This forum is dedicated to connecting hosts with other hosts. Sign up to get the latest updates and news just for AirBnb hosts! Note that we are not affiliated with Airbnb - we are just passionate hosts!
I had some guests who fried bacon and left behind such smells that I kept the door open and the ceiling fan on for 3 hrs. Then, they left the stove top a mess and I assumed they dumped the grease in the sink. I want to put these in the house rules. I also want to fine any guest who dumps animal fat in the sink or toilet. Here is the rules. Does it look ok to you? Is it too long? Can I enforce the fine?
-Please discard the animal fat in a jar or plastic container and leave it on the countertop for housekeeping to discard.
-Dumping animal fat in the kitchen sink or the toilets is STRICTLY prohibited because it will cling to the pipes and clog.
-There is a fine of 75$ if you cook with animal fat and don’t leave the residues for the housekeeping to dispose of. I will assume you dumped it into the sink or toilet.
My agreement has a clause that any lingering aromas or smoke that may disturb the next guests will be charged against their security deposit as a cleaning fee.
As a guest, I’d be pretty pissed if a host just assumed I did something and tried to fine me for it. And I can guarantee I’d write a scathing review and call it out.
There are two issues here - smells, and mess. The guest doesn’t know any better, nor what to do with the fat. Smell? Subjective.
Personally I cannot stand other people cooking, nor the cleanup. So I don’t allow it. Microwave to your heart’s content. A lot of hosts eventually don’t allow cooking for these reasons.
We don’t mention how to deal with fat/oil/grease in our house rules, but in our notes about kitchen use, we ask guests to pour it into an empty tuna fish (can which can be found under the kitchen sink) and when cool, put it in the refrigerator. We dispose of it after check-out. So far it has been working.
It might help to understand your setup- is this a whole house listing, or a home share?
Air will want EVIDENCE the guest dumped fat down the drain, so unless you’re adding cameras to the kitchen, you’ll have a hard time enforcing that fine. There’s too much plausible deniability. What if we microwaved some of that (icky! ) shelf stable bacon? With a lack of grease to present for disposal, but the unmistakable smell, how could we convince you we didn’t break the rule?
I understand where you’re coming from, but this feels too over the line. Some guests use a ton of TP in the toilet, but I haven’t yet required an inspection of their BM to TP ratios before they’re allowed to flush.
I’d probably just make a rule “No frying. Please don’t prepare meals that require the disposal of fats” and secondly a rule like @Klatchers suggests about lingering odors. If that doesn’t help, and it’s a shared kitchen, I’d do like @justMandi says and not allow use of the oven and stovetop.
Well, yeah, that’s the question. That’s why I am asking here. How can I enforce the guests to use a glass jar to dump the animal fat instead of dumping it in the sink/toilet?
And what would I do if they leave behind a messy stove top and pan and they don’t use the provided jar to dump the animal fat in? what would I suppose to think? They put it in their pockets?
I don’t know if it happened to any of you, but after I bought the house I live in, a couple of winters ago the pipe connecting my kitchen sink to the outside pipe in the street, was solidly blocked by animal fat. Years and years of previous owners dumping fat did this. And it happened at Christmas time. I don’t want to remember how much it cost, because it was an emergency and the dude had to work hard to get it unlocked.
What would you do in my place? How can I prevent this?
Mandy, I dont allow cooking in my own house where I rent out my son’s bedroom. But this happened in another house that I rent mostly to groups. And while some don’t cook or don’t cook bacon, occasionally I have a grandma who wants to cook or a family get-together. I’m fine with the smells, although I don’t like them (think indian spices when I have indian guests). But animal grease and clogged pipes it’s an entirely different story. Forbidding them to cook is impossible. It will put me out of business, because it’s a big house intended to be rented by groups or families. So that’s why I am picking your brains: how to prevent this and how to word it so that guests are not offended. Thanks.
Keep a nicely labelled jar next to the stove. Explain that your dogs or the neighbor’s dogs or the dogs at the local animal shelter love a dollup of bacon frease with their food …
Keep extra paper towels next to it.
I would think, judging from the smell, that about half our guests fry bacon on the morning of departure. I have a 5 hour turnover window so there’s plenty of time to get the smell out.
If it was a problem though, I’d just remove the frying pan…
Rule number one about rules is not to make rules you can’t enforce. You can have guidelines and instructions and you can ask nicely and provide a bacon grease collector but making a rule and fining people…no.
I’d chalk up routine pipe maintenance to “cost of doing business.” Regularly pour baking soda, vinegar and boiling water down the kitchen sink drains. On some sinks it’s easy to remove the trap part of the plumbing regularly and clean it and reinstall it. If that’s not good enough, have a professional come roto-rooter the pipes periodically.
We have not had bacon here, or any pork, for nearly 8 months. Easy. One of our guest’s religion does not permit pork. Although he insists it’s fine, none of us particularly like it. But the real reason is inclusiveness. If we want him to have a plate full of whatever, we want him to feel welcome.
That’s fine. You’re going to need to print this off, laminate it and tape it over the knobs for the stove so that guests have to read it to cook. If its just in the house rules on the listing, guests won’t follow these rules. If you want feedback on the rules themselves, I don’t put things in all caps ever because I find its disrespectful and leads to people breaking the rules more.
Personally, I’m more worried about fires in the kitchen. I pay for a preventative drain cleaning one a year because I haven’t found a way to keep guests from flushing or pouring random crap down the drain. I just don’t want smoke, fires or smells.
I used to leave a basket of fresh eggs out from my chickens, until I realized I was encouraging greasy bacon to go along with it. I am moving towards providing less in the kitchen, I already took the griddle because guests were using it to fry bacon and splatter everywhere. I am removing about half the stuff from the kitchen, if they need a roasting pan they will need to bring it with them and bring it home, I am not cleaning it. I will be setting up another unit this summer and I am going minimalist on cooking stuff. Also I am gathering menus from the local restaurants to leave for the guests to get them out of the house. I like when they eat out:)
mmhhmmmm me too. I don’t see that working unless I’m hosting at $300/night at least. Then it’d be worth it to spend a couple hours cleaning up the kitchen or paying someone to clean up the kitchen.
On the whole, probably a good idea. I know if I had to buy or bring certain cookware to do certain jobs, I just wouldn’t cook those things. OTOH, few things go together like bacon and a cabin in the woods. So when they spread the bacon out over your oven rack and cook it under the broiler dripping grease on then inside of your oven don’t be surprised.
I had one guy cook or heat up some sort of food in my kettle. But only one out of 100’s so I’m not removing the kettle or writing up rules that treat my guests like children.
) shelf stable bacon? With a lack of grease to present for disposal, but the unmistakable smell, how could we convince you we didn’t break the rule?