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‘Chatting’ endlessly with a potential guest last night - one of her questions was
“Is your neighborhood safe?”.
Of course I said “Yes, we live here with our three children”
I wanted to say something like - “not at all - I have over 50 5 star reviews because my guests love the drug dealers here”. But I was to tired and it was to late to pull it off.
I’d love to hear some of the tongue-in-cheek answers you all can come up with!!
This morning, with some help, I was able to come up with “Not at all, we offer a true, urban DC, crime-laden experience”.
Tell them you are an open minded family that is always in search for new sexual partners. Otherwise it is usual to give away the guest’s women to local gangs as a protection fee.
I get this question ALL the time. Yesterday a family arrived that had asked about 50 nitpicky questions before the booking process, so many that I almost declined them, but the patient angel won over the annoyed devil. Safety was of great concern because as the mother put it “we have two very beautiful daughters”. They arrived yesterday, I was showing them around. The girls are lovely and how lovely of their mother to consider them so beautiful that they would incite gangs to follow them. The mother again turns to me and says “can you assure me that this area is safe”. I put my hand on her shoulder, looked her in the eye and asked her if she had seen my reviews, if she’d seen my profile, and did she think that I would have gotten the reviews like that if I was a liar. She was very taken aback and said 'no, of course!" Well?
I sometimes say “oh, safe enough”.
Seriously I do remember someone once told me to stay away from saying “it’s safe” because we just never know what could happen. He suggested saying something like “I never feel worried leaving my car outside or walking home at midnight” or “our young family can go out at night and we never have any problems”
I haven’t had this question either. I once lived in an apartment on this street that had NO locks on the doors at all. We used to have parking spots that held two cars - one on front of the other. So everyone left their keys in case they had to be moved by the owner of the car in front.
In my twelve years of living on this street I remember only one crime - a stolen car.
I have that same problem
I live in a pretty rough looking neighborhood but it’s not.
All my family lives here and it’s just a low income hard working people. But I still get asked" is it safe to walk?"
My profIle clearly depicts my neighborhood and I just hate it when they ask
Same here. We never lock the house. Have two dogs, small country town. The kids have even gone to school and left the door open for the day while I am at work. People just assume if the door is open someone must be home.
My silliest question (a week ago) was " how much money will we need to eat and get around each day?". I replied with ‘it depends what you want to eat (Subway sandwiches or fine dining?) and where you want to go each day (walk into town or ferry to a nearby island)’. Turned out to be my worst Air guests so far…but that’s another story!
I hope they enjoy their stay. If I was so overly concerned of being safe then I would stay in a hotel with a front desk staff on guard 24 hrs. Even then, once you leave the hotel anyone on the street can take a stab at you. Best just to stay at home.
We get this ALL the time in SF. Like NYC, SF still has some rougher neighborhoods, and those neighborhoods are priced much more economically than where we are located. I have found https://www.airbnb.com/locations very helpful in ‘showing’ guest via pictorials of the different neighborhoods here in SF.
This work especially well when someone says we found XYZ listing cheaper than yours but yours looks so much nicer… I typically respond with the link to my neighborhood and the link to XYZ neighborhood.
Maybe you could answer,
“Of course the neighborhood is safe, but if you so wish we can provide 24/7 security services at an additional price. Do you usually require one or two bodyguards? And will you be needing the armored transport?”
Wow, that’s a crazy question! I’ve never had that one! Maybe because in your photo (at least here) you look very youthful. ??? I don’t know!
Actually the worst question that I get ALL THE TIME is “how close are you to DC” and “How close are you to public transportation?”. My opening line says ‘2 miles to Prince George Plaza Metro Station’ and it’s repeated all through the listing (with more info).