Is the "No Others Guests Allowed Unless on Reservation" realistic? Should I enforce it?

We have only had a few guests in so far but are getting ready for 5 different groups to come in from now until the end of the month. One of our rules is “no guests allowed on premises unless included in the original reservation”. We do this for liability reasons, etc. My husband is an attorney and we don’t feel comfortable with people inviting guests onto our farm unless they were on the reservation.

Well, our second guest had 4 people on the original reservation. They were good guests and kept to themselves, however, on their final day they had 2 additional cars arrive, and their parents, as well as another friend show up for a few hours, then they all went out. The 4th car that belonged to a friend stayed parked all day, but left when they all got back that evening.

I didn’t know how to respond to it and I ended up saying nothing as they were very nice guests. Should I have said something? Do you have similar rules? Is this rule too uptight? We are just trying to protect ourselves, and our farm. Should I change the rule a bit? Should I allow guests to invite their own guests provided they don’t stay the evening?

I cant imagine to forbid your guests to not have anyone even come for a short period of time if they rented the whole space. If its a shared house then somewhat yes. I do not mind though. Stay overnight deffinitely not, but just a stop by for me its prerfectly fine.
You can put no events or parties of any sort. Then you can hope than at least there wont be any gatherings.
Once i had a family coming for a funeral and though i have in my rules no gatherings, my pool guy told me there were about 15 people at the house, all elderly people. They just sat in a dining room having tea. I just said nothing. They left everything very clean.

A rule is a rule is a rule. What part of NO do people not understand? Of course you should enforce it. With sheriff or police assistance, if necessary. It’s a perfectly reasonable rule. Your farm is not a party ground. They are not renting the property, they are renting beds in a room, and have no right to invite their local friends to come party “at the farm”. The only thing I might change is to write up a sort of policy statement, explaining once again the “no additional guests” rule, and have each individual sign the document as having read and understood it.

Because we have a swimming pool we have the same rule “no additional guests” rule at our listing. We WILL NOT be responsible for someone else’s stupidity, and we don’t want to open the lanai door to find an unknown floater face down in the pool.

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We have the following in our listing.

Please note that only two guests are permitted to stay overnight in the apartment. You are most welcome to receive guests in your apartment during your stay but please limit the number to two additional guests only and only during daylight hours.

We put it there originally a) because of noise issues and b) because this is an old building and I’m not sure that the plumbing could cope well with more than four people! No-one has abused this rule as yet. We did have one couple who had four friends round (family members) but it was only for fifteen minutes before they all went out to dinner together so that was no problem.

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There may be some confusion on the part of guests. By no additional guests they make interpret only overnight guests. Maybe you can allow day visitors and word it as thus.

That is why I am asking for advice from everyone else. I guess I don’t mind day only visitors, but partying is out of the question. The other thing is liability. We probably won’t be covered by Airbnb is guests friends destroy our place. We also are planning to install an in ground pool next spring and would not want people inviting their friends to use our pool.

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I say that I don’t allow any unauthorized guests onto my property. If it ever happened (thankfully it hasn’t) I would absolutely reinforce it while was happening. Liability is a very real and legit concern - your rule is not uptight it’s sensible.

In your review I would mark them down on House Rules but give them a thumbs up and full points and on all the rest.

Hope this situation was a one-off!

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@LegendsCreek
Then you can say simply, no guests, no visitors during your stay. I haven’t encountered this but it’s a bedroom in our home so visitors are out of the question. Hope I never have to deal with this. :thinking:

It certainly is realistic and you can enforce it if you want. Not my style though. Not even allowing other people to come over for drinks and a non-overnight visit seems a bit extreme to me. If I were renting an entire apt. or home one of the reasons might be so I can entertain. I rented a house in Jamaica and my friends who were staying in a hotel came over for breakfast and dinner a few times. You might lose out on some reservations. Since you are renting a whole guest house Ken’s assertion that they are only renting beds in a room is incorrect. But they aren’t renting the whole farm either. I can see if they had invited other people and interfered with your work, were showing off the place that would be annoying. They are presumably using the toilet, washing their hands, etc. Jaquo’s wording about not allowing overnight guests seems like a good middle ground. Maybe add an extra person charge for day guests and explain it’s for liability reasons?

My first experience with Airbnb was in Seattle last year. My husband and I flew out there with his mom, dad, sister, brother in law, and 3 year old to go visit his brother and future sis in law. We stayed in a hotel because we like early breakfasts, bars and amenities, but the Airbnb his family rented was across the street. All 9 of us cooked thanksgiving dinner over there and I am certain that only the 4 of them and possibly the baby were on the reservation. In hindsight, if I put myself in the hosts shoes, I would be pissed if I found out they did it without even asking.

I guess I don’t mind if they have day guests over for drinks or something, but not for the entire day, and not without asking permission first. We are pretty laid back people and its a matter of respect.

@LegendsCreek are you relying on Airbnb’s liability insurance completely? If so, dot your i’s and cross your t’s - run the “day guest” scenario past them first before you decide anything. If you have liability insurance through someone else, run it past them. Don’t expose yourself to life changing risks before you have all the information. I’m pretty laid back too but I can’t afford to lose my house and savings in a lawsuit. It would be very hard at my age to start all over again and I’d probably have to eat cat food in my retirement :smile_cat:.

It depends if you rent an entire place or your spare room. I’ve rented an entire place off air and have had a few friends over dinner & drinks then headed out. It wasn’t a party and they didn’t stay. Personally I would be pretty miffed if a host was watching me with eagle eyes and sends through a message on air as soon as they saw I had friends over (if they didnt state that i couldn’t do this). It’s all in your rules and vetting your guests - and of course where your place is based … an entire place by the beach as opposed to a place in the suburbs is probably going to have different guests … and of course which country too.

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I’ve experienced this. My solution is to state “only your authorized, registered party allowed on property. No additional guests.”

Don’t let them push you around. Every extra person on your property means additional impact, utilities, liability and security issues. DO enforce it. YOurs is the kind of place where they think they should be allowed to have their friends or relatives over. A family of two rents and a family of eight gets to use the place? Just no. Tell them No, sorry, you must have misunderstood. Of course they were NICE, look at the deal they are getting.

When it happened to me, the guests (who had promised they were quiet professionals) brought a guy they met at the beach or a bar back to party with them. No doubt this guy was planning to spend the night…I was appalled and stressed when the party of three got loud, drunk and unruly. I had to go down and ask him to leave. Now a LOCAL guy knows everything about my house, what I have here, how to get in and that I live alone.

Only authorized, registered guests allowed on the property.

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Hi,

Protect yourself, your neighbours and guests with clear rules and expectations because Airbnb is more of a service as it is not a landlord or hotel situation.

After determining what is right for you and your property, I would state it in the listing description, the House Rules and maybe one other place. For us we have a small self contained suite in our home with vigilant neighbours so we say “Guests are welcome up to 4 people including registered guests until 11:00 PM. Overnight stays of unregistered guests result in immediate eviction plus loss of $250.00 damage deposit.”

We had someone break this once and they denied it despite seeing unknown people leave at 6:00 AM as I was letting our cat out. These people went into their van that was left out front and they used our suite to clean up and they left it a mess, with actual dirt in the washroom. I was livid and spent some time explaining to the guest that our neighbours and their safety and that of their children is paramount. I told them if it was a drinking & driving issue, they should have at least let us know what was going on. I left an accurate review of this person who used it as a crash pad and I am sure she will just start another new profile, but at least let other Hosts know she was disingenuous at least!

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This is another case where security cameras on the outside of the house would not only provide evidence; they would act as a deterrent to the unwanted behavior.

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It depends on where you are, as well. IF you’re in NOLA you don’t want any extra people on the premises - ever. My listing says ‘No guests not outlined within rental agreement - four person maximum. No parties.’ But if their cousins live in the area want to over for dinner, I’m fine with that. Usually folks will just tell me, “Hey, we’re are here to visit our family in the area.” What I have had be to on the look out for are people in the area for weddings. They usually want to pack the place with their friends. A Big NO on that.

We do have an entire video security system on our farm that records everything. You can’t enter or leave without being on 8 cameras. I am torn between allowing it and not allowing it. We have guests coming tonight for a wedding in the area and I really hope they don’t try to pack the place with friends. I would flip out!

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We are partially off-grid so extra people does in fact increase our hosting expense, even if they’re just hanging our for a few hours.

Early on as a host we had a guest basically have a family reunion on the property, with no communication about it beforehand. The visitors proceeded to nearly set the place on fire by placing their giant BBQ/smoker less than a foot from the house. I only know about this as we have a security cam in the area they were cooking. It actually left smoke marks on the wood siding. Thankfully it came off.

We now have a pretty strict rule about additional visitors, and where guests can set up a grill.

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I have a two cameras. One on the exterior from our garage which gives me a view of the walkway from the driveway and another in our garage. I don’t think I could go back to no cameras. It has been a life saver.

I too can’t imagine not having cams. Remote access to the cams and archive is a must too. I have one near the ABB entrance so I can see whether or not the guest has arrived if I’m not there. It also helps determine how many people there are.