I'm a new listing and need help with wording of house rules

I have used Airbnb for a while now as a guest. I finally started hosting January 1st. So far it has been going pretty good until this past guest.
She was booked as a party of 6. But on the ring doorbell camera I counted 9 to 10 person staying the night. She checked out this morning and reviewed me already. Not sure how to review her because I am not happy with her in general. She kept asking me if she could check her luggage in early so they could go out to have breakfast. This was at 9am meanwhile my current guest was till there and was asking for 1 1/2 hour later checkout time. I just get the feeling she took advantage of me. Who wants to sleep 10 with only one bathroom is beyond me. Oh boy, will I ever get used to all of this. I feel I cannot really ding her because my house rules are not too clear or strict on this matter at the moment.

I know I have to tweak my house rules to include maximum 6 guests and I need to say something about unregistered guests. I simply don’t know what I need to say and how to say it. Also please look at my overall listing and let me know if I am missing something. Any feed back would be greatly appreciated. I am going to be adding some new pictures as I have updated some things since I first posted the listening.

(https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/37471444?location=Miami%20Springs%2C%20FL%2C%20United%20States&adults=6&source_impression_id=p3_1580167424_%2FURSpxZFdt2eFSVW)

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I clicked on it, it says 6 guests. This guest took advantage of you.

You have 14 days to review, so if you think there is a bad review coming you could wait until the end to review her and hopefully have a few more good reviews in the meantime.

If you did not confront her and have no reason to suspect a bad review then I would review her now.

Here is my suggestion:

I do not recommend Guest, guest repeatedly asked for early luggage drop off. Guest booked for 6 and showed showed up with 11 people in my one bedroom listing.
then 1 star for rules, whatever she deserves in the other categories and thumbs down.

Also why in the world would you allow 6 guests in a one bedroom? I would cut it down to 2. Less mess less fuss and the same money.

RR

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The listing is for the entire house which includes three bedrooms in all there is one king bed, two twins beds combined to make a king and two separate twins. There is only one bathroom in the entire house. I live 5 mins away from the listing.

She reviewed me early just a couple hours after checkout. I did not indicate to her that I was dismissed with her.

So does this new information change anything?

Make sure your review is honest and factual. No emotion. No irrelevant details. Post your review here and get help if you’re unsure.

You don’t need to explicitly put max 6 guests in your house rules if your listing has a max of 6. If the guest put 6 on the reservation and showed up with 10, then say that. You have the ring doorbell and you need to look at it carefully. It’s not 9 or 10. Look closely and figure out the exact number and put it in the review. Your review is for other hosts, so be straight about everything that other hosts care about. If they left the place clean and communicated well, you still need to say that. I would consider extra guests as a violation of the house rules since the listing states 6 and that’s where you reduce the star ratings.

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Nora, I know that the title of your question is about house rules but please don’t expect that, just because you put them there in the listing, your guests will pay any attention at all. Some simply won’t read them and others will just ignore them.

Because you’re a new host, it’s probably a good idea to start as you mean to go on and get a bit tougher with your guests. Most guests are lovely but if you see any sort of behaviour that you don’t like then because you’re only five minutes away, go and tell the guests.

Also, it looks as though you don’t meet & greet your guests or have a co-host who does so. If you can rectify that, you’ll find that guests who have a ‘personal connection’ are more likely to be great guests (in my experience, that is).

Also, your listing is very cheap. Even with only six guests, it’s only $20 per person? A cheap listing does tend to encourage bargain hunters who will cram people in. I’m in South Flotrida too and remember that this is the height of the season - you should be asking for more - our apartments only sleep two people but are more expensive. This is tourist time - so make the most of it. :slight_smile:

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I have meet only a couple of my guests and yes they were great. That is a question I wanted to ask here too. I am unsure if I should offer anonymity verses proposing the personal touch of meeting face to face. How do you tackle that without making anybody feel uncomfortable.

@noramiami One way you can state this in your listing is under “House Rules” write No unregistered guests allowed. And since Airbnb hides our House Rules way at the bottom of the page, where many guests don’t scroll down to, mention it again in the main body of the description. “Please note- maximum guest count is 6 people and unregistered guests are not allowed on the property.” You can also mention this in a message when guests book, among whatever other info you send them.
I like the way you wrote up your listing- it sounds good and you mentioned the pòssible negatives up front, which is important. But “As you cook or make cocktails you can enjoy conversation with your guests” ??? Get rid of that line. Guests don’t have guests- that line is an open invitation for guests to think they can have other people over. There is no such thing as guests of guests- anyone staying is your guest. Don’t plant ideas in guest’s heads that they can entertain non-paying friends or family there, they come up with that false idea often enough on their own :slight_smile:

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Opinions differ such a lot but I prefer to meet guests - for my own satisfaction too. I like to show them around too, so that they know where everything is and how everything works. I ask them if they have any questions for me and they often do - about the area or a good coffee house or the best Italian restaurant or whatever.

To me, it creates that personal bond.

I also show them where I live (which is a few steps away) and give them my card with my phone number, telling them to let me know if I can help them in any way. They rarely do need anything but it’s nice for them to think that help is on hand if they need it.

Regarding making people feel uncomfortable, it comes in time but quite quickly. You can tell if people want you to zoom through the house tour as soon as possible.

But just by being friendly and natural, you can get a great rapport with your guests.

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thanks muddy, good point. I will remove that line.

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Thanks jaquo. I will definitely do that.

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Just to be safe - wait until before the 14th day to post your review. In case theirs might be negative. Have it pre-written, queued up and ready.

Here is a possible draft for you:
Do not recommend Name. She brought several un-registered guests. She was very insistent on dropping off luggage far ahead of check-in, while the stay was still occupied with the current guest.

Other thoughts:

  • Your prices are likely too low, since you are rather booked-up.
  • Definitely setup house rules that cover you regarding guests, not permitting unauthorized/unregistered guests, etc.
  • Nice photos! Looks good
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P.S. Regarding the guest wanting to leave her luggage - I find that a lot of guests have flown to South Florida and therefore don’t have a car and so many flights arrive in the morning. So asking to leave luggage isn’t unusual.

Within a mile of our rentals there are two places that will look after luggage for a small fee. Neither advertise the fact so it might be worth you asking around to see if there’s anywhere nearby you can suggest to guests.

I sometimes let the guests leave their luggage in my own apartment though - it’s not a problem for me and guests really appreciate it.

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Why? The guest already reviewed. The guest can’t edit her review after 48 hours or after the host submits a review. Please explain what’s “safe” about waiting until the 14th day in this case?

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The only thing that would accomplish is that if the guest wrote a bad review it would keep it from appearing for 14 days, so prospective guests wouldn’t see it for that period of time.
But it also does a disservice to other hosts, who might accept Miss Extra Guests in the meantime without being made aware of her not-recommended status.

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If the guest left a negative review, the hosts 4.83 rating will not be affected until she submits her guest review, or the end of the 14 day review period.

This gives the host some buffer to protect her strong rating to gain additional bookings during a high season - and during the critical “new hosts get priority listing visibility”. It won’t last much longer, and her property is in a mature competitive market.

In this case, IMO she must protect the interests of her very new listing, over “informing other hosts” in the meantime.

If this particular guest did give a negative rating, it would be devastating to their rating. So, it is best to put that off as long as possible - and hopefully gain additional 5 star reviews beforehand.

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I don’t see any indication from the host that it would be a bad review. I also don’t know anything about how many reservations the host has for the 14 days following or what the host’s calendar looks like for the rest of the booking window. Without knowing that, there’s really no advantage to waiting, and there may be a disadvantage of waiting if it’s a good review. Delaying the response is just what us computer nerds call latency. It won’t change anything overall. There can be some benefit for a brand new host to get more bookings from guests that don’t see the bad review and more reviews that bring up the average rating, but only if the review is actually bad, and only if the calendar still has a significant amount of open dates, and only if subsequent reviews are better.

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I’m with you on this specific case @Jefferson for the reasons here and in your subsequent posts.

The only thing we can agree on, is we do not know what the guest review is.

We do have access to the host’s calendar. It is pretty busy but has some vacancies, and this is her high season. And she is enjoying a one-time new host boost in a mature market.

There is no upside for the host to review now. There is potential risk to review now. It really is quite simple.

I spent a career in IT - I totally get latency. But the paradigm doesn’t apply here. Waiting is prudent and has no downside to the OP.

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@noramiami Something else I noticed when I read through your listing, which has nothing to do with the extra guest issue, but which you might want to consider, is that you ask for guests to strip the beds before check-out. This isn’t a great idea- most hosts advise not doing this, as it is much easier to check for anything likely to stain and pre-treat it before washing if it is still on the bed. It can save you a lot in having to buy new linens, rather than just throwing them in the machine without noticing- hot water and a hot dryer will set stains in so they never come out, whereas most stains can be removed by various methods if they are dealt with beforehand. It realy only takes a few seconds to strip the bedding off the bed, so asking guests to do it isn’t a significant time-saver, like expecting them not to leave a pile of dirty dishes.

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true muddy, agreed. I will remove that. Thanks.

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