Again, I am new to all of this… I have no idea what to expect so forgive me if I have questions… even if you think they are dumb or irrelevant… How are my supposed to learn more… I learned from this that no matter what things fall on us but also what we need to do to keep such from happening again.
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and no I was not stressed out about it, just irritated.
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I have no idea if you have any recourse with this. I guess you could ask the guests for some extra money but can’t really see CS dealing with this in anyway that would be fruitful.
I was once looking into the STR insurance called Slice and I noticed that “overuse of utilities” was something they covered. Obviously this doesn’t help you at this point but for hosts that have it as a recurrent problem it could be useful.
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Absolutely no problem at all. That’s what we’re here for. 
And there’s no such thing as a dumb question. Here, anyway…
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And then left it on when they were done…
I’m not sure what the deductible limits are for the Slice insurance coverage, but I would imagine that unless the water bill was extraordinary (on for days/weeks at a time), it probably wouldn’t come close to meeting the deductible and getting a payout from the insurer.
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I walked in to do a turnover after one guest and the heat was set at 80 degrees! And I have a great heater. It was nice and toasty in there… 
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I learned from this thread too, I hadn’t thought about a guest leaving on the outside hose. I wonder if there is a way to just lock them off - my guests do not need access to the water outside.
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There are quite a few things paid out under Slice that don’t have a deductible. If I remember correctly, there was no deductible for excessive utilities use but there was a payout limit of $1000 or something like that.
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Good to know, thanks.
There are locks you can get. I bought a couple for my LTR in NY when my last tenant flakes out 3 months into a 3 year lease, vacated, moved 5 houses down the street and came back and vandalized the house.
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Ahh! Here’s what I bought. A little cheaper and doesn’t require a separate padlock. It comes with its own keys and they can be keyed alike for multiple locks.
Flow Security Systems | Faucet Lock II | Magnetic Key | Keyed The Same | Prevents Water Theft & Secures Outdoor Taps | Promotes Water Conservation | Fits Most Outdoor Hose Bibbs | FSS 500 | 1 Pack https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F62VKZQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_ALw1DbDSCWDHA
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Our guests need the hose for washing off sand before coming into house.
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hose use is needed for washing off sand coming in from beach
Josie- Here’s another idea for you- maybe you could attach some piping and a shower head to that outside water piping the hose is attached to. Then guests can just turn on the faucet to the shower, rinse off, and turn off the shower faucet. Much less likely that they’d just leave the shower running when done rinsing than leaving the hose running and if they have kids, there’s no chance of them playing with the hose water and not turning it off. Then you lock the hose away where your gardener or whoever really needs it can get it and hook it up.
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Yes, we are at some point going to build an outside shower but some plumbing will need to go where we want it and cannot do it now with all the bookings!
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I know. I was responding to @georgiahost about how to lock hers.
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What I’m saying is you don’t have to build an nice outside shower at this point- all you need is a vertical pipe attached somehow to the faucet instead of the hose, with a faucet to turn it on and off, with a shower head on it. A plumber could do that in less than a day. You could still reuse those same pipes and the shower hardware when you decide to build the outdoor shower.
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@Josie0811 I am relatively new to hosting and had this same experience involving both a running toilet AND an outdoor hose (for beachy feet) this summer. Regarding common sense, when I asked my guest about hearing the water running, she said that she just wasn’t sure if it was normal or not for the water to be running and running like that. The toilet fixture was hopelessly defective and had to be replaced. The worse one was when a child left the outdoor hose running TWICE in the same day, after rinsing off his feet. The culprit was not the child, but a cheaply made sprayer which should have automatically shut off the flow when the child let go. You would have thought someone would have noticed the heavy flow of water down the driveway, or heard it still running, but no. Or maybe they did, I don’t know. Lesson learned, don’t buy cheap garden implements. Don’t count on guests to care about your water bill. Don’t count on children to care about anything.
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