First time having a guest booted!

You’re right, from the start it was rocky but with each new hiccup I re-evaluated and started afresh. You helped with that greatly. The person who booked messaged me four separate times leading up to his stay for dining, wine tasting and tour group information and each time I gladly helped him out connecting him with services and suggesting how best to make the most of his trip. I even went so far as to provide some added goodies at the house for them that I don’t usually. I feel I did try to accommodate on several occasions but every time I gave an inch they wanted more until they reached the line I could not let them cross.

We all have lines. This one was mine.

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I myself do not allow smoking on my property. We are not talking here about property. We are talking here about them not smoking NOT on a property. ÀT ALL !
Nowhere around property , not across the road from property , not across the road from neighbors houses, not 2 ,5,10 minutes walk from.property. They were suggested to drive 10 minutes away from property to smoke. This is as unreasonable as it gets.
Seriously their addition is nobodies business . They can be as addicted as they want to be and they understood the no smoking rule exactly how 100% of other smokers would.

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Are you not well versed in who is and who is not protected under US law? Maybe you’re not in the US? Here is a list:

Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a person may not be discriminated against due to the following:

  • Age
  • Pregnancy
  • National Origin
  • Race
  • Ethnic Background
  • Religious Beliefs
  • Sexual Orientation

I own all the property across the road from the house for half a mile which, incidentally, is a field of standing wheat (i.e. highly flammable) and my neighbors complained about them. Should I have told my neighbors to get bit? No… I should have rushed down there and coddled the smokers by saying “okay… okay… you can smoke, here’s a bucket of water.” Really?

And this is why people who are giving advice on how someone should do something should always consider that they don’t know all the facts. We haven’t seen your listing, we didn’t participate in the message threads, we don’t know these guests. But I am never afraid to say “I wouldn’t have handled it this way.” Take what I, or anyone else here posts with a grain of salt. Take what works for you and scroll on past the rest.

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You are right, I don’t live in the USA.

Let’s draw another parallel. Suppose I’m a vegetarian. As a respect to my vegetarian family and pets, and to respect my wishes, I put in my listing “NO animal eating on the property”. Once guests arrive I also make it clear they can’t eat animals within a 10 mile radius from my property.

According to the law NON vegetarians are not considered a protected class and so it’s no discrimination. But does this feel right?
Think about another parallel: No alcohol drinking allowed within a 10 mile radius. Sounds strange, doesn’t it?

Of course the reason that smokers are not a “protected class” (What’s in a name :roll_eyes::roll_eyes::roll_eyes:) because that would most likely give them rights that would cross with other people’s rights.

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Hi Bunny, just letting you know that I get it. I have seen homes burnt to the ground by sheer carelessness and I too am extremely sensitive to cigarettes, the smoke and the effects. I would have been just as furious as you.

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Sorry but neither the Civil Rights Act of 1964 nor any of it’s subsequent amendments protects LGBTQIA folks. I wish.

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Yes and no:

Forty years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, there is still no explicit federal protection for LGBT employees. In at least some circumstances, however, courts are increasingly finding that LGBT employees are entitled to protection under Title VII.

Are you aware we have dry counties in this country?

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No but you should have specified that your property is so enormous.
" If you are a smoker be aware that no smoking allowed within half a mile radius as this is how large my property is​:grinning::grinning:

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Do you think it’s normal to have dry counties?

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I’m not going to argue about this too. You may know how the court system works and that a court decision only applies in the jurisdiction where it’s issued.

Until the Supreme Court rules that gays have employment protection, they don’t have it. And employment protection isn’t the same as housing protection and other protections. Laws are still being passed which discriminate against gays (like a recent OK law on adoption) and gay people are still being fired especially if they are school employees.

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@Bunny, I understand the fire danger (I live at the base of the mountains and there are fires all summer long and sometimes in the winter.) We just had a wild fire 3 miles from here up the canyon where a friend lives. Luckily it was quickly contained. Fires are almost always started by careless tourists smoking, leaving campfires (currently banned) and using fireworks (totally illegal here). Annoying!

I have a large back deck with a table and I provide an ashtray for 4/20 (legal) and I’m OK with cigarettes in this area ONLY on my property. I had some young teenaged guests that I found what seemed to be a whole pack of cigarette butts out front under my pine tree, lots of dry pine needles. I was furious! (I think they were sneaking out in the middle of the night) Even more upsetting is because I state in house rules no loitering out front EVER, and definitely no smoking of anything out front, mostly due to the neighbors.

However, I personally would have handled these guests a little differently, even if you are totally against smoking in general. I would have definitely provided them with a bucket of water and had them stand in the road where you could see them. Making sure they ashed and put all butts in the bucket. They felt they had to hide, therefore they did not have an ashtray or anywhere to put their ashes and butts making the fire danger worse! But this is your rental and probably should try to somehow ban smoking guests as there is no safe place to do so, aside from driving 10 miles, which isn’t going to happen.

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Here , you said it. Probably he is not aware. And for sure people from South Africa have no idea about fires at your part of the world.
Let’s not make Airbnb difficult for our guests. Because of these situations I prefer hotels to Airbnbs. I dont want anyone to tell me that I am annoying and stupid and don’t know about wild fires . I want to pay,arrive and enjoy my stay. I want host to be happy to host me .

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I don’t think normal applies. It is a law.

A 2004 survey by the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association found that more than 500 municipalities in the United States are dry, including 83 in Alaska. Thirty-six of the 82 counties in Mississippi are dry or partially dry.

I though it was only limited to counties these days but I guess we still have entire states that are dry:

Three states, Kansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee, are entirely dry by default: counties specifically must authorize the sale of alcohol in order for it to be legal and subject to state liquor control laws. Alabama specifically allows cities and counties to elect to go dry by public referendum.

Actually he told me in Cape Town where he’s from it is very much like here with wheat and grasses. Very dry with the same fire danger. He works for a company based in Seattle and travels to this part of the world often.

LOL@ “Let’s not make Airbnb difficult for our guests.” That’s a two way street cupcake.

Excatly its two way. Hosts make an absolutely equal amount of mistakes guests do.

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I’m not sure what point you are trying to make about dry counties. Dry county refers to alcohol sales not alcohol consumption.

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I have a no smoking rule and no smoking photo in my listing. I regularly have guests who smoke (maybe 10% of my guests have a smoker in the party). Of course I’m not out in the boonies but I find that if I don’t provide an ashtray they toss the butts into the street/rocks/dirt about half the time. I try really hard to not try to control things I can’t control. I don’t want them opening the bathroom window, blowing it out the window and tossing the butts in the toilet and flushing them for example.

I think accomodating them is the prudent strategy, not trying to prohibit them.

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