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In case you need some comedic relief today…I just woke up this morning to notice a car right outside our front bedroom window. Yep. Our guest, who arrived around midnight last night, parked in our front yard, feet from our house. I mention FIVE different times in our listing (I went back and counted) that we have street parking. He drove up into a garden bed built with rocks and an irrigation system. And apparently didn’t notice?
Really dude? Even parking in our driveway and blocking me in would have been better than this! And I mean, he was FAR UP in our yard too, not just partially in the grass or something.
My husband is absolutely livid. Called the guest at 5:30am to have him move the car. It was partially in our neighbors yard also, and we wanted it moved before they got up and noticed.
Once it’s a little lighter outside we’ll be checking the extent of the damage to the garden beds, shrubs, and other plants. Luckily it’s winter and I haven’t planted anything recently. We called CS to document what happened and when.
These guests are here until Monday so hopefully it’s smooth sailing from here on out. Guest seemed disoriented (maybe from being woken up) but also seemed very confused as to why he couldn’t park in our front yard.
Y’all…I’m a former flight attendant and always get asked what crazy stories I have from the job. I always say it’s nothing compared to what I’ve seen so far as an Airbnb host
I would share the photos we took but it shows our house so for privacy reasons it’s best not to. But yes, we did make sure to have plenty of photo documentation.
Also edit to mention: we are in the US and our guest is from the US as well.
No, I can assure you you are not this much of a nitwit. He drove up as far into our front yard as he possibly could without driving into our back gate. I wish we could put up a parking sign but I’m afraid it would draw negative attention from neighbors.
I had several issues with parking when I first started. I had a large concrete half circle driveway but people would park in various places and not always where I asked them to. I now start my check in message with the instruction of where to park. I also added some concrete and made the area squared off. Maybe it’s a psychological thing.
This may be a one off but if it’s not you will have to do things to guest proof the parking. If you think a parking sign would draw negative attention to the neighbors just wait until your neighbors catch guests throwing cig butts in their yard, peeing in their yard, ringing their doorbell, etc. If you don’t have a good relationship with your neighbors it can be problematic. They can report you to your city and to Airbnb.
I have Red flashing lights and an Airbnb Sign that says park here and pull to the wall. They still don’t follow instructions. It’s also mentioned in the check in info.
I really am beginning to wonder about the quality of our education systems.
I have numerous stories of crazy parking jobs at my place (in my vegetable garden, in a flower bed they had to drive over a stone barrier to get to - and popped their tire in the process, on the side of the hill during mud season with a rented Mustang - had to call a tow truck). My directions clearly state that the driveway ends in a ‘Y’ and to park in one of the open spots. Since this was clearly not enough, I purchased a traffic cone with a slide on, reflective cover stateing “Welcome, Guest Parking”. I place this at the end of one of the sections of the ‘Y’ now, and it’s worked splendidly . . . until two weeks ago when two younger women with a rented car checked in late, moved the cone to the side, and pulled onto my block patio . . . under the drop of my metal roof . . . during a snowstorm. I woke in the morning to no car in the drive, and panicked, thinking they left in the middle of the night. Worse . . . they were on the patio, car covered from the “roof-alanche”. I got the snowblower out, cleared the drive, then cleaned their car off, shoveled it out, and ended up waking them (slept through check out time, to add to it!) to move the car (asked them to enter from passenger side for safety, due to additional snowfall). They left a fantastic review, and I left an honest one!
It used to be in my rules that motor vehicles were not allowed off of the driveway. What I had in mind when I wrote that rule was preventing people from bringing their kids’ ATVs and riding them on the property. I declined an inquiry early on from someone asking to do just that and I felt pretty smug when I could point to the rule.
Fast forward 11 months, over Christmas vacation. We are staying there and planting trees and find where someone has turned around a duallie and trailer in our yard while it was wet, leaving deep, permament ruts. It’s going to take wheelbarrows full of fill dirt to cover the ruts during a future visit.
I didn’t get angry. I got to work. I got an excellent deadlift workout in that day. I lined the entire driveway (a little shy of the length of a football field) with small boulders. I then deleted that rule and said, “Go on and drive on the lawn now, A. Hole. I double-dog dare you.”
… they went off of a circular driveway that is designed for people pulling trailers to get in and out easily, into the yard in order to turn around. It’s a good thing I didn’t know who did it, because I wanted to write them to ask, “WHY? Just, why?”
Reviewing video cam footage before it expires or I delete it can be interesting. But maybe you don’t really want to know. (Like the footage of a neighbor kid peeing behind a tree in my front yard. Ewww. )
We installed the video cam in November, just after the last set of guests we hosted. It wasn’t them, it was someone who stayed before them. Previously I only knew what guests drove after retrieving my game cam SD cads. There was one group who had their bikes trailered who came when we were having a lot of rain over the summer. The weather cleared up just in time for them to ride that weekend. I’m certain it was them, but can’t prove it. They’re the only ones who were hauling trailers when the yard was wet enough for that kind of damage to be done.
They didn’t take particularly good care of the house, either. They used dead wood from the yard and built a fire in our fireplace, and didn’t clean it out. I had pics of them gathering kindling from the front yard. They left excess trash and a lot of mud on the floors. It wasn’t enough for me to blacklist them, I’d take their money again, but they aren’t the kind of guests I prefer.
Just curious, do your neighbors know you have an STR? They have such a bad rap around here, I just worry mentioning it! Not that our neighbors could “do anything”; our city currently has no rules or restrictions when it comes to STRs other than you can’t have more than one on your property. I’ve said this before but i wish they had more restrictions or required a license IMO.
All your other points a great too. I feel like my check in message has become a novel with all the “important info they need to make sure to read” I just started telling guests to please open and read the detailed check in guide i send so they stop going to our front door. The check in guide has photo examples of where to park. I really really hope this is a one off thing because I don’t know how to get more detailed LOL
I’m thinking of investing in large, SHARP rocks and lining the perimeter of our yard with them .
But really, me being a first time homeowner, you begin to realize the time/money/energy it takes to maintain a nice yard. It’s beyond frustrating when things like this happen! My poor husband does most of the yard work and I could tell he was using everything in his power not to completely lose it
Stop it…that’s completely absurd! I can’t believe that (or honestly I can, but still ).
Just when you think you’ve seen it all right? Thing is if the yard was just a flat patch of dead grass I could understand the confusion. Our guest literally was parked on top of semi-jagged rocks that have been built into a planter. He’s very fortunate to not have popped his tires. Like I said in another comment, our check in instructions include PHOTOS of where to park on the street. I’m just not sure I can help people that can’t figure it out from there LOL.
I don’t know for sure what they know or think they know. I also do in home dog boarding. So there is a steady stream of people bringing dogs to my home and a variety of cars in my driveway. In an average week I’ll have 3-6 different people with dogs or staying in my Airbnb. In a really busy week I might have double that. There is an Airbnb logo sign on the separate door into my Airbnb room that can be seen by anyone walking up to the house. And I make no secret of it. Repair persons, contractors, dog boarding clients, or a neighbor…anyone coming to my home is likely to be told that I board dogs and do Airbnb. No one has any reason to complain as I live here, it’s always quiet and I provide a large off street parking area. I have one of the best kept properties on the street and despite the dogs it’s quiet here. If anyone is going to have misgivings about anyone on the block I’m going to be far down the list.
I’m completely in favor of this but it’s not coming to my city anytime soon.
Sometimes no matter what you do people just don’t get it. Even with my clear instructions (“after you park in the driveway enter the gated front porch area and look to the left where your door is. It has an Airbnb logo on it”) I see people going to the left side of the house and looking. I’ve even seen people walk over to the right side of the house and look before walking up to the gated front porch.
I have a checkin guide to help people find the place, I assume they don’t read the words so I tried to put as many pictures as possible to foolproof it for them. It’s not that the directions are particularly complicated, but that I drove past the house for 14 years before I knew it had been built there. I had a hard time finding it when I got the Zillow alert it had been listed, even with the address and knowing the area and that road in particular since I was born, I remember before the road was even paved.
Yes, I was a guest for years before hosting. I have always approached it knowing I’m likely in somebody’s home and have always treated it as such. I’m very detail-oriented and always make sure the read the listing in full before booking. If I have questions I make sure to ask the host before arriving if possible.
One of my first lessons with being a host was that I can’t hold people to the same standards that I have for myself. I will likely end up disappointed. Haha.
Gotta love people… we have no street parking (off street parking provided) from 2am-6am otherwise you with receive a ticket. I mention it several times in my listing. Guest parks on the street receives ticket and wants me to pay. You park under a no parking sign…yeah nope it didn’t happen. Fork out the $5.00 lol
I just started telling guests to please open and read the detailed check in guide i send so they stop going to our front door. The check in guide has photo examples of where to park. I really really hope this is a one off thing because I don’t know how to get more detailed LOL
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