Increasing pressure on hosts!

Cheers Joan,

I’ll bounce back… but you are right, I feel pretty wretched right now. Blocking off the calendar will help. I can’t take any more right now.

in fact, I did send you a PM… look at your notifications. The little green one is a PM from me. :slight_smile:

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I am in that place alongside you! Just finished our season so we do have 6 months to figure out what to do, I honestly can NOT do this again next year - thinking of having someone else run the place. I am so burnt out I’m leaving in Oct and going to NZ for 3 weeks to recuperate.

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This is a good idea! Will do that! Thanks

I think you should raise your rates, it sounds like your place would be heaven for me. Maybe the higher rate will send the jerks elsewhere. Some people don’t look beyind the price, they just see Hawaii, low cost and assume that Hawaii is all one small island. Is it possible to put in your pics a map of your island with distances and time between sites of interest, or a list of the same, ie Lava flow, x miles/km, y minutes from my house, airport, x miles, y minutes.
Coming from Canada, I found driving in Portugal took a lot longer than I imagined despite much shorter distances. I have lived in the UK, so knew about congestion and driving times, but there was something else that made trips longer in Portugal, high hills and mountains.

Putting distances doesn’t help at all. We have distances in miles and kilometers to most of the popular attractions. Still, virtually every guest who is from a more compact city expresses disappointment about how long it takes to get from place to place.

Then put times as well. I know LA hosts have similar issues.

If I put times I would be dinged for accuracy. It takes 15 minutes to drive to downtown if there is no traffic. It takes an hour and 15 minutes during rush hour. I put that Los Angeles is a sprawled city with inefficient publit transportation. Still, every guest from a geographically smaller city says that they’re disappointed because on the map everything looks like it’s so close. Also, guests don’t believe me when I tell them that during rush hour it takes 45 minutes to an hour to drive 5 miles from the beach to our house.

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All you can do is stress the reality of traffic congestion, then they are advised.

These are my end of summer rates. I do have a map with my approximate location. I also have driving distances in my description. But it really does very little good because people DO NOT READ. They book, get here and realize this is a huge island. Giant. So I get slammed on location constantly and Even accuracy because they had to drive. It is an island, so no matter where you want to go, you may be far or near depending on your location.

I understand your frustration. It’s not that we’re not explaining the size and sprawl of the places we live clearly enough. It’s that people don’t really read the descriptions and that most people have difficulty picturing something they haven’t experienced no matter how clearly it’s explained. In any word association game the words Los Angeles will bring up the words traffic jam in people’s minds. It’s what we’re known for. This doesn’t stop guests from being shocked at the rush hour traffic and how much time we spend in our cars here.

I agree 100% that guests expectations have changed. Rarely do people read my listing… as per the young lady who arrived late at night and was surprised to find two cats ready to greet her.
My last two guests were very kind but provided reviews or feedback that made me raise an eyebrow… one young lady publicly stated that if you have a bad back you should avoid my house as the bed is too firm and she could not sleep… hmmm brand new mattress that is semi firm with a pillow top. Or the other gal who said the house had odors and didn’t smell clean… I had cleaned that day so I asked and her response was “the house smelled earthy… like wood…” well… the house is made of wood… has wood floors… wood antiques… not sure how I can rid the house of a wood smell. Of course my responses are polite and kind but internally I want to tell them to go to motel 6 where I’m sure the mattress is exceptional and there will be no smells of any sort :slight_smile:

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I understand how you feel.
We rent, and rent mostly all year round…we are on our 6th + year.
I know why burnout happens. It has less to do with the raising expectations of guests, …although that is an added layer, …
it has to do with lack of privacy…the ability to retreat. The ability to have our own space.
A home, in the past 50 years, has always been a safety haven…a place to pull back from the world and the daily grind.
Once we all turn our homes into a money source, we give up the place to escape; the place where we can do exactly what we want and answer to no one.
It is stressful to rent on your property. I adore the times we have no guests and I can let loose. We also go away a few weeks in winter for a recharge.
Burn out is inevitable.
We are being critiqued day after day and week after week on our decor, our lifestyle, and our personal needs. This is the most intimate view of our lives that we have ever afforded to strangers.
It does not feel good to be judged all of our lives, day after day and week after week, and then to also find out that strangers dont like how we live, or how we decorate.
It is a very tough and difficult road we have chosen …to go down this rental path.

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I completely agree!

Sometimes it feels like being on a reality tv show and always expected to be “on”. I’ve learned a few short cuts that make my life easier so that I don’t feel homicidal when hosting. Hey! A new moniker - Homicidal Host. Stay tuned!:grin:

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This is so well said. This is the peace of mind we sacrifice to have strangers clomp around our property. Even if it’s a separate place like I rent, I’m tired of it. Tired of being nice, outgoing and helpful when I don’t feel like it, tired of doing it day after day… and stil get slammed so unfairly in a review.

Sure most are fine, most are neutral guests… but what about the small percentage that make you question yourself and why you are doing this?

They get into my head and mess with it. :slightly_frowning_face::cry::weary:

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I also rent “a separate place on my property”. It is still a HUGE sacrifice to privacy. If we feel like this only renting a separate contained space…can you imagine how a “host” might feel…a person who actually shares space within their home? They would have to burn out. It is like being a worker on a cruise ship, but no break.
The concept is horrible…if you really stop and think about it.
We all take in Strangers, hopefully it will be a positive experience, a match and a good exchange. When it is not…it is usually assumed entirely our fault…because we are the ones who took the money and sold ourselves and our product.
As I said, it is a difficult way to live. We chose it. We accepted the downsides, not really comprehending the enormity of the sacrifice. No wonder the turnover is huge. We owners need to breathe.
Even renting a 2nd home now is difficult. Owner still needs to be able to accept the criticism. Which will for sure start with decor, and end with …bugs? cleanliness? Mattress comfort? who knows!
I rent 5 star upscale homes…it is rare that I have gotten slammed. But I was this summer…in a private message only. And it was cruel, nasty and mind boggling. I almost quit; almost gave up and closed my doors.
Then my husband said…" you are going to let one person control your future ?"…and so I plodded forward. Guests…renters…have no idea how much sting their words can cause and often do not care because we are not really mostly friends, …we are salespeople or hoteliers, or as I was recently called " like hotel staff".
But every time I have been dissed, I have improved no matter what. Yes it is a “knee jerk” reaction to jump from every piece of feedback but It prevents it from happening again…and then the guests will find a new fault.
For 6 years nobody mentioned any lack of parking and we always have had enough room…suddenly in the past 2 months 2 guest groups have suddenly felt that perhaps 3-4 cars parking needed to be mentioned as a negative. OK I bought poles and signs from Amazon and will pound them in so they can see the “guest parking” area. Now if they can’t easily fit 4-5 cars there is something really amiss.
For 6 years nobody mentioned foot noise from the 2nd story of the house. …suddenly in the past 2 months 2 guest groups have felt that the my foot noise needed to be alerted to the next guests. OK - I put in a white noise machine and bought single pack earplugs on both sides of bed. Solved.
I have found that the adage of some people need to complain must be correct. No matter what I fix change or improve over 6 years…next week likely there will be a new something that never crossed my mind before, but that every future renter must be warned about.
Rant over.
Just accept the burnout and stress. It comes with the territory.

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I don’t understand how Airbnb can let a guest rate you at all on something you do not state you provide nor have any control.
I recently had a guest leave me 4 stars, her reason “gps is inaccurate”! Like I have control over the gps she has in her car.

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I know, friend. So unfair. And especially distressing because we are put under review over low stars and reviews. They really need to revamp this onerous review system.

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It’s official; it’s getting to me.

Got a booking last week from a guest with 3 positives and 1 neutral review. Guest turned out to be a kid fresh out of boarding school. He trashed my place, caused (reparable) damage, and left a 500 liter tub of garbage, booze cans and school books on the front lawn; a green plastic garbage bag of baked on food, booze cans, dirty underwear, and you don’t want to know about the bathroom. Yes, I have photos.

But Air says he still gets to write a review. How did a kid get in here anyways?

Concurrently got an IB from a guest booking FOR HIS MOTHER, whom I know nothing about. She didn’t have her glasses so she didn’t read the posting properly and now is upset that she can’t cook, the place is cold, etc.

Air says that technically 3rd party bookings are not against their tumultuous rules.

Now I find out that my long term guest’s rent is 8 days late and Air can’t figure out why; maybe they forgot to bill him; let you me in the next day or so. Gee. Maybe the guest should have thought of that too?

I’m sorry for ranting, but I’m tired. It just seems like Air is creating more problems that ultimately I am responsible for solving.

Thanks for listening and God bless.

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that is ridiculous that they did not support you. Absolutely unacceptable behavior.

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My husband, the one who insisted on short term renters in the first place, is so fed up by the power of reviews and stars that he’s talking about getting a longer term boarder for the spare room.

The idea of not having to clean so many sheets is really appealing.

… no idea what airbnb thinks it’s doing, but if we leave the platform it won’t be the occasional difficult guest, it will be the reviews they leave that push us off.

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