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!
It’s coming up to 6 am right now on the morning of Tuesday, February 28th here. At around 5 am I checked on the guest bathroom, and noticed that the hot water heater wasn’t working - the light on the heater isn’t coming on, and it isn’t heating. I have guests leaving this morning around 8-9 am. I left them a note about it. There’s a backup shower they can use if they need to, though it isn’t private. I talked to them when I did their checkout around 10 pm last night, and they said nothing about it, so it may just have happened.
I have two new guests arriving a bit later today; at 12.30-1 pm, for two days, from 28th Feb to 2nd March. Fortunately, after that I’ve scheduled a 6 day break to do maintenance work, so that should be plenty of time to repair or replace the hot water heater if it is not fixed by then.
But for the moment I’m left with the guests who are arriving. Suggestions/thoughts about how I should handle it? I haven’t notified them about this yet - and they’re in transit, so they probably wouldn’t see my message anyway. If it isn’t resolved by check-in, which is unfortunately probably going to be the case, I’ll tell them then. They could use the backup bathroom, but they won’t be happy about that. And I don’t know how long it would take to fix. I might be able to get someone out this morning, but there is no guarantee of that. Should I offer them a partial refund up front, or wait to see what they say? I don’t exactly make a lot of money on this. My rates are approx USD 35 per night + USD 7 cleaning fee.
@faheem, I wouldn’t stress about it. Explain the situation to your incoming guests and the probability is that they will be OK with it.If you feel that they are grumpy about it, then give them a 10% discount or, as I’ve been known to do, a gift card for a local Starbucks or whatever is appropriate to your area.
For the price you charge, I think that they will be amenable to using the backup bathroom.
Make sure that they love you and your accommodation in other ways.
I had the same thing happen recently. Fortunately, the departing guest wasn’t upset about not being able to shower in the morning on the day he left. I’m in the U.S. where it seems that one can get things repaired more quickly than in India. We had a new water heater installed the same day. Unfortunately it didn’t work very well so one guest had an uneven shower and the plumber turned off the water while another guest was showering. We refunded them each $20.00.
I assume that by saying the backup shower isn’t private you mean that you also use it. Personally, sharing a shower with the host wouldn’t bother me at all as long as I wasn’t made late for events because I had to wait for the shower. If I were you I would send them a message stating the facts that the guest bathroom’s water heater broke and that they will be using the shared bathroom. I would try to make it sound like a minor glitch rather than something they will be very upset about.
This is a very good point… to reinforce, @faheem, I would ask the guest [assuming they don’t run from you house anger at showers] if there is a specific time that they must shower in order to get to their daily activities. They might not think to ask since this shower thing would not be something they had considered. Or in fact, something you had considered.
No. There are 4 bathrooms in the house. This particular bathroom isn’t used by me. It’s used to some extent by a lady who washes our clothes in the morning. But I don’t think she uses the shower. But more recently we hired a temporary “helper” for my sister, who has been very sick. And this person has been using that bathroom, possibly to take showers, and without asking me.
So, anyway, it’s not a great situation to have to ask the guest to use that bathroom/shower.
There is a Racold water heater repair place in Colaba. I used them to fix my own water heater (also Racold), a year or two ago. I’ve call them in a bit and see if I can get someone to come out here first. We have another water heater which we might be able to remporarily fit in the place of the current heater. It’s old, but it works.
A refund of $10-20 sounds reasonable, if I can’t get it fixed fast. Or I could offer them a free lunch/dinner.
But… As I have just learned, even when you bend over backwards to try and remedy a situation, going above and beyond, and even if you refund!!! They can and still leave a bad review. Fortunately she was a bad guest so I was able to slam her hard in a review.
The guests were quite gracious, and said that bathing in cold water would be fine. They remarked, correctly, that cold water in Bombay was not really cold. It is true, at any rate, of this time of year, the end of February, when the temperature is getting warmer.
Of course, as @konacoconutz said, it doesn’t mean they won’t leave a bad review. But there is no way of guarding against that.
Anyway, a hot water heater mechanic is scheduled to arrive at 4 pm. But this is India, so he may show up later, or not at all.
Addendum to this thread - the hot water heater was fixed by around 6 pm that day - a part had burned out. Neither the repair guy nor myself could figure out how the shutoff valves worked, so I had to call in one of my people, who helps me with stuff like that, who fortunately did know how they worked. Clearly, ignorance is not bliss. I asked him to show me how the shutoff valves worked. I really should know things like that.
Oh, and the guests (who also said they might have left behind an Ipod) said they noticed it too, but “later at night”, and “We forgot to mention it before we left.” Sigh.
To be honest I’ve travelled extensively in India. Kerala I liked the rest was stressful mostly because of the staring and the constant attempts to rip me off.
Yes, that’s normal for India. I get the feeling that women have a harder time of it on average, though I don’t have any statistics on hand.
Kerala seems to be a popular tourist destination. I’ve never been there, though I’d like to some time. But it’s quite different from most of the rest of India, or so I hear.
