Diary of a Happy Host?

[dcmooney]

Would anyone be interested in having a thread such as this?

Not to negate ANYONE’S experience or need to speak of such, but it might be nice to have a place where people can leave little stories of the good times.

Such as:

We are installing a new bathroom in the guest area. My husband, contractor & I had come up with a plan which included angled walls and the wall where the door would be was about 2.5’. One of my guests that came at that time is a civil engineer with specializes in interior design. He enthusiastically offered to help us with our design, really got into details with me, coming up with new ideas, and advised we lose the angled walls. I’m SO THANKFUL because now I realize they would be awful. Wow! Lovely people and a big huge help!! I love my guests!!

[jamfactoryken]

Our first guest was from Lyon. I will be there next summer for Euro2016. She provided me with an insiders view of her city, recommendations on areas to stay, where to eat & drink and what to see both in the city and around. Another was from Austin, I have been to SXSW three times and he suggested the next time that I go I contact him and he will try and get me a locals wristband. Lastly a New Yorker liked our place so much that she has been an advocate for us in her business and we have now had three further bookings directly as a result. everybody has left the flat in an immaculate state. AirBnB has been a real positive experience for us so far. It has allowed us to maintain a flat in London, that we can use when we need dirty air in our lungs, we live most of the time in Devon, and earn an income. Without it we would have had to have done six month tenancies, no place to stay in London, and the flat would have sustained a lot more damage.

I have also had many positive AirBnB experiences as a guest, and I look forward to another in Berlin later this month, Dublin in December, Paris in April, Seattle in May and a number in France during the Euros.

[sunshine1]

dcmooney,I love this kind of thread. I mean I also like to vent sometimes, but its not all about the terrible guests.

I have had several guests who I have remained firm friends with, which is amazing and unexpected!

Other simple things, like guests leaving the sweetest notes and reviews, as well as gifts is lovely. Again its usually unexpected.

Through it all, the gracious guests always outweigh the bad;)

Ps: It was meant to be for you to meet that particular guest to help with the bathroom

[stephanie]

i had a russian man and his 10 year old son stay with me for their week’s vacation in florida. they were TERRIFIC, fun guests. we did lots of things together. his sister was local and came over just about every night. we’re still friends even after her brother went home.

another time i had a policeman from the ukraine and his girlfriend stay a week. they greeted me their first morning by breaking open their bootleg bottle of ukrainian moonshine and insisting we start our weekend with a shot. lol!

then there’s the MD from orlando who was here for her rugby teams tourney. she hung out with me and my neighbors at my firepit. we jammed music and laugh all night.

i’ve got mostly these experiences, thankfully

[konacoconutz]

I have made great guest friends… but not as many as you because I have a separate space where guests tend to come and go without interaction. I have some GREAT friends from Norway now. They stayed and love me so much I’m like a member of their family… They beg me all the time to come stay with them in Norway!!! Just need money to get there!

I’d like to think I have new friends from this forum too!

[Julie]

I’ll keep my stories of my Aussie, NZ and SA guests for later - all in all they are TOP guests, every time. As in, we are now friends on facebook and message each other on the regular.

My last guest cooked me a steak dinner. No joke. He got the ingredients and then made us a steak dinner, with a nice bottle of red (he is a regular, full disclosure). Still was super sweet!

[TheAbundantHost]

This makes me so happy! I love this!

My absolute favorite personal story is when two of my guests came back the Spring after they’d originally come, to stay again. They were great guests, so I didn’t mind at all—a young couple who loved hiking and fell in love with my city the first time around.

When they left (I rent out my whole one-bedroom apartment), the girl wrote to tell me that on a local hike, her boyfriend had proposed!

Other than that, I have had guests leave me: a book of poems, hand-engraved coasters made by a local artisan, notebooks (I’m a writer…) from Barcelona…

It’s such a beautiful exchange, what we’re doing, sometimes, and it should be celebrated.

Love,
The Abundant Host
theabundanthost.com

[Yana]

Glad that “my people” made such a good impression on you:)

[Yana]

I can say that Airbnb changed my life for the better. Of course it’s a job, but In addition is very rewarding emotionally and monetary. This week and it’s not even over yet, I made 500$. Where else I could make this much money working literally 3 hours changing sheets and doing little cleaning and on top of that practicing my Spanish with non English speakers from Venesuela FOR FREE!!

I had couple of fiascos in a beginning, and they are very frustrating, to the point that I wanted to quit hosting. This forum saved me from making this mistake and kept me going. I am at 57 guests right now and 54 of them were excellent .
I also feel like I made good friends here n this forum:)

[Rolf]

My happy story is actually about my friend, who has been suffering reversals in her life over the past few years.

When I started hosting, she was renovating her bathroom by herself - everything from retiling to resurfacing the inside of the medicine cabinet, all by hand, because she had no real money to do anything to her 40 year old bathroom. I told her about air, and she enjoyed my tales and complaints lol as I learned how it all worked. One day she looked over my shoulder an saw my ‘income’ for that month, and the next day started her listing.

Turns out not only is she very good at it - everything from cleaning etc to interaction and communicating - but it has completely changed her life! She wakes up optimistically, loves the workload compared to sitting at home worrying about bills, and has a smile on her face almost all the time.

My life is better too since now, my best friend is happy!

[69jamescole]

Happy stories from three years of hosting. Well, I book solid on weekends from 1 May to Oct30. So that’s happy! Nearly all my guests are intelligent, well mannered people with strong out door interests like hiking. Since I am situated by the a Great Lake, A federal wilderness area, 5 state parks and 1 national park, I get the outdoor folks mostly from a nearby metro area. These folks are uniformly clean, polite, fun to talk too, and super respectful of property and the domestic peace of the house. Quite frankly, I get ideal guests. How more happy can it be!
95% I rate 5 star.

[chicagohost]

One of my apt guests left my 14 month old son a set of dolls which he loved – I never thought to get him a doll (guess I was being too gender normative) and so I was so happy to see him play with them with such interest. Then, just a few months later, another set of guests left a little outfit for my newborn and a couple of matchbox cars for my son. It was such a sweet and totally unexpected gesture at a time when I was feeling very hormonal and stressed that maybe I shouldn’t be renting the apt when I had a crying newborn above…

[AquaticQuests]

Chicago you able to host with a newborn? We had a guest and later realised another guest was coming with a newborn after delivering.
We offered the other existing guest option to leave and refund as a result.
We currently have the guests with the newborn in one room, so now we aren’t offering the other room on airbnb for the next few days until the others leave.
I’m thinking other guests would massacre us on the reviews, of the baby was keeping them up!
Just wondering!

[chicagohost]

Hi AQ – we rent the apt below our home so it’s not technically shared space but like you, I was worried about noise (and also about whether I even wanted to deal with checking guests in, etc. when I was postpartum). I think your cautiousness makes complete sense although I must say that grandparents or parents with grown children are SO baby-friendly, it’s ridiculous.

[dcmooney]

Aquatic, I’m always surprised by what doesn’t bother guests!! I think just be upfront with the facts - some people may find it a joy, or not even notice the noise.

BTW, did she have her baby? How are they?

[dcmooney]

My guest that just left came to the states to run in the NYC marathon. He got started running marathons in Australia because he was having some Ikea furniture delivered, but the local marathon organizers had failed to notify residents on his street that the streets were being shut down. So they offered him free entry into the marathon as compensation. So he got up at 5 a.m. the next day, with no training, ran his first marathon. Now he’s involved in a project that trains indigenous Australians to run marathons, which is very beneficial to they health and lifestyle of people in the community, and he travels around the world running marathons.

SO INTERESTING!!!

[konacoconutz]

I feel the same Yana… I didn’t think I’d make offline friends here but I have!!! Several good friends… from all over!

[konacoconutz]

There are so many happy stories here that the AirBnB marketing department is probably keeping track and would love to use them all in their latest ads. (To hopefully replace the baby walking, stalking ad which was creepy and way off target, IMHO).

[stephanie]

if you can get a good fare to las angeles, norwegian air flies to oslo for $400 Kona!

[Kirsty_Jane]

Although Norwegian air is ok for short flights <5hrs anything longer then I think I would want a TV and food included and more comfortable seats. Otherwise it would be like sitting on a long haul greyhound bus / national express.