Host's Friends in Shared Place

@datrip1 you’ve got a ton of justifications, so it’s pretty clear you’ve made up your mind, and you’re going to be right most of the time, but not all the time, which is the reason you created this thread. If you don’t change anything, you should expect it to continue to come up in future reviews (infrequently), but there’s really no need to change if it’s not hurting your ratings. If it does, then there’s a lot of good advice here on how to fix it.

It’s not unusual for neighbours, friends and guests to enjoy a very casual meal, particularly if there is a celebration. They don’t necessarily hang around, and some take goodies for later. The point is that everyone is invited.

P.S., if we have a guest who is studying, not well,or otherwise indisposed, I prepare little containers instead. It’s more like a drop in.

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Hey,
Fellow Chicago Airbnb host here. My husband and I have also grappled with this question. BBQs and yard parties are a bit facet of the summers in Chicago and though I agree that we have paying guests, they did opt to stay in a neighborhood, in the city and in a shared space - I don’t think it’s unreasonable to enjoy your home, especially with giving some notice and including guests in the bbq. We had a relatively big BBQ while hosting last summer (15-20 guests) and were just conscious of abiding by quiet hours and informing the guests. We’ve decided to enjoy our home and the summers, after all if we aren’t having a party all of the neighbors will be.

I should note that we don’t do this often, but we do want the flexibility to do it and informing guests seems reasonable (vs blocking out the rental and losing all the income for the weekend just to have a casual bbq - we also debated this).

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