Depends on the country, of course. Chainsaws, in the hands of regular citizens, are forbidden in some places.
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Haha. Thanks for the laughs. I feel a bit better about it all so Iâll keep my fingers crossed the house is nice and clean tomorrow when the guests checkout.
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âŚechos of a Seinfeld showâŚ
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@LegendsCreek. To be honest, nothing you described sounds like people who are trashing your house. They love it enough to invite people over to see it! I think that it will be okay. (yes, just my gut response based on very little.)
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I can only commiserate on the flow of guests in and out. It comes down to confronting them the first time, but like you, I probably wouldnât have thought to speak up immediately, and by then, weâre just biding time until they are gone. Next time, eh?
As for interrupting you while working it sounds as if you are âtoo politeâ. Answer the questions with two-word sentences and a smile, and as noted, donât put down the tools. Then stand there and endure the awkward silence - donât even acknowledge the small-talk with âahâ, because someone intent on telling their own story is only thinking about what theyâll say next, and that âahâ signals them to continue. If you do not respond at all, it very, very quickly gets the message across that you are waiting for them to stop talking.
The awkward silence is a Western thing - we feel we have to fill empty space by saying something, ANYTHING. But you need to practice enduring it, for your own self-preservation.
This particular set of guests is coming to bother you as theyâve nothing else to do. You do - and you cannot be their daily entertainment when youâre trying to work. 
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Yes, but only IF the guest will endure the silence!! Often itâs not even a possibility to have any silence at all! I need to learn out to untangle myself from such situations, but Iâm not good at it at all.
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Iâm going to address the slow down of your bookings. I started two years ago in October. I was shocked how fast I got my first guests but was lucky enough to have semi-frequent guests through the winter (Iâm in Boulder), which gave me two great perks when I started: (1) time between guests so that I had the luxury of learning to host with time in between guests; (2) finding out that the non-tourists months are hit-or-miss. And then, the summer hit and I was booked pretty much solidly. You are not in a central location for business people so please donât base your summer months (and your newbie boost) on what you should expect the year around. You will learn to expect an average over the year, with some times of the year (probably summer for you, too), to be way busier than the rest of the year.
LOVE the goats!!!
I never managed it until I moved to a country where they do this a lot 
they will also interrupt a babbler too and bluntly say whatâs on their mind.
Itâs amazing how empowering it is once you learn to lose that urge to fill silences.
Yeah, a famous Seinfeld line. :D. Another favorite:
âif you canât be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.â
Lolz.
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Iâll have you guys know I can wield a chainsaw with the best of them. 
Also a weedwhacker. You gotta stay on top of the jungles in Hawaii because they grow three inches an hour in sunny and rainy conditions and theyâll be on top of you if you donât battle them regularly. But then Iâm girlie too. I like ballet class and going to Macyâs. I love glamour and fashion. 
Four legged love - thatâs sounds just a little weird
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I donât allow visitors to my home, without prior approval. Why? When we sublet this place at the last minute to âThe Cottages on the Golf Courseâ management due to a plumbing break, the guests who came over brought other cottage guests. Evidently they partied, had a BBQ at our home, and offered Margaritas over the split rail fence to the golfers on the green. They let their kids run around on the same green.
No visitors unless youâve discussed and cleared it with me beforehand.
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I am advised never under any circumstances cancel a booking, the guest must do it. When a guest request that I cancel their booking I immediately refer them to airbnb to talk them through how they do it.
So the guests checked out an hour early today. I was home and able to say goodbye with them. They seemed genuinely happy and totally in love with our place. They thanked me for our hospitality and said it felt like home away from home (that is what we want).
They also thanked me for allowing their visitors to come as they are local residents of my town (family of theirs) who remember the history of our property (our property is kinda famous in our area and people have been extremely nosey since we bought it 2 years ago and we really just want to be left alone and enjoy our privacy but of course those who want to pay to come are very welcome, haha). I donât recall allowing the visitors or giving the impression that it was OK and I can only guess that perhaps when they first booked it several months ago we were just starting out and perhaps my rules were not exactly as âobviousâ as they are now.
Anyway, the house was very clean and I wonât be leaving any bad review but I want to find other ways of making it very clear to people that they need to respect our house rules. I could just spell it all out and make a giant list of why we donât allow it but I think that would be disrespectful and come across as arrogant.
Maybe I am just past due for a vacation myself and over stressed that everything is slowing down for the season. I could probably very easily get a winter renter but maybe I will just not rent it at all. Its not about $$ even though the $$ is awesome. I just donât want the house sitting empty all winter as those situations tend to be when things go wrong.
As for the guests who requested this past Sunday evening to cancel their upcoming reservation for this coming weekend, I think in the future we will say that we cannot cancel the reservation or offer a refund, but if they cancel it and we end up finding another guest we will later refund them in full. Though it does turn out now that the weather is saying it will likely be OK out. Typical fall weather but nothing to cancel over in my opinion.
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@LegendsCreek I think you have a bit of a dilemma with this property. You have made it very clear in your posts here that you have a self contained free standing guest house and although you live on the property you really want your privacy. But yours is the kind of property that screams âhave guests over and wander around and pet the goats and ask me about our soaps!â Unless you arenât on the property at all Iâd imagine guests like this would be more common than not.
Your House Rules state, at the top before you click the âmoreâ link, "We can only welcome guests who are clean and responsible adults that love animals and nature, and are very friendly (though if you want to come and be left alone to your privacy, you will be). " Maybe you should leave out âvery friendly.â Friendly means different things to different people but if you ask your guests to be friendly and say one of you is always there to answer questions but then stand there with your chainsaw running and glancing at your watch (advised in this thread, not saying you do that), it might not seem you are being friendly in return.
Make it clear that because itâs a working farm you have to work during the day and may not be available to answer questions or chit chat.
Furthermore âWe have a strict policy on the number of approved guests.â Most people would think approved guests mean overnight guests not people visiting for the day. What exactly is that âstrict policy?â I can certainly see why someone would want to invite their friends for a day of exploring the 50+ acres and having some beers while the paying guests grill. I think you need to make clear what âapproved guestsâ are. Maybe cut back on some of the repetitive description of the trails, hiking, streams, fishing, birding and instead make it clear that the grounds are only for paying guests.
You sound way too friendly given your desire to not interact much with the guests.
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VERY good advice K9. I guess I need to do some rewording of the rules. When I saw âvery friendlyâ its because we donât want rude people here. Rudeness is an especially vulgar behavior to me and I guess that also might be part of the problem with how guests perceive us. Even if we are being inconvenienced by guests we would never be rude to them.
Our farm is certainly a magnet for people who might want to âhave the familyâ over and I am going to reword it a bit and see if it helps. In all honesty when guests have asked in the past to invite people over I have said yes and its been perfectly fine. Could you imagine asking someone âdo you mind if my mom comes over for tea? she lives nearbyâ and then having the host say no? haha. I couldnât do that.
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Perhaps the âpeople who love animalsâ thing is encouraging guests who want to wander about the farm and nose about and chat to you?
And I donât think itâs too harsh to say up front that due to it being a working property, itâs not suitable for inviting additional day guests unless approved before booking.
That doesnât stop them inviting mum over for tea, but youâll know about it and can stress the importance of locking gates and so on.
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But the problem comes when one personâs perception of âfriendlyâ is another personâs idea of ârudeâ!
K9 nailed it as usual. Top of the rules -
- This is a working farm and though we love our guests, we ask that for everyoneâs safety communication is limited to text or email only.
2, For this same reason we are only able to allow registered guests on the property. Additional family or friends are not permitted.
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Instead of âcommunication,â maybe say personal guest interaction. Be more specific.
This ainât no petting zoo is another way of putting it.
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Legend, you are obviously a very kind person and saying no doesnât come easy, and you do work at home, and you do have an interesting place. Hmm quandary. I would say: "Only registered guests are allowed on the property, because of insurance/liability realitiesâ. Meaning the insurance route is to take âyourselfâ out of it. However, you could always allow visitors on a case-by-case basis, if they happened to do ask and if you do indeed want to.
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