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I’m a 50 year old female who hosts guest in my spare room. In my profile it says that I’m engaged, just to scare off anyone who thinks I’m ‘available’. There is no engagement ring so maybe guests see through it. Twice this month I’ve had young male guests who said they’d be back in town a week after their stay and said they wanted to come and visit me. The latest one wrote to me at 1.30am, despite having congratulated me on my ‘engagement’.
For one thing I don’t want sexual attention, and even if these requests weren’t intended like that I still don’t want to be seen as a potential buddy. I have polite little chats with my guests in the hallway, and only really talk about them, not me. I use a fake host name too to stop guests following me on socials, so it’s not even the real me they are dealing with. I enjoy the little chats while my guests stay in my flat but I never encourage any connection outside of the hosting.
I find it uncomfortable to get these requests after their booking, and am wondering if anyone else deals with this, and how. I would prefer to ignore the messages, but have resorted to saying I’m too busy for visits.
Can you block them? Are they contacting you through the Airbnb message center? Are they contacting you through your cellphone? I think you can block them on both.
One said in person he wanted to visit the following week while he was here, so I was caought off guard and couldn’t just say no to his face. Luckily he didn’t follow up. The 1.30am guy messaged me through the platform. I think they were both innoncent in their intentions but it’s still annoying and a strain for me. I was hoping someone had experience with this. I am wary of blocking as I’ve just had to block another guest who stank and didn’t wash, I’m worried the algo will think a difficult host.
Hi @eyeborg - it seems that you’ve been posting here about having problems with male guests for about eight years. Maybe you could specify in your listing that you host only females? I’ve heard of other hosts who do this successfully.
Females unfortunately cause more serious problems on the whole, by getting drunk and then being targeted by sober men who offer to follow them home when they are lost and force themselves into the flat. Women also cost me a lot more money as they need more heating on, energy prices are very high where I live. Respectful men are in fact my favourite guests, they are low maintenance on the whole.
Huh? Of course it’s the “real you” they are dealing with- you share your home, they deal with you in person, they experience your personality and social interaction. That is the real you, not your name.
As Jaquo suggests, why not limit your listing to female guests only if you apparently experience this situation with male guests often enough to consider it a problem.
As a single female home-share host myself, albeit quite a bit older than you, while I seem to get more female than male guests, the male guests I have gotten, of all ages, have always been totally respectful. And I enjoy socializing with my guests if that’s what they’re into- I think a lot of guests who book a homeshare do so because they want some human connection in a strange place, not just exchanging pleasantries when passing in the hallway.
It always seems a bit strange to me when homeshare hosts resent guests who want to socialize during their stay. I had a male guest who insisted on taking me out for dinner his first night here- there was nothing sexual about it- he just wanted to chat about things to do in this area and didn’t want to dine alone. I accepted and it was a pleasant evening.
The same guest came back from town his last day here witha kilo of shrimp that we cleaned a prepared together and sat down to a big shrimp feast.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that you make yourself available to socialize with guests after their stay is over if you don’t want to and it makes you uncomfortable to even be asked to.
You seem to have some strange gender stereotypes going on here.
Many of your posts here over the last few years have been complaining about male guests and yet you prefer them as guests to females. I don’t know how many female hosts here would agree that they (and their female guests) are prone to getting drunk and being targeted by men who follow them home.
Many of your problem male guests seem to be young men who give you unwanted attention. Again, I’d be interested to know how many other females hosts here have the same problem.
I am several years older than you and have been hosting for many more years (unless you started in kindergarten) and have never had a situation where I couldn’t handle male guests.
You’ll find several topics here that suggest that when a host is having a repeated problem it’s time for the host to look at their own way of working and see if there’s anything they need to change about the way they run their business.
Are there any ways in which you think you may be able to diminish this long-established problem?
I have been homeshare hosting since 2016 and have never had female guests who got drunk and had men follow them home, nor have female guests used more utilities. The only difference I’ve found is that men tend to use less towels, and tend to eat out more rather than cook in the shared kitchen. But there are also exceptions both ways.
