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We just had guests check in that are under age 21, to be specific (as I did a little facebook research) the kid is still in high school, it’s their first airbnb rental.
first of all our home contains alcohol and we live in a legal 420 state. Are we at any risk in this case if they were to get into our alcohol??
what have been your experiences with teens renting your place? is there a way to set your home to 21+?
One of my early guests was an 18year old who BEGGED for a beer. I always ask how old they are before offering anything. If I were you I would keep the booze out of their room until you’ve met them first.
we hid the nice booze. ha. but we have a liquor cabinet in the main dining room, just worries me.
I have had several 18, 19 and 20 year old guests. They’ve all been delightful. As we offer beer to our guests; if they appear young, I ask how old they are and explain why I’m asking. If they are under 21 I tell them that they may not drink my alcohol.
I’ve had plenty of eighteen year olds and they were no problem at all. But if you’re worried about the drinks cabinet just remove the bottles and hide them somewhere that’s off limit to them.
Not all eighteen years olds are looking for an opportunity to drink booze. I leave a bottle of wine for guests as a general rules but change that to fruit juice for younger guests. Sometimes I leave them a couple of small cans of weak American beer. But bear in mind that there’s nothing to stop them bringing in their own booze. I had a couple of eighteen year olds (and I left beer for them) and they left half a bottle of vodka in the freezer. 
By the way, you can specify ‘over 21 only’ on your listing.
that’s true! I didnt think about specifying 21+ on the listing!
I imagine that there are always exceptions but I’ve always found that teenage guests are very good because they want to prove that they are adult and they also like the whole idea of Airbnb so want to get good reviews so they can continue to use the service.
This is just my impression, and not intended to be in the least bit inflammatory, but I’ve found that teenagers from Europe tend to be more responsible than those from the USA. This being said, my American teenagers have been sweethearts.
Another thing that they invariably do is act in a more environmentally friendly way. They always turn off the AC rather than leaving it on full blast when they check out. They report any bedding stains so that they can be removed without harsh chemicals and very rarely use the roll of paper towel that I leave in the kitchen. I also see them carefully using the recycling trash and those from other countries in particular ask me questions about what can be recycled in this country. I’ve never had teenagers who smoke - anything.
You’ll see that some listings specify over 25 or even over 30. I would have missed some lovely guests had I done that. My worst guests were in their forties.
Yeah, this is our first experience with a younger guest and I’m waiting to see how it goes before I make any decisions for sure. I find our ““worst”” guests are usually hovering around 22 and during spring break HA!
I agree with you. One wonderful thing about young guests is that they don’t wish they were in a hotel, but can only afford Airbnb. My younger guests have believed Airbnbs to be better than hotels.
Another good point - they have rarely had extensive posh hotel experiences! They are generally very appreciative and friendly. I think in some cases they’re just glad to have found a host who will accept them so they are determined to show that our faith in them was justified.
As someone who once, not long ago, posted about this - see Setting a lower bound on guest age, I’d like to offer my 2 units of whatever.
As you can see from that thread, it was politely pointed out to me, starting with @jaquo, that my concerns didn’t make much sense and were probably unjustified.
This thread was posted before my rental opened. At the time it was posted, I may not even have had an Airbnb rental page. As events have shown, they were probably correct. I’ve only had 2 reviews below 4 stars so far. A jerk from Malaysia (3 stars) who was in his 40s, I think. And the crazy Frenchman who I’ve written about elsewhere (2 stars), who was around 60. I also had significant problems with someone who was in his 70s who cancelled on me last minute (for a 10 days stay). Also I had a slightly weird situation develop with a recent couple - nothing major - but it’s the kind of thing best avoided. They were in their 50s. Most of my other guests have been twenty-somethings, some of them in their early 20s, and by and large they’ve been almost no trouble, and generally easy to deal with.
Well, there was the young couple (21) who thought they were locked out and panicked, but that was just a misunderstanding. And there was another 21 year old couple that made a bit of a mess. But both these couples gave me 5 star reviews, fwiw.
Broadly speaking, the really toxic situations that develop with guests tend to arise out of guest entitlement. I.e. the guest (or guests) think they are entitled to x by virtue of staying here. And don’t realise that x is unreasonable, or doesn’t scale to n people a month, or simply don’t care. And older people are far more likely to be entitled than younger people, in my experience.
And I haven’t particularly noticed whether younger guests are particularly environmentally responsible (people leaving the A/C on is a common problem), but in general jacqo’s comment seems on target.
I have had similar positive experiences with younger guests. My worst guests so far are parents with young children - but I’ve said enough about that to satisfy us all for some time…
I so agree with this! Of course there are always exceptions but that has definitely been my experience to date. I’ve had many young guests of 18 and they have been no worse than any others, in fact often nicer.
It’s interesting that this topic seems to be focused on alcohol consumption. My booziest guests were in their '60s and were basically drunk morning noon and night for three days. They were hilarious. There does seem to be marked difference between N America and most European countries in how we view young people. 18 is the legal age in the UK for being considered an adult in terms of voting, buying alcohol etc. It seems to be 21 in the US, mostly?
Yes, which is very annoying for 18, 19 and 20 years olds coming to the States from the UK!
It does make my eyebrows rise when watching US shows that feature high school students that are clearly grown men who should be out chopping wood and feeding their family, yet they behave like whiny children. Obviously, that is probably a casting issue (!), nevertheless, I think we probably expect our kids to be a bit more mature at aged 18 in Europe.
LOL! I was working somewhere about 6 years ago and a bunch of us were gathered in the break room area watching something on TV. It may have been the musical Grease. I can’t bear to watch muscials so I have never watched it. But the kid who was 19 raised his eyebrows and said “those are grown ass men” - ha! And looking back at Beverly Hills 90210 reruns from the 90’s…it is amazing to see people near 30 being cast as high school students!
That’s an interesting dislike. There aren’t a lot of good musicals out there, but there are a few. For example, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is quite fun to watch. Very energetic. And the dance sequences are very innovative. Annie Get Your Gun is also quite entertaining, though that’s a straight musical. For some reason, I’ve always found the number “You Can’t Get A Man With a Gun” hilarious. I don’t know why.
I don’t know what is…it’s just something about people breaking out into song and dance (in the middle of a movie) that I guess my brain doesn’t appreciate…lol.
Me too unless they are classics like West Side Story, South Pacific or The King and I. Shall we dance pom, pom, pom…
Or Astaire / Rogers. Isn’t it a lovely day to be out in the rain…
Sorry 