Two separate issues – one has to do with proximity to other guest rooms, the other has to with proximity to common areas that might be used by “midnight wanderers” using washroom, getting late-night snacks, suffering insomnia, working night shift etc.
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Since none of us were there, none of us know if the older woman’s complaint was justified or not. It won’t keep anyone from going on about it but I’m going to stick to answering the questions that seem to have been asked.
I rent a room in my home and despite hosting lots of couples, many of whom one would think were booking it for a hookup (local couples for one night or in one case an afternoon), I’ve only heard “intimate noises” once. I’ve heard plenty of talking, laughing and coughs or sneezes. I assume any and all noises bother this woman and I suspect she just honed in on the “intimate noises” so she could make the other couple seem like the PITAsses, instead of her.
Don’t waste your time worrying. Any review that mentions it is just a reinforcement to other guests that it’s a shared home, priced accordingly and if they want to stay there, that’s what they should expect: the noise of other humans who are living complete, fully human lives.
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Hi all, I just wanted to say thank you for the many responses. While I do not have quiet hours set in my listings, I do have house rules, which include 'keeping noise to a minimum after 9pm, to wear earphones with media & be mindful of other guests. As for soundproofing & room proximity. My home is over 100 years old. The bedrooms all run along one long hall, with the bathroom in-between the two guest rooms. I can only assume by a lot of activity in the early hours, she was referring to the young couple coming in & using the bathroom. I very rarely host couples. It is usually solo travelers. This was highy unusual. I wasn’t stating it was budget friendly as an excuse for possibe noise, just stating that she did pay to stay in a shared house & that should be taken into consideration. I inform all my guests when there are other guests, to avoid any confusion or possible fright of running into each to each other in the hallway, etc. As for not having control, i simply meant, at that time of the night, unless I myself was awake & confronted the guests, I have no impact on how the behave within the house. I didn’t write this post soley out of concern because of a possible negative review, I was genuinely interested if other live in hosts have had similar experiences.
Much appreciated,
Kat
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I did not write this post based soley out of concern regarding a bad review. I wanted to hear other hosts similar experiences.
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Because of the layout of our 3-story home, none of the units share walls, but two of our four apartments have an apartment above them, e.g. someone on their ceiling. The 2nd-floor apartment has someone above and below them.
The house is 125 years old and has wood floors so I did what I could and put in a lot of rugs and gently ask people to be conscious of noise. There’s only so much that can be done and I’ve done it but I’ve always been worried that someone would be disturbed by noise and complain about it.
However, after 400+ guests and tenants, I’ve only ever had one person mention it. She was a tenant on the 2nd floor, studying at home during Covid and she complained all of the time. She complained about noise from above and noise from below (whether anyone was home or not). She even complained about noise from across the hall until I explained to her that it was a storage room so no one is in there, lol.
So when she asked to break her lease mid-term, I gladly did what you did:
Because she was
I don’t know what my outlier’s problem was but no one else has had it. The repeat bookings and rave reviews I get from night shift workers/day sleepers, writers and people who need a quiet place to work in the same apartment make her an outlier. Outliers must be excluded for information to be relevant, so there was no reason for me to consider anything about it beyond just getting her out of here, which is what I did.
Likewise, if you never get noise complaints and consider this an anomaly, I’d say you’ve done what you can do, she is gone, and that what you usually do is working just fine. There’s certainly no reason to make adjustments or second-guess yourself based on an anomaly (or rather I’d call this guest an outlier, but it’s only semantics, so not important).
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My rule is that I need to get three complaints about something in a fairly short time frame before I do something about it. That’s not an absolute - it depends on the complaint, of course. Some things are minor and reasonable to be addressed quickly. But if it is something fundamental to our home or disclosed in the listing, I don’t run out and buy things or make a big change just because one person didn’t like it.
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@HostKat I personally agree with you that if Guests agree to a “home-share” situation, they should expect reasonable amount of noises. I have a Guest Suite that is a room attached to my home. Although it has its own private entrance, the Guest Suite is separated by my kitchen. My last Guest gave me a 5-star review but wrote in her comment that “the unit is attached to the main house and at times we could hear people in the kitchen . . . since it was just my friend and I, we did not mind the proximity.”
This literally is my exact description in my listing. Like, obviously, they did not read it. I am extremely thankful for the 5-star review, but I often wonder why Guests feel the need to write things like this. I do not hide the fact that this listing is attached to my home or a part of the home. It even states “Host and family may be heard throughout the day.”
I feel like you just can’t please everybody and hopefully, the Guests that truly appreciate a nice stay at a reasonable price, will outweigh those that just have to complain about something. Wish you the best 
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I don’t see what your guest wrote as a complaint. It’s just information. That you mention this in the same words in your listing info doesn’t necessarily mean she didn’t read it, and whether she did or not, it’s actually a good thing, IMO, when reviews reiterate something that it’s important for future guests to be aware of.
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regarding noise: I can hear conversations and TV coming from my Airbnb room, so it’s safe to say they can most likely hear our noises as well. What I do is place a towel and a old rolled up rug and place it at the bottom of the door (outside the guest room). The Airbnb room has it’s own entry so the hallway door leading to our living spaces is always locked.
Most homes are built using hollow core bedroom doors (to save cost) my plan is to remove the door and replace it with a solid core door. Although not cheap (Home Depot quote: $600), sounds are virtually impenetrable through them.
Unfortunately your guest most likely heard sounds through the walls, which are also hollow (again to save cost; exterior walls have insulation (which help deaden sound) but that’s due to code) .
Alas, nothing can stop the dreaded “headboard knocking” in a shared environment, that’s why I always have ear plugs in my bedside table.
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The guest bathroom is in between my bedroom and the guest bedroom. There is a door on my side and their side, but my door to the bathroom is locked when I have guests (I use the downstairs bathroom).
Even though they are solid wood doors, and the walls are plastered concrete block, sound still comes through, so I can hear the loud snorers. (No TVs in my house, that would drive me mad). I’ve also used a rolled up towel, which helps.
I doubt they hear anything from my room, I’m single and quiet, don’t play music up there, talk on the phone, or anything. They might hear a drawer or cupboard door closing.
My current guest uses a white noise machine that sounds like a 747 taxi-ing down the runway. Like you, I use earplugs when necessary.
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Which is what I did and I was booked solid until I took a break. I’m about to re-open next month and will be tweaking my listing a bit. But I’m fortunate - my house is very quiet (you can’t even hear a hurricane - seriously - Cat 2 and silent until you open a door or listen to the flue for the stove fan) and my room is at the other end of the house.
Her review will get buried and noted that your response was calm and hers was an anomoly.
Sorry I don’t agree - shared home host here I have plenty of couples that book my place and have sex . I’ve only heard one of them (over 320 guests) - six years of hosting.
It’s not rude - it’s normal @Spark
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I didn’t say that sex itself is rude or “abnormal” in a house shared with strangers. What is rude is a failure to be sensitive to the fact that some other people are going to be uncomfortable hearing someone else’s moans, even if you wouldn’t be at all uncomfortable listening to theirs.
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Sounds like you need to put this in your house rules:
“Guests shall refrain from any sounds of pleasure or happiness when in our airbnb room.”
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We do not have a setup where one guest could hear anything from another guest.
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Got it.
“ additionally, guests will not laugh, or raise their voices in any sort of triumphant or happy way. If in doubt, before any exclamations, consult the host, who will be happy to determine if the sound you make is ‘offensive’ to the host.”
I had a guest once who had the most irritating loud laugh ever. She and her fellow-traveller were sitting outside and she obviously found many things very funny.
But by being outside, the laugh was much louder than it would have been had she been in the apartment.
A neighbour sent me a message asking me to tell the guest to stop laughing.
I replied that there was absolutely no way that I was going to tell a guest to stop enjoying herself. 
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Firstly – I never talked about “offending hosts.” I talked about a physical setup where hosts (or hotel owners) expose guests in one room to noise from another guest room.
When I give my new guests their orientation I make a point of saying:
“We [my wife and I upstairs] cannot hear you. If he/she [pointing at one guest] tells a really funny joke, don’t worry about laughing too loud, because we won’t hear you. If you want to play the piano at two in the morning… play away. We won’t hear you. We want you to relax and feel like this is your home”
The screamers and moaners then know they can wail away…
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We have an open-air house (windows are covered by heavy shutters but no glass) and so does our neighbor about 300 feet away. It’s just the two houses on an isolated road in the forest. I was inside our house one night and heard noises and went to investigate, then realized the guests in the neighbors’ house were enjoying each other very loudly!
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@muddy I didn’t see it as a complaint at all. Just wondering why she felt the need to write that in her review. It’s like another Guest that dinged me because my neighbor was mowing their lawn early in the morning. How is that a reflection of me as a Host? If a Guest books in a residential neighborhood, normal residential things will be going on–mowing the lawn, trash and recycling pickup, etc.