleepers. In truth I work very hard to keep it quiet until I think guests are up.

Maybe one or the other doesnā€™t feel well? You have my sympathies!

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I adore the ones with that kind of schedule haha!
Think these two are just dam lazy, theyre giggling away in there. Maybe I shouldnt of left a whole jar of mini Easter eggs in room lol
Usually we are pretty lucky with guests getting up early and not coming back to night, then the same the next day. We only have 4days max, and the majority of our guests are one or 2 nighters.
Heyho, Iā€™m gonna have a drinky poo soon to ease the pain :wink:

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Hello,

Iā€™m new at this, and was unprepared for the guest who booked 7 days, and stayed in my home 90% of the time. Unfortunately it rained a lot that week. Most of that time he spent in my living room, where even changing a lightbulb was a ten minute sermon and inquisition.

I scoured other posts on the topic, and changed my rules to mention that I worked at home during the day and may require privacy (Iā€™ll say!) in the living room.

I also screen prospective Guests more carefully about their specific plans and when they plan to be out. I nixed a month-long booking from a chap last week with a vague notion of starting an undetermined business in this country without the proper paperwork. It saved him quite a bit of money, too, incidentally.

Lastly, although I have IB, I only accept bookings with full verifications and positive reviews.

Itā€™s not foolproof. Guest illness, bad weather and other setbacks will always be factors that I have to accommodate as a Host. But the living room louche taught me a lot!

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Iā€™m gonna put that in my lsiting to. Now infact!

I guess I jinxed myself. In the last week Iā€™ve had two guests in a row stay in all day. The one here now said heā€™s coming to town for work and his girlfriend who lives in a nearby town will be coming to stay with him. Although they did go out from 9 pm to 4 am! Sigh. Very nice couple, very quiet, just not my favorite situation.

why was he staying in living room? Is there a TV in his room? It took me awhile to put TVs in each guest room. But that completely solved the problem of hanging out in living room which happened a lot.

Also, the initial phrase: everyone in this house give each other lots of privacy limits hang outs all over house significantly. One guy was very straightforward with me and asked if he can hang out on a kitchen and living room. I was straightforward back with him. I asked him what does he mean to hang out on a kitchen or living room? The kitchen use is very limited as it says and explained in my rules. What was he going to do in a living room if his room has a large flat screen smart TV with all the movie and sport channels and Netflix. WHat exactly will he be using living room for? He thought for a moment and then said: you are right, i guess i dont need to use the rest of the house as i have everything in my room.

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Thanks Yana. Actually he spent all his time on his computer in the living room, and talking to me/badgering. I didnā€™t put on the TV as whatever the selection was would encourage him to stay. It turned out to be a crash course in setting boundaries.

My rules at the time offered access except quiet times. tt took me a day or so to compose myself, but now they indicate that I may require privacy while working in the living room during the day. So far, so good.

I also needed to confront him because he was badgering other guests and taking food. I was quite firm, but to the point. Worked like a charm. Only wish I had done it days earlier. We left on good terms, but i have never been happier to see someoneā€™s back!"

By coincidence I was looking at TVā€™s (ā€œelectronic babysittersā€) not two hours ago at Costco!

Thank you,Yana

Sure if that helped!
Many hosts make
a mistake of tipi toeing around their guests . I did a good share of that too in a beginning: big mistake.
This is when guests start to take over the house. One guy asked me before bookingv if the house is quiete until noon every day . He came for pocker tournament I asked him how does he imagine that is possible . We work and wake up around 7, so does others guests. Then we make coffee , take showers and sometimes we even talkšŸ˜‚. Of course we will try to be more quieter than usual but not to the point that we have to wisper or not make a sound on a kitchen .

He booked anyway for the whole month and he was fine .
I work from home and I like to have my morning coffee in front of TV in living room. My guest started sitting in my living room every morning drinking his coffee instead of me.We woke up at around the same time so he was faster than me to get on that couch.
One.day.i had enough , I made coffee and occupied living room before he had a chance. That was when there already was TV in each room.
I still remember his face when he was heading to the couch and then he saw me and my husband there. :joy:
He did not join us and went to his room , and that was the last day I saw him on that couch. I think at that moment he understood that itā€™s actually our house and he is a guest here not the other way around.
Some hosts on this forum are very outgoing and welcoming and treat their guests like a family . But most people work other jobs , come home tired and want to have their house like they own it and live in piece and quiete .

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@Yana - I love your straight-forward no-nonsense approach to dealing with guests! Itā€™s the way I would do it (if I could), and if I hosted in-house.

Iā€™m not sure I would be as effective though because I think some of your magic comes from having English as a secondary language. If you speak as you write, you seem to select the major words and eliminate some of the less important connective words and you get the message across efficiently.

Guests are more attentive to what you are saying because it is based on logic and common sense and said with courtesy and strength. You lay down the lawā€¦and they get it!

Luv that you run a tight ship!

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i am just curious how did you know it was him who took food? I just had a situation here since i have 3 guests all the time that one person complained that a guest from upstairs is eating his food, and guest from upstairs said that that person is drinking his beer.:joy:
they both sounded so sincere and upset by it, but judging by their personalities i could not imagine that either of them is doing it. They were both professional very nice people with enough money not to do silly thing like that.
To this day i dont know who did that. The third person at the time was never home as he was gone for a few days at a time for work trips. I even asked my husband if he took any beer or food, lol.
The guest whos beer was taken said one day: this was too much, i came home yesterday and there was one can left in a fridge that i was really looking forward to have and it was gone!! He took my last can of beer!
Then the guest whose food was stollen told me that once he ordered a very expensive steak dinner from restaurant that was like 40$ and did not finish hoping to take it to work the next day for lunch. WHen he woke up in a morning, steak was gone. Then i knew at least it was not my husband as we are vegeterians:joy::joy:

@SandyToes, O nooo, i thought my english was perfect:joy:
I think when i speak its more proper English. Actually with some people when you have an accent they see you as less smarter person then them unfortunately. I heard so many comments over the years about my accent and the mistakes i make and not in positive way like you did. They calm down a bit when i told them i speak all 5 languages with accent now:):slight_smile:

I found that hosts do themselves but firstly a guest disservice of not being straightforward. We as hosts cant expect all guests behaving equally comfortable for us. We all have different backgrounds, mannerism and attitudes.
I am sure my couch loving guest did not even think for a second that he was doing something annoying for us. He just sat on that couch every morning without giving it a second thought.
The ā€œshower guyā€ though who was brining hookers into my home knew very well that he could not do that as he was sneaking them in and out very quietly.

My messiest and nicest guest ever was given a list of what to do and not to do regarding his cleanliness. I dont think the mess he made on a regular basis was intentional at all, he just did not know any better. He ended up staying with us for 3 months, then lost his job and went home to stay with his parents. I think his mom needs to thank me in training her son how to clean up after himself.
I can only imagine if i kept silence and said nothing with all the characters i hosted. We still remember our first weeks of hosting with the chillians cooks who basically kicked us out of the house with their behaviour and we were so timmid at that time and suffered in silence.
Every time we remember them we look at each other in disbelief that we could let it happened in our own home.

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Me too. Iā€™d love for Yana to ask some of my driving guests about early check in.

Guest: Is it possible for us to check in early?

Yana: Why do you need to check in early?

Guest: Weā€™ll be leaving home in the morning and will arrive in the area around noon.

Yana: So why do you need to get in a house at noon?

Guest: We wanted to go ahead and get our day started.

Yana: What does checking in a house have to do with getting your day started?

Guest: We wanted to drop off our bags.

Yana: You and your wife are only staying two nights. How many bags can you have? Why do you need your bags in a house instead of a car? This is a safe area.

Guest: Well, I guess we donā€™t really need to check in early.

Yana: I didnā€™t think so. You are just a fan of asking for early check in because you are addicted to early check in.

I missed you Yana :joy:

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That situation with my food disappearing ? I would be raging with anger. Iā€™m no longer a student and donā€™t want to relive the experience. Probably another reason Iā€™d avoid listings with more than one guest.

o my god, that was really funny:joy::joy: Yes, that sounds like me but i would be a bit nicer that that

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Some people want to be the only guests in a house but most dont care.
Its still a mystery for me. The guy with a steak stays with us for 4 months now, and several people came and went during his stay. The guy never complained that his food was dissapearing. Also i actually never saw him drinking beer or any beer in refrigerator. I see he drinks ice tea and coke all the time but no beer.
So for me its very strange that the other guy would steal his food and especially with that steak as it was so obvious. It s not like taking a glass of milk or a piece of bread. After the upstairs guy left all the complaints stopped.