Foreign guest family over, parents stay in house and cook all day

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Hello everyone
To give an update, relocating the family is out of the question, because first an “entire home” listing is too expensive, and no other Airbnb listings near me will accept any guests staying that long.

We have worked out a schedule for use of the kitchen and I asked him politely if they could lighten the cooking, and to ease up on the spices, as I had to tell him that I walked in the house when I came home from work and the smell was quite intense. They are used to it so they have become immune to it and do not smell anything. I also asked him if there was the possibly of taking them out to a restaurant once in a while, just to get the parents out. He says to me that when he leaves in 6 weeks, he is moving to Virginia and taking his parents with him, and there they will have a permanent place of their own. that is wonderful, and there they will have their own apartment and not have to worry about sharing their space with anyone, and then they can cook at their heart’s content.

I was not going to ask about anything “cultural” but because on my profile he saw I worked a full time job and I am out on weekends, he thought I was one of those “never home” type of people so he did not expect any conflicts.

I saw in the evenings, before the son returns home from job internship, the parents walk the streets of the neighborhood, that may be a clue they are tired of being in the house all day.

Since then they have lightened up on the cooking, and on Saturday they were out for a good part of the day. At first I cut them some slack as his parents have just been here for a week and its their first time out of China, so I gave them time to adjust, but now it’s been a week, and the routine had to change. I am glad he agreed to it and hopefully there will be some additional changes such as being able to get his parents out more, but because of the remoteness of my town there is not much to see or do here. I’m not sure if he overlooked that (despite having it on my listing) but i’m sure he will not admit it if he did.

I also saw WilliB’s post and I do not understand why it is flagged (WilliB, if you are reading this, were you told what caused your post to be flagged?). If the guests stayed for a short time, I would have just let it go, but yes I agree if this same routine went on for the whole 6 weeks that would cause a great deal of frustration. I am a single woman, and there are 3 guests, so I felt outnumbered (as another person said)

They also do not use the oven (at least not that I’ve seen), another person on here said the Chinese do not use ovens, if they have them in their kitchen, but yes I can use the oven while they use the stovetop, and the stovetop has a fan, but when the spices are so intense it doesn’t help much, and it;s getting colder here in Pennsylvania so I can’t open the windows (I had them open once when the smell was intense but the guest’s mother closed them). yes i am going to use the oven more as we get into November, as when I start the holiday baking.

I am traveling for Thanksgiving so for those few days I’m away, they can cook at their heart’s content! :smile:

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You sound lovely Kasage. It is a pity the guest didn’t read the listing before booking and booked his parents into a place that without a car they are literally trapped in. When a guest makes a mistake sometimes we feel we have to pay for it. This is of course not true, neither is it your consideration what their budget is or what they can afford. In fact when you put it that way (that they can’t afford any other homes in the area, and no one else will take long term guests), you might start to think about why your guest chose not to tell you about his parents that would be home all day. He certainly didn’t want to tell you anything that might make you consider whether this was an appropriate booking for you or not in case you decided it wouldn’t be - I can assure you many hosts would say no to this arrangement including myself and clearly every other home stay in your town. Unfortunately guests do this ALL THE TIME. At first you might feel that you are in some way responsible for the fact that they can’t afford appropriate accommodations, or to eat out z set number of nights a week to give you at some time to yourself, but you are not responsible for a guest that wasn’t forthright about the arrangement. Over time you will find its the oldest trick in the book, and the only person that benefits is the withholder of information. They do it specifically because they knew you wouldn’t accept the booking should you have been in possession of the full details. That’s why I find it a good idea not to use instant book, and to ask as many questions as possible before accepting a booking.

All that said, I am glad you have found a resolution that works for you. It is much better than not talking about it! I do think you will struggle for the next five weeks. Any guest that has already behaved this way has indicated that your comfort is not much of a priority in their minds, so I believe you will need to continue to make sure further boundaries aren’t crossed as the stay continues.

All the best!

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" Over time you will find its the oldest trick in the book, and the only person that benefits is the withholder of information."

Well said. And the proper thing to do would be to offer the host if they can also prepare lunch and dinner for the host (if host would like to reheat and is not picky about dietary intake). If you are going to take over the whole kitchen (and if I was sharing my space with no other guests) - I just might be okay with a guest sharing all lunches and dinner meals with me in exchange…but I am single with no kids.

But I know so many have different dietary schedules, calories, ingredients, etc. it is hard to “make a deal” with someone. However, I know many single guys who would be totally up for this kind of deal. Win -win as long as another guest wasn’t checking in on the same day those guests are checking out.

Anytime a guest asks for a discount or anything, I think to myself - “and how will this benefit me too?” - It can’t be a one way thing…only to benefit the guest. If you want a discount then you show me what you will do to use less resources…use one less bed and bath so I don’t have to clean? Show me something! It’s not all about the guest. They assume everyone is desperate!

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Well! This year I got a booking from a Chinese girl, 20 years old and a university student. Her parents were visiting from China and they booked a 3 night stay with me, to do some touring of the Great Lakes and Shore Line.
I rent one large guest room, well suited for a 3 person party. It is a shared house deal, with me alone. Full kitchen use included.
They arrived with boxes and bags full off food, and filled my fridge to full, a very large fridge at that! And just as you “kasage00”, that very evening the cooking began, meals lasted three hours, cooking all the time. In the morning they cooked from 8:00AM till 10:00AM then went out touring till 5:00PM. Back again, they began the evening meals, cooking from 7:00-11:00PM. Repeat it all for three days. Yes, the smells are overpowering, and each cooking session was 3 hours.
No English with the parents, so I could not talk with them, the girl was pretty good, and friendly.
All in all, I was very fed up with the endless cooking and smells. Otherwise, very nice experience.

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oh my word, 69james, that’s to much!

One thing - irrelevant perhaps, but in my experience watching Chinese people cook they cook one dish at a time, which is why it takes so long.

And true, the Chinese people that I’m friends with don’t have ovens. Think of the energy required to run an oven!! Chines cooking is traditionally foods very well chopped because it takes less energy to cook and they have had very little energy to burn. So they put their own physical energy into preparing the food in advance, and use less energy for the actual cooking.

kasage00 glad you had a talk with the son and I hope it works out in the end. I am surprised they have not tried to feed you. ; ) Perhaps you could ask them to teach you how to cook a Chinese dish you enjoy?

Keep us posted!

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That’s an absolute result! Well done for tackling the really hard task of talking to the guest about the issue. I would make sure you keep checking in with them about it. You are doing them a massive favour letting them stay and I hope they appreciate it. Like you say - where else could they be? I would make a point of getting some friends round from time to time and reassert your authority on your home. Hope it all works out well.

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DC, I just added this rule:

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Yes, although it will still be a long 5 weeks…I wasn’t going to say to the son that he should have waited until he moves to Virginia and gets his permanent place before he brings his parents. Yes I would have declined him if I knew he was bringing his parents however if he was coming alone I would have accepted him. That is true, with instant book, seeing what I just experienced it is a good idea to have it turned off.

I have not been a fan of Asian food so I never asked to sample any of their food nor asked for cooking lessons.

There has been revisions to my listing as a result of this experience! And kona, I think adding your rule to the cooking rule is a good idea, in case someone asks “why?” I know people who cook intensely spicy foods may have gone noseblind to it, but other people have not!

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I quickly realized the potential for disaster with “instant book”. We should be Peer to Peer, meaning people must massage us and make some contact and exchange some information before that can book. We aren’t Hotels. The more we try to act like them, the more miserable our lives will be!

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Yes!! People must massage us! ; ) Cute typo, 69james, or was it auto correct? Oh, like those 4 Swedish guys that stayed with me this past summer…I should have made them massage me! (Just kidding! Really!!)

But I really, really like the comment about not trying to be hotels - that is very helpful to me at this time! Thanks!

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How are your guests going? @kasage00

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I’ll put it this way…2 and 1/2 weeks they’re out of here (not to mention I get a few days away from them as I’m traveling for thanksgiving)

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Kasage, when they finally leave let us know. We will pop the champagne in your honor!

champagne-splashing-out-bottle-popping-cork-34448197.jpg1300×957 75.9 KB

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I’m glad I saw this thread. We mainly have very short-term guests, and kitchen use has never been a particular problem, except with one couple very early on - but they were a pain anyway and so far have been the only guests we didn’t get on with well. But a local guy booked our place for two weeks over Christmas so his parents could visit, and it hadn’t occurred to me that kitchen use might be a big problem. We don’t list it as an amenity, and state that the kitchen is not really suitable for guest use although it’s not forbidden. Being only in my sixties, I’m still rather naive and assumed that guests actually read your listing, which apparently is not a given and possibly not even normal. We keep getting dinged on “Accuracy”, which has confused the heck out of us, but if guests are rating us based on what they assume our description says and not what it actually says - well, that would explain it. I’ve messaged the guy asking about his expectations surrounding kitchen use, but so far no answer.

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Eeeek. I learned when I first started teaching that you never ask the class what they’d like to do. :slight_smile: Want to start the math lesson? Who wants to be ball monitor? Do you want to go to recess?

Chaos ensues. No, rather, you TELL the kids what you will be doing. Same with guests. Put that in your rules. Light kitchen use (coffee, microwave, sandwiches allowed) and no cooking longer than 15 minutes. Or something like that. However you want to define it. I rent a separate lockable space and never deal with these issues, but if I did have a house I shared with guests, they would be forbidden to use the kitchen. I don’t think it adds that much value to your listing, but it does add a lot of hassle to your hosting.

It’s too bad you texted the guy. If he does answer that he expects to be able to use the kitchen to cook roast goose for a family of 12, maybe you can then tell him the rules. :slight_smile: “Well I’m glad you told me, because I just wanted you to understand that our kitchen privileges for guests is for light use.”

So set up your expectations first. Don’t let the guest come to you with their expectations.

As for accuracy, there’s something in the listing that does not match up with reality. Are you showing photos of areas that guests don’t have access to? That was one of my first mistakes as a new host. I showed pictures of the sunset from the lanai upstairs… which is misleading. Guests cannot sit up here and watch the sunset. Why give them pictures of that? So I made sure all my photos were the real deal.

I know the Air photo service is good, but sometimes it can “oversell” the place. I took out Air’s photos and just used ones I had taken myself. More accurate.

Disclose any and all cons. (far from town, no nightlife nearby, etc.) Read it over again and just comb it to make sure everything you state matches the reality.

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I was clearer about what’s permitted in my message: “your parents would be welcome to use the microwave in the main kitchen, and we have had guests make light use of the kitchen for things like pasta and rice. But so far, nobody has wanted to make elaborate meals, and that would be a problem if it was occurring on a daily basis.” We’re only four months into all this, and so far all of our guests except for that one couple have been quite reasonable. There’s a bar fridge, toaster, coffee maker and tea kettle in the guests’ sitting room.

Our photos are all my own (I used to be a photographer) and all show only guest areas (plus a couple of neighbourhood photos) and do not include the kitchen. One guest thought the photos of our backyard were of a large well-known park nearby; I’ve clarified that, but nobody else has told me why they dinged us. I’ve told a couple that I can’t fix the problem if I don’t know what it is, but no joy. Our written reviews are all excellent, and most of our star ratings are 5/5, so I’ve stopped worrying about it. Some people ding us on “value”, which is frankly insane. Sixty Canadian bucks for two rooms on a separate floor, with a generous continental breakfast, two minutes from the subway (in Toronto, that’s an enormous advantage), ten minutes from High Park, very close to any number of shops, restaurants and pubs, newly renovated bathrooms - plus we’re as social as any guest wants us to be. Most guests give us solid fives, but the ones who don’t are a puzzle.

Thanks for the tips, though. I found your listing - it looks really nice.

Cheers

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Mo, your place in Toronto sounds awesome!! I love it!

I still think that your kitchen cooking use sounds slightly wishy washy. If you don’t mind my saying so. :slight_smile: I just think if I read that and I was a guest, I might think that if I pushed you I could get to use the kitchen for heavy cooking! Lay down the law Mo. You don’t owe them anything more that what you are giving. Very low rate, they get a ton of amenities for their measly 60 Canadian and they should be happy with that dammit!

Just what more do they expect!?

As for the star dings, It’s the Yelp.mentality. They just have to ding something. If you found my listing you will see I’m dinged on stars too but screw it! I don’t care what they think ,hahaha… I have enough good written reviews I’d say. :slight_smile:

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If you don’t have kitchen under amenities, then they can’t use your kitchen. even if they don’t read you can still stop them if they will start cooking referring to amenities listed.
I had a girl reserving my room for a day, and i was very lucky that she prior to her arrival texted me that they were going to cook a lot. i cancelled her without any penalties bcs she was going to break my house rules of light cooking.
i do have kitchen under amenities, as i don’t really want guests not being able even to warm uo canned soups or florin dinners or leftovers, or make a toast. but i am strongly considering to take it off.

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Why don’t you take it off then in the description mention something about light cooking and if they want to cook contract you.

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Actually it’s a great idea, Kirsty_Jane.