I am pretty good at juggling people with different approaches to recycling, use of AC and heat, fragrance sensitivities, COVID fears, dietary challenges, etc. etc. Today I got a new. My guest, for whom I had already canceled scheduled yard spraying for mosquitos, has only been here two of 5 days. Today she unplugged her room refrigerator to conserve electricity, thus defrosting the little fridge and getting water all over. No permanent harm, but what a pain. She doesn’t have a car so is here almost all the time. She’s leaving the morning of my wedding anniversary - that will be my gift, lol.
6 Likes
Happy upcoming anniversary.
I don’t know if you ever saw my posts about the guest I cancelled before she stayed because she had a 4 star average. She had 16 reviews and several of them mentioned odd behavior of leaving paper all over, using all the paper towels and tp and leaving a white powder behind. She was staying locally for months and even had a profile pic taken locally though her town was listed as Newton, MA. She eventually went on to CA where she got the same kind of reviews. The point is for every review mentioning her odd behavior there was one saying she was fine, and sometimes even reviews saying how nice she was or how clean she was.
There are all kinds of people and some stay in Airbnbs.
6 Likes
How weird, considering that I assume you don’t charge guests extra for electricity. She must think she’s saving the planet or something.
You should tell her that it takes more electricity for it to get to the correct temperature after being unplugged than it does to leave it on.
4 Likes
I thought the same, but didn’t really feel like chatting any further with her at that point, lol. To top it off I offered to let her use the laundry and pointed out the environmentally sound short cycle with the cold water. She said oh no, she needed warm water and the longer setting. Sunday, check out day, cannot come soon enough.
5 Likes
This kind of behavior is all too common with MY single guests.
It starts when they tell you after check in that they are ‘surprised’ that xxx exists when clearly shown in the listing, or they are ‘obviously’ concerned about cleaning supplies that we used since "xxx brand’ is what we should use. They wander through the space and impose their ‘standards’, removing blinds, using clean towels for washcloths and floor sweeping after dinner, taking paintings off the walls and hiding the fronts, removing duvet insides, washing clothes in a bathroom sink and hanging them dripping on their bedposts. Their cars are hoarder heaven, and they ask the same questions over and over. I figure it is a mental health issue that occurs, and they terrorize us whith the prospect of bizarre ‘reviews’ that mention non-existent problems and ‘helpful’ suggestions like “the space needs another room” or “should provide working stove” (when space description clearly states none available) or “host did not provide 4 pillows” lol, and then gives low stars…
Gee, I only host single guests, 75% of them are female, and of all ages, from 21-70. Never had anyone do this.
As you say, it’s a mental health issue, or boredom- nothing else to occupy their time. And I’d venture a guess that some single men of a certain age do the same thing, except it wouldn’t pertain to household stuff, but unsolicited advice on how one deals with tools, yardwork, construction, vehicles, etc.
Men do the same things women do, except with a different focus. I once asked my ex why men hate shopping so much (you know how you see men sitting outside shops waiting, while their wives are inside). He said, “Oh, we don’t hate shopping. We can spend hours looking at power tools, sports equipment, and vehicles”.
1 Like
We are just the opposite. If we need anything that we can’t buy online, he’s the one that goes to the store. I hate shopping. It must be two years since I last went into a store.
He goes to the grocery store just about every day and will buy just one or two things rather than wait, make a list, and do a big shop.
1 Like
It sounds like you both hate shopping. 
You don’t want to go at all, and he wants to get in and out as fast as possible, regardless of whether it means he has to go every day.
1 Like
Same here, I do online and he does in-store. I can’t even remember the last time I was inside a store, it was long before Covid started.
1 Like
At my place the jokes on her. I have cold water only at the washing machine. I used a hose Y and have both hoses on the cold side.
RR
5 Likes
If she contradicted your theory about saving the planet by her comments about the washer, perhaps there is another reason for the unplug? Could it be the frig is having a problem developing and may be humming loudly or something along those lines? Maybe she’s even cookier and is worried about electromagnetic fields or something. You didn’t happen to catch her in a tinfoil hat did you?
No, she said it was specifically to save electricity.
1 Like
I just need to reply out of some sympathy for the guest. It was obviously dumb not to think about the water from the defrosting, but I personally would love it if my (future potential) guests did anything like this, and it’s what I might do as a guest with permission. I’m also a quantitative biology nerd/scientist saving up for a passive house who gets excited about calculating kwh saved with my heat pump water heaters and who fantasizes about how to get super high-end architects to incorporate clotheslines into hardscaping. Running that little fridge is easily the equivalent in energy usage of a hot shower.
I will still sometimes use warm or hot water if the laundry calls for it too. 
It’s not philosophically incompatible to try to save energy in one area, i.e., to do what we can.
IMO we don’t make environmentally friendly decisions easy enough, especially in travel. Pre-pandemic I traveled at least 100 days per year for work and what I was doing to the planet kind of killed my soul.
4 Likes
I definitely am averse to wastage or overuse of resources. My hot water tank runs on propane, and I actually turn it off completely if I am here alone, only lighting it 15 minutes before having a shower. It’s a small tank and heats up in that amount of time. It also keeps guests from taking 20 minute showers- the hot water runs out after 10 minutes, max. As I only host one guest at a time in a private room, I tend to ask guests what their shower habits are- if the guest is a before bed shower person, I often just turn the water heater off during the day- no reason to be heating a tank of water for 8 hours when I am working and the guest is out and about all day. If they like to shower first thing in the morning, I turn it up before I go to bed so they’ll have hot water in the morning.
My washing machine doesn’t even have a hook up to the hot water, I only use cold. But my water is gravity fed from a big black tank on my roof, and I live in the tropics, so the water is never really cold, more like tepid, and in the summer, it’s hotter than what a lot of people would want to shower under during our hot humid summers, when you take a shower to cool down.
That said, it’s great when people are environmentally conscious, but a guest should never unplug something without asking first. There may be a very good reason not to mess with something.
1 Like
That’s great, muddy. Sounds like we’re in agreement about getting permission to unplug.
1 Like
I’m installing a clothesline this week!
1 Like
I used a clothesline in AZ where sometimes clothes were dry in an hour, hung them out 12 months/yr.
Here, I have a covered patio and have a clothes line and my clothes rack, all gets dried there except in winter, where I might hang things inside.
Been here 2 years, haven’t touched the dryer. Wonder if it works???
1 Like