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I am an in home host with a private bath (first level) and private room (second level) for guests. My own, private room with separate bath are on the second level. I have a framed sign on my bathroom door, “Host’s Private Bath. Please use the guest bath on the main level. Thank you!”, and usually keep it shut when I have guests so the sign is clearly in front of them should they approach it. My listing has a picture of their private bath, it’s location is written in the description, and I also reiterate in my welcome message where their bathroom and bedroom are. To be even more clear, my manual in the room, and in my listing states all the rooms and outside spaces that are shared (all spaces with the exception of my bedroom and bathroom).
This morning I came back from walking my dog, and thought the guests were still asleep as I’d not seen them. I ran up to my bathroom, and opened the CLOSED door (with the SIGN on it) to find a woman sitting on my toilet! I was startled to say the least. I’d met the man/husband (who booked) when I’d come home from work around 6:30 pm the night prior for about 1 min before taking my dog out. They never came down until I went to my room to watch a movie that night, and used the kitchen to share a light meal (I have a Nest cam faced to the front door which shows part of the kitchen). How much MORE clear can I be about PRIVATE bathroom. Door closed with a sign stating such, and ppl STILL choose to use my bathroom. They had, for the record, showered in their bath at some point in the evening, so knew it was designated for them.
I’m seriously losing my shit with guests lately (hosting 3.5 years now) - am I just burnt out or are there more entitled, non-listing reading, non-message reading guests these days? I used to enjoy hosting immensely!
Both. I think there are MORE guests. Airbnb seems to be growing at a steady clip. A good portion of my guests have just joined and have no reviews. So as you expand the pool of guest the average quality is going to go down.
Is this an ensuite bathroom? It sounds like it’s a bathroom on the floor with the guest room. This woman probably knew you were out and thought she’d be done before you returned.
You either need to not be bothered by guests using it or put a lock on it.
So simple . . . so true. Thanks for breaking it down. I won’t lie, I AM bothered (would not host if I didn’t have my own bathroom), so that makes a lock the solution! I find it funny that these SAME guests brought their own sheets, blankets, and pillows for the bed, but feel okay about sitting on someone else’s toilet!
I was thinking the same as @KKC when I was reading your post - just lock the door.
I’ve mentioned before (okay, several times) that hosts need to ‘guestproof’ their rental properties. We childproof our homes when we have young kids and everyone seems to do that with no problem. But then we see hosts expecting guests to act 100% perfectly.
The lady on your loo might simply have been bursting for a pee while her husband was in their own en suite loo. She might have had a dodgy burger or something and just couldn’t wait. No reasonable and logical person is going to use a loo with a ‘keep out’ sign unless their need was pretty urgent.
(Oh and as long as their own bathroom was fine and fully equipped with necessities).
Ah, one of our rare disagreements. I think people just do what they want a good deal of the time. Like a sign that says “no public restroom” on a shop in a tourist area intimidates me but sit in the shop and watch people walk in and go use the restroom. All those tourists didn’t have dodgy burgers they just don’t want to walk down to the public toilets two blocks away.
My money is on them thinking they won’t get caught.
Wish this was true . . . 6 night guests this summer continued over and over through closed door with sign (AND THEY WERE HOSTS THEMSELVES), and had to speak to them personally. Both professionals, intelligent, well spoken . . . just entitled, clearly.
Guess what I do if I see a sign saying ‘Keep Off the Grass’.
And ‘Wet Paint’ signs are just begging for me to touch the surface in question.
But yes, I do tend to have an overly optimistic view of human nature (even after all these years of hosting - weird really!) but nevertheless I can’t understand why someone would use a bathroom not intended for their use when they’ve got a perfectly good (unoccupied) one expressly for their own use.
Put a digital lock on it, for which you have the code. I’d do the same for your bedroom, too.
We did that with our bedroom (our bath is en suite). No one can accidentally walk into our room. It has a sign on the door saying it’s our room, but two guests walked in before we got the digital lock. We have the same kind of locks on our guest room doors and our front door.
I’m surprised nobody has ever written a detailed how-to list for shared-space hosts on guest-proofing your home. Lock up your valuables and lock up your personal space should be #1 and #2 on the list.
I hope she was startled too. What did she say to you?
I host in my home too but have only once had a similar issue. An Airbnb employee/guest used the shower room belonging to another bedroom/listing. Her excuse was that she needed a pee and one of her mates was in their shared bathroom. They were mortified; she was simply entitled. What enraged me most was that she had to have snooped around the house to find it.
I am assuming that you allow your guests to self check-in if you are working and not home until 6.30pm? I think that might be the problem. By checking people in personally, I can make sure that they really do understand what is their space and what is not available to them. Or perhaps you could have a sign simply saying “Private”, leaving off the fact that it’s a bathroom.
Can you put a lock on it? When there are no guest, of course, it would be unlocked. If you have guests, then lock it with a key. It will be a pain in the neck each time you need to unlock it for personal use but at least it will keep them out. You can put a lock box on the bathroom’s door knob so you can retrieve the keys when needed.
