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The reason I chuckled is because so many of my guests who stay a week will leave so much leftover food that has never even been opened. It’s great for me…as I am a scrounge anyway. But the grocery store is right down the street…so it amuses me that they don’t just shop for 5 days, and then pick up extra stuff they need later during the week.
So it’s funny that your guests (who have no access to a store) do the exact opposite…lol.
Check this sequence of events @cabinhost I do provide a well-stocked kitchen, just in case. Maybe has worked against me. Most guests arrive and say “Wow, if I knew there was this much, we wouldn’t have bought so much”. Then they say that in the reviews, and then newcomers figured, whatever we don’t have, it will be there. It is supposedly a ‘self-catering’ stay.
Time to change that little issue; description changed, I will spend the 20 minutes of shopping with each group so solves that little issue.
Tweaking, tweaking and more tweaking.
Capt. Fred, when you are summoned during a guest’s stay for a grocery run, do you:
Just deliver the food and they pay me then, +$25 for run. Only 6 miles, takes me maybe 40 minutes to run there and back. Rarely happens now, because I make sure they get more than enough0 food initially. Usually we end up with a lot of extra food and liquor, because 90% come specifically for the island and will be on a plane when they leave it.
Since 99% of the time is for more drinks or beer, now I have cases of each in the island and they can buy them on an honor system.
Anything to lessen high maintenance is my new motto.
Hi ST 
Oooo, they leave you with liquor? Okay, now yer’ talking!
She Who is Always Ready for Ice Tinkling in a Glass
Filled with ‘Mother’s Milk’,
Letting the sands of time sift through her toes.
…just waxing poetic. : )
In my case each room has a wall AC. The only option that I do have is to turn the AC off myself.
First this is Desert, and the Electric Company requires homeowners during excessive heat times to conserve energy, or they can turn it off for several hours. Overriding AC which one guest did, to 64 with temperature at 125 outside and room not occupied for 16-17 hours, may cause fire in addition to a brake down of AC beside paying .30 Cents per KW about $15.00 a day. Several homes did cot on fire due to AC working to hard.
First guest I had would leave around 10 A.M. and not return until 3A.M.
However my most recent guest turned to be a nice guest that just did not pay attention, but than fully complied.
This is not even about the use of electricity by guest who do comply for those that do not. It could have caused fire, the AC was making horrible noise by 3 P.M. height of the day.
The only option I do have is have one of those devises
that one can control room temperature if guest decides to override Manufactures setting to a ridiculous low temperature and or turn it off.
This rooms are part of my home, those Host that are renting their Condos or Homes or an Island like you are better with your recommendations where you can apply limiters.
I thank those Host on this forum for recommending those little devices (hope don’t have a techie who knows how to override those as well).
I wish I could limit their wifi use. When I see a laptop I know they will be streaming or downloading even though it’s against rules. That usually means I wot be able to watch Netflix during their stay because they gobble up all the bandwidth.
I also fear they download porn or pirate movies, and I don’t have a way to stop that.
You remind of something. I have WiFi in the island, buy it 25 gigs ($10 a gig!) at a time. Every guests have laptops! Oh oh. Sure enough when I pick them up they tell me all the cool BIG pictures they send and the great movies they saw via Internet. I dial the broadband meter, they clobbered it…a new challenge now arises: 'How can I delicately wean these people for a few days from their Internet sickness! LoL
Any suggestions will be helpful.
Oh my. Unless I was made of money I would tell guests Internet use is limited on the island and is monitored. Please save your movies, large photos or Netflix for the Mainland. You are on Island Time now. 
Guests who use excessive bandwidth will be charged $10 per GB over __- xx (name some amount.)
Too bad you can’t install a cold water switch like you do on the water tank. Can you shut it off from the router if you notice them going over?
Or, “During your stay on Bird Island, we encourage you to disconnect from your everyday life and completely escape from reality. Having said that, we understand that some circumstances require you to check in with the real world from time to time. Therefore, we provide xGB of Wi-Fi for your convenience. Most guests happily use less. If you have a need to use more, we will accomodate, with a heavy heart, $x per GB over what we provide gratis. We sincerely wish you a Wi-Fi free experience while you enjoy the island life.”
OMGOSH, who is their right mind would go to a private island and watch a movie via internet, when there is a constant movie of beautiful nature taking place literally all around them? This would frustrate me as a host beyond belief! OK, I admit, I can see myself bringing my laptop or preferably a tablet to check my emails (I wear many hats, it’s a rare day that I don’t do some kind of “work”, even if it’s just emails, I check my biz email accounts twice a day), but watch a movie? With an ocean surrounding me? Even if it was raining, I would still be amazed and wanting to watch the rain!
I always travel with a laptop. I have never streamed a movie in my life or downloaded any copyright materials. I have to have my laptop to log onto client servers via their proprietary VPN. I have to use this machine since it is the one that has been certified by Homeland Security’s silly program as “clean.” I would actually be more worried about tablets and streaming since they are really just content delivery systems, while computers are content production in addition to delivery. Gosh, I hope that my laptop requirements don’t scare off future hosts of mine.
How many GB are free? I state 1GB per stay and get ignored every stay.
The world does not have unlimited bandwidth, not even the USA is offering unlimited bandwidth in every area. For instance, here in the mountains of NC there is no cable or DSL for many AirBnB hosts. We buy bandwidth at $10 a gigabyte on satellite. So, when you watch a Netflix movie it costs us $10 for that gig of “free” movie.
When I offer free WIFI, its for those guests using mobile phones that are out of their service area. Today’s phones can use WIFI for email, text messages, phone calls and surfing the web. Those actions typically use a small amount of bandwidth. Streaming movies off Netflix, downloading using torrents VIA a VPN (or not) and watching videos all use a high amount of bandwidth. If your host says no streaming or downloading it is probably because they pay per gig, and breaking house rules will not always show up in a review, but it will be recorded by a host. It is unlikely I will accept a reservation from a rule breaker. They wont know why they were rejected, but they will be prevented from booking again.
I used to use "instant book"but no longer. We have had prostitutes book our apartment, not to use to bring clients, but as a home base to work the brand new nearby casino. Our closed circuit TV system reveals all traffic through the doors and it was easy to see what she was doing (changing outfits and hairstyles at 1:00AM every night and not returning until 4-5AM every day). The stiletto heels and short skirts were not how she dressed at arrival. We are responsible for the activities conducted out of our apartment. We monitor activities from outside of the building entrance as well as bandwidth usage on the internet, as is our right. We would gladly cooperate with Homeland Security, the FBI and law enforcement, providing any records available.
We are honest, law abiding Americans. Our WIFI is not a “safe haven” for illegal activities and neither is our apartment. There are lots of people hosting on AirBnB that agree with us. It is not worth $60 a day to let illegal activity occur and then end up in court having to testify. It is also not worth making $60 a day, paying 25% in taxes on that income and then having to pay $10 for the bandwidth you used. Especially when we have told you not to use it.
If you are a host, you know its not worth a face-to-face confrontation when a guest departs. Its better to wait and make sure that guest never comes back. Free WIFI does not always mean unlimited WIFI. Ask your host if you are not sure.
I am not sure why my post about working from a laptop via VPN and not streaming has been coupled with a post about illegal activities.
I don’t think there is any delicate way to tell people how much it will cost them if they use so much bandwidth. You can always leave one of the charts at the island - like the ones they have on the AT&T site that gives examples of how much bandwidth different activities use. Then they can somewhat monitor their own activity.
But if there is no monetary consequence to the guest, that will just go ignored.
Ah ha! That is the trick. Leave the colorful Smart brochure right by the router, and during my walk-through open it and show them why bandwidth needs to be used with some thought, just like water, power and everything else. It is in Belizian prices (1US = 2BZ) so they will be highly impressed.
But you know they will see that as a “suggestion” that only applies to “other” guests…lol. Now if they believe they will be charged for the overage then that may keep them in line. You could break it down by person. For instance, if 4 guests are staying for the week then you can pull out the lamenated sheet that breaks down what 4 guests can use. Ex: each person can watch this many hours of streaming per day, send this many Facebook photos, send this many emails, etc. And that way each person will know exactly what their limits are. This is an example from the At&t but it only breaks down by the month, and not by person for a week:
Activity 150GB 1TB
TV & Movies
(SD = standard definition,
HD = high definition) Watch 75 hours of SD TV AND stream 90 SD or 25 HD movies Watch 400 hours of live SD TV plus stream 720 SD or 200 HD movies per month
Other data use With any of these data amounts, you can:
Browse 10,000 web pages
Send/receive over 10,000 emails
Download/upload over 1,000 medium-sized photos on a social media site like Facebook
Download over 1,000 MP3 songs
Watch over 1,000 standard quality YouTube videos
I am somewhat “computer illiterate” Does it mean it will show somewhere on your account in your browsing history?
I think easier is client paying for the data they need, when it’s empty sms to you for more data (with maybe a little free)
This way you are more in control and get paid for this cost (that can be quickly important if I understand)