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I have some past experiences with recent power outages. I live and have two rentals in the Santa Cruz Mtns in northern California.
In Aug alone we had a total of 10 no power days,some lasting 30 hours. The utility company was not honest about the outages at all.
Our STR has propane for the stove and hot water.
We also provided a propane powered inside heater.
Luckily the guests at that time where comfortable and patient as we kept them in the loop about any updates.
It’s always an adventure living in the mountains
The guests who choose to stay here understand this and no one has ever complained.
I couldn’t live anywhere else as this is my happy place.
Really enjoyed this summary @Jefferson. Spot on completely. Every day is a learning experience and I really appreciate the thoughts.
We’re hosting ~100 bookings a month. So there’s no shortage of experience that will continue to be gained every single day. This was a newer listing and the first time someone really expected money back for something outside of our control, with this kind of ferocity, so I came here for advice.
We’ll definitely bump up the infrastructure and that will make everything a little bit more palatable when this situation happens again. We have also shored up our warnings in every location they can be seen. So this hopefully scares away refund-requesting guests and gives would-be refund askers pause when there’s another outage.
One of the things I didn’t harp on too hard was how my wife and I are as guests when we travel. At the 100 or so Airbnbs/VRBOs we’ve stayed at, we NEVER, EVER, EVER, have asked for any money back EVER. We are well aware that there’s a Marriott down the street if refunds are what we’re looking for if something goes wrong.
For example, we chose to stay in a secluded trailer in New Zealand (leaked in a rainstorm). A shared-living-space mansion with other travelers in Budapest (broken door lock and we were robbed while we were gone). A bungalow in Thailand (power out more than 1/2 our 4-day stay). We had a fiasco in Morocco that was so bad it could have it’s own message thread. But in all cases, we just went with it. Expecting no money from the host. We were never warned, we appreciated the apologies, we were kind and gracious and, ultimately we took all financial responsibility. We looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and said “I guess we should have stayed in a hotel.” I’m just an underentitled (is that a word?) guest (which is unreasonable to expect), and I wish all guests were the same way (which is unreasonable to expect).
