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Oh dear… I think I have posted my concerns about accepting packages here before. What a perfect way to get drugs from other countries to the US. If contraband is found and the package says c/o Ellen at Ellen’s address, they will come after you. The guest would be long gone.
There’s zero good reason for anyone to have a package delivered for a short term stay. If they must, have them send to the nearest mailboxes or other postal operation. Why should the onus be on the host to receive possible contraband.
That being said, my son and I once stayed at a hotel in DC before his internship started. He had just bought a DS and needed a case for it… he got the case on amazon and had it deliver d to the hotel …which wasn’t too happy with us, to be honest!!!
I know we’ve agreed to disagree about package delivery. My point was that if hosts want to have guests leave luggage in the garage, the hosts could have the guests agree via Airbnb email that the hosts won’t be held responsible for loss or damage.
Better yet sign a waiver. An email might not be binding.
When I tell guests who are desperate that they can leave luggage in the carport but I can’t be here to watch it or save it from curious cats, most elect to take it in their trunks. Since 100 percent of guests comi to my house have rental cars, they do have other options besides leaving it here. It’s only those who want to get more of my local beaches (and who can blame them, they are stunning!!) that will ask to leave luggage.
I can think of one. When you are on a long road trip and won’t be home for months it would be great to still be able to shop on Amazon. One of my guests who has cancer had something shipped to my house. She said she kept having trouble catching up with it because of her changing housing situation.
This is true… I once had guests on a round the world tour… they asked to ship contact lenses… but their last stay was in South America so I told them it wasn’t possible! Turns out they were telling the truth.
Guest who is attending or presenting at a conference and needs their handouts/brochures/presentation materials to be available. Putting boxes of printed materials under a plane is not an option.
Yes, a case by case basis for sure. If you are a business listing you have to be able to get those… although some convention centers will allow shipment of materials to the site.
Do you remember that host who posted that his wife accidentally threw out all the conference brochures that were delivered for a guest?? The guest was very understanding and had them re-sent… I guess the lesson is, if you have a guest sending things, make sure everyone in the house knows to expect it!
I realized that my laptop charger wasn’t in my bag when I was at the airport flying to the UK. I emailed my hostel asking if I could have a package delivered. They agreed, so I ordered from Amazon.uk and it was delivered th next day. I didn’t want to spend time and energy looking for store to buy a charger. Central London has lots to see and do, time is precious.
We had a couple from Argentina have a stroller shipped via Amazon. They said they didn’t have a lightweight one good for cities/hills/cobblestones so they ordered when they arrived.
Hi @lhsu718 i’m an airbnb suoerhost from rome, Italy.
It happened many times that my guests asked me to keep their luggage after check out, and for various reasons i could never fulfill their need.
So i came up with the idea of a luggage storage network with local businesses all over the city available to keep customers’ bags… a year has passed an now our service is all over the world BAGBNB COM, if we cover your city i will be very happy to suggest you the best place close to your apt
This is late to the game but the leaving luggage issue seems to be an ongoing one.
This is what I do:
If I don’t need the room at check-out time, if this person’s been an excellent guest and I feel like it, I’ll let them keep their key and put their luggage (if small) in the front hallway and if large, in the living room, and say that they have to pick it up before (say 5 p.m.) as ppl often have late flights and if they’ve been super guests/I’m feeling generous, that’s what I’ll do.
Otherwise, I’ve discovered this company that will pick up your bags at the airport and drop them off wherever you’d like (and vice versa, I believe) for something like $13. So when I have guests asking if they can drop off their luggage (when I’m at work and no one’s home) I send them the link and they suddenly realize they don’t mind waiting in a coffee shop nearby for an hour or so until I get home.
Here’s the link: https://bagsaway.ca
Yes I hate that, too! I now have it on my listing description that I will charge an extra $25 to anyone who fails to checkout on time and after the first hour, I will charge them another night.
I don’t intend to enforce this policy if they checkout 10 minutes late, but they don’t know that, so I wanna make my policy sound especially draconian.
I recently had a bad experience with this one guest, which is what made me make the rule in the first place. I was going out of town for a few days, which she knew. BUT rather than give guests a key, I give them each a unique temporary code to my door, that automatically activates at check-in time (noon on their first day) and automatically expires at their checkout time (noon on their last day). But she didn’t know that and, knowing I was outta town and wouldn’t be back the next day, I think she intended to stay well past checkout time, thinking there’s no way I’d know. So she left her bags and suitcases here and left around 1-something (already over an hour past checkout) to do whatever, but then, when she got back around 5-something, she discovered that, uh-oh, the code doesn’t work anymore! So she had no choice but to call me and ask me to re-instate the code. I was pissed, she was like, “I just left my bags there, they’re all packed up,” but I don’t believe that, bc I have a camera at my front door (outside) and saw that once I let her back in, she didn’t leave for another 45 minutes or so, so I think she spent that time scrambling to pack bc she realized she couldn’t stay there longer like she’d initially planned. Could be wrong, but that’s the impression I get.
I really wanted to tell her I’d have to charge her an extra night before letting her back in, but since it said nothing about late check-out fees on my listing, I felt like there’d be no way to enforce it.
But if it ever happens again…
I learned awhile ago not to be so forthcoming with my guests. Guests often can’t tell if I’m here because my car is in the garage and they are in a room next to my space with no access to my space. They only people who are exceptions are repeat guests that I know.
Yes, she was banking on the “she’ll never know” theory. Pretty stupid if she used an electronic keypad. Everyone knows lockout at checkout is a feature of those!
I agree. I never tell guests my plans. As far as they know I am cleaning the minute they leave. Even if they can see on the calendar I have no one else coming, I actually really do!
