Hustle to make Early Check-in Happen; Guest Shows up @ 5PM

My neighbor here, who is originally from Spain, had a brief boyfriend who invited her to his place in Malibu. She said she couldn’t believe that was what people considered to be some ritzy, prized place to live. A bunch of houses crowded onto a skinny strip of beach with a constantly noisy highway running behind it.

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Can never take that word seriously after trying a particularly sickly and sweet rum based liqueur, flavoured with coconut, which went by the name of Malibu!

:face_vomiting:

JF

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happened All The Time

I think that comes from watching too much TV and tourists looking for something exciting. I have friends in Malibu and that’s not the vibe I ever got there. It’s people who like the beach, surfers, seniors, artists, writers, friendly and laid-back like most beach communities.

You have Barbados to thank for that, not CA :wink:

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Well actually the blame lies initially with IDV and then subsequently Diageo and ultimately Pernod Ricard.

The old Barbadians simply provided the rum juice :rofl:

It’s bloody horrible, even at 5am when there’s nothing else left to drink, as I found out when attending a party in some god forsaken area of Istanbul a few years ago. Had to walk 5km down the side of the Bosporus to get home and all I could taste was feckin Malibu. Yuch.

JF

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Yep. You know I live with a booze-pro, right? Maybe you guys should go bowling.

Nah, we’ll just get a room, with a wet bar. Then we can bore the respective arses off each other with war stories about alcohol, and you and my OH can go shopping.

JF

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Make sure to ask him for the story about the Cherry Marnier.

This is exactly how I do it, too. Early if you want, no big deal either way.

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Well, I thought it was very interesting and professional.

I thought “dogs never defecating anywhere on the premises” since premises means the building and the land (ie the entire property) was a little :thinking:. I assume you mean “indoors”?

I appreciate communicating that you feel less than 5 stars is failure but I think you may get a thrashing here for the actual reviews printed to provide “inspiration”. It’s a little cheeky, to be honest. But, hey, you do you :grin:.

Overall I enjoyed it & found it an easy read. I admire it but sadly could not do anything like that because it’s a little too “hotel-like” and I rely on people treating my home like they’re visiting Granny’s (yeah, I’m old & so is my place :older_woman:t4:).

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I’ll take “interesting and professional” as a compliment!

We want the dogs to not defecate on premises entirely. That’s not a typo. Take the dog for a proper walk. That is, please don’t just let it roam outside to pee/poop on the property!

I’d say >33% of our guests (especially recently) are 0-review guests. As a result, we get people through that think they should be rating the listing like they do a restaurant on Yelp (or worse) a luxury hotel. So we try to do what we can to educate/mitigate that from happening.

The #1 objective of the guide is to give our guests the tools they need to navigate key amenities. The recommendations, emergency contacts, review tutorial is just a bonus. There’s no hotel I’ve ever stayed at that has a groovy guide like that! I’m always calling the front desk or wondering around the resort to figure things out for myself. I dunno. . . a great welcome guide can only make the experience a little better. Even if you’re visiting Granny’s! :heart_eyes:

A welcome guide doesn’t have to be 26 pages long to be great, though. Do you really think your guests read through all that stuff?

And maybe you don’t see the value in it, but wandering around trying to figure out things for oneself can lead to some unexpected and valuable life experiences. You never know who or what you might run into who could change or enrich your life in some positive and unexpected way. That won’t have a chance of happening if you’re sitting in a room reading a 26 page manual.

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True confessions: Mine is 11pp (no one kill me!) but I don’t expect anyone to read it so it’s not fancy. Maybe I need to step up my game :sweat_smile:.

It’s mainly there because page 1 is House Rules. Although the guest says they & the entire group read them online, I know it isn’t true 90% of the time.

Next are “Essentials”, like wifi, emergency
contacts, security, checkin/out, etc.

The rest is there for reference only. It has info on things in the house & recommends for food/shopping, etc. I also have an online guide (food only) via Air but doubt that’s read either.

I don’t know, maybe my granny one is like yours, just the uninteresting, unprofessional, shorter version :joy:

It was!

Interesting quandary for you…your places kind of present that way, especially after reading the Guide. Things like babysitting, in-house yoga & spa treatments, “the best X money can buy”, etc.

This isn’t a criticism. Just something I have to ponder. That Guide gave me high, luxe hotel-like expectations :thinking:

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I would suggest not allowing dogs then… Dogs will pee once out the door (hopefully not before) . So if they are not allowed to pee on your property where should they pee? On public property?

How in the world would this be enforced?

RR

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Get out the tar and feather!

It’s about as enforceable as another one of hour House rules: “No smoking anywhere on premises.” Indeed, both pet defecation and smoking will happen and are unenforceable. However, if you make the behavior go against your House Rules, it increases the likelihood guests will at least do better to leave-no-trace. Do we pick up cigarette butts and dog poop periodically still? Yes. Would it happen more often if we’d said nothing in our House Rules? Yes!

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It’s a rule of thumb to not make rules you can’t enforce. In this case you’ve made a rule that shouldn’t be enforced. As written, it’s ludicrous and you don’t seem to get it. The problem isn’t the idea, it’s the wording. You expect the pet to poop and pee on the property, the rule is about the fact you expect them to clean up. So word it properly.

Something like “You must clean up after your pet and dispose of waste properly in the outside trash bin.”

Since you welcome pets and promise a top of the line experience with every need anticipated I suggest you provide poop bags in a little dispenser.

https://www.amazon.com/Earth-Rated-Dispenser-Holder-Lavender-scented/dp/B007EQL390

Or a unit you install outside:

fancy ones:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1092702089/dog-waste-bag-holder-dog-poop-bag-holder?click_key=deb3c2e69fe87902ceae09febd554627a411797d%3A1092702089&click_sum=32e752b5&ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=poop+bag+dispenser&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&bes=1&col=1

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They may be equally unenforceable, but one is a common, reasonable rule in public places and private homes that people are quite used to and the other makes no sense.

Humans have control over where they smoke and if they are smokers, to book a place where smoking is allowed, at least outside.

If they book a pet friendly place, they would expect it to have reasonable pet rules, not something they have no control over. When you walk out the door with a dog, it’s totally natural for it to pee almost right away if it’s been inside for awhile, and also to mark territory.

A rule saying the dog can’t pee or poo in the yard is like being family friendly, providing cribs and high chairs, but having a rule that the baby isn’t allowed to cry.

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And yet ayour house rules say only this: Dogs are welcome! However, each dog must be disclosed prior to arrival. Dogs are subject to an additional $25/per dog, per day fee. Please add another “adult” to your reservation for each dog.

If a guest books your place that says “pet friendly” and that “dogs are welcome” and you also charge them $25 per dog / per day and then you tell them that their dog can’t pee on the dirt (let’s be real, it’s Yucca Valley so it’s all dirt) outside the back door… I wonder if the guest gets a full refund or a partial refund? I am confident that the host gets one star either way :grimacing:

You need to disclose that before you live to regret it. It’s dishonest (and truly bizarre). It’s much easier to just provide poopy bags and an outdoor can for poopy bags as is expected.

And don’t forget that you can’t enforce it or complain if guests ignore it since it’s not in your published house rules.

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It can’t be enforced no matter what anyway (even if there was a way to reasonably enforce it). I’ve looked at the listing and it is not in @JohnnyLounge21 's house rules. I don’t doubt that it’s on purpose because who would book and pay an extra $25/night per dog if the listing said that the dog couldn’t pee in the dirt on the property, they wouldn’t. I think this phrase is generally overused, but this is indeed a type of bait and switch.

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