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Oh, I look young? Thank you…but I am also not 30 any more…
I think that guy meant a real tiger, not a plush one.
I am in Dubai. That’s 100 miles to Abu Dhabi (capital of the United Arab Emirates). It’s a great country, great city, 0% tax on income (also Airbnb income), nice weather, nice beaches, lots of things to see. At the moment, it’s a bit slow season with lower rates because it is too hot for most of the people. High season starts in September. From the US, it’s a nice stopover for 2 - 3 days when visiting Asia.
My son has spent a great deal of time in Dubai. As an American from a very rural, chronically economically depressed and non-diverse area, he thinks it’s one of the greatest places on Earth!
To answer the original question–All throughout my listing, I make mention that cell service is sketchy. I’ve been asked only 3 times “will the cell reception improve soon?” (or something like that question). So I answer that yes, I suppose it might happen, as soon as the local environmental activists who work tirelessly to keep the wilderness beautiful by restricting cell towers on every mountain die off en masse and if that coincides with all these mountains self imploding to allow more clear pathways for cell towers to be accessed, then yes, it would improve. ( I know there are satellites and such, but they don’t help if the cell signal can’t be picked up in the first place! )
Thing is, all they have to do is enter the number of guests in the search. Then it displays the valid listings. People are stupid.
Plus going over that limit can invalidate your insurance. Like my insurance only covers 2 paying guests and myself. If someone turned up with 3 people it would invalidate my insurance.
Yea they are either stupid or thought they could just get away with only paying for two people. You took the correct route though on declining. I bet you they would of broken more rules and gave you a crappy review.
I think this age group (I’m assuming by the wording) doesn’t read very much. I am a college professor and i found this to be rampant. I would start each class by asking them to explain the assignment to me - visualize desperate digging out of papers, searching PDF on phones lol. They meant well I think.
My best question:
And is there any chance we can get a discount because we all have black hair?
My best statement:
I’m so sorry for not answering u these days. That’s because I’m always working. And we won’t go (city name) this winter because of the terrorists
Lots of silly questions from guests here to, but since both them and I don’t have English as mother language I am sometimes not sure if the questions are intended to be silly.
But sometimes the questions are really silly!
Guest: Can you show me where Morten Harket lives?
Me: No, sorry, he does not live here.
Guest: I mean Morten Harket, the pop star from AHA.
Me: He lives in Asker, and that’s 80 km from our place.
Gust: But can you show me?
I declined the guest. No point of discussing.
Another guest: Can we pay with wine and beer insted of money.
Me: No!
Guest: But I heard that Norwegians are crazy about alcohol and I want to safe some money. Wine is cheap here.
I should have flagged him, but this was mye second request when I was a new hos,t and I did not what to do.
Ha! First of all I should point out that almost every one of my 95 guests so far (I started in Jan this year) have been great - excellent guests. I’ve probably been a bit spoilt to be honest.
My initial communication with this particular guest from Singapore was friendly and funny (with a bit of toilet humour from her thrown in from her side which I always appreciate). THEN she asked for an early check in: 5.30am - 6am, when my standard check in time is 2pm. I apologised and said “sorry, but I will still have guests here form the evening before so I look forward to seeing you some time after 2pm” (not to mention I will still be in bed!). Then she asked if he could drop her luggage off early and come back later. “No problem, you can leave it at the rear of my property but please be very quiet when you come through the gate as the lock makes a lot of noise when it’s opened and closed and I don’t want my previous guests woken up” (it’s attached to the outside of their bedroom wall). This was followed by some semi-sarcastic acknowledgement about 'having to tip-toe through the gate". Whatever.
No luggage appears early that Sunday morning (I’d actually woken up at 5am and stayed up because I was so paranoid about her waking up my exisiting guests so was on standby for any damage control). 9am, 10am come and go and now I’m thinking ‘oh my God, please don’t tell me the luggage has been dropped off then stolen’. I message her through AirBnB asking if their flight was delayed - no reply. 10.50am they arrive looking extremely dishevelled and exhausted (they’d travelled from Australia, three hours away). It had somehow taken them 5 hours to find my house which is a 20 minute walk from the airport shuttle drop off point. I didn’t probe for further information as I felt they thought it was already all my fault from their accusatory glances. I offered them an earlier check in time of 12.30pm as my previous guests were leaving and it doesn’t take me long to service that particular room. “Okay” they say.
They come back at 12.20pm, flop into the room (I’m still waiting for a ‘thank you’…) and don’t surface until the next day - fine by me.
Next morning we have a chat about their plans “we don’t have any, we want to be spontaneous and not spend much money”.
I loan them my museum pass, my bus pass, give them lots of other tips and hints. They complain about the weather (it’s Winter here in NZ) but they like my pets and take lots of photos of them.
That evening at 11pm, she takes a shower that goes on for a long time and involves switching the shower off and on, off and on and the extractor fan off and on, off and on. My house is tiny and and made from wood (picture the Three Little Pigs…) and you can hear EVERYTHING at that time of night. Then her partner (who was a miserable sod and didn’t smile for the entire 4 day stay) starts off his routine which is similar but much longer in duration and also involves what sounded like rolling around naked in the bath with no water running. Just lots of skin vs plastic friction soundbites.
He finally finishes and rejoins her in the bedroom when she starts up the hairdryer (12.30am at this point and I am trying to sleep in the bedroom next-door). THEN they start arguing ABOVE the racket of the hairdryer going. 30 minutes of that was enough, I rapped on the door, opened it when there was no response and explained I was trying to sleep and they were creating too much noise, “please be quieter guys, I have to work tomorrow”. Two open mouths and the hairdryer being turned off was the reaction. I closed the door, took a sleeping pill and went back to bed. I think I got to sleep around 2am.
Repeat offences next two nights minus the hairdryer component.
The last day I thought they’d actually checked out early. Then they came home at 10.30pm - and continued their ongoing negative comments (it’d been the general theme of conversation) about their trip to me; “it’s cold”, “it’s too rainy”, “too expensive”, “we’re tired”, “the bus takes too long”, “we’ve run out of toothpaste”, “can we use your washing machine?” (had already told them it was unavailable) etc etc.
So I’d had a few wines in premature celebration of their alleged early departure that evening …I asked them “is there anything you’ve actually enjoyed about your trip to Auckland?”…I get “it’s not quite as cold as Melbourne”.
I ask them what time they are checking out the next day, they say 7.30am.
Turns out their flight was LEAVING at 7.30am - I live 20km from the airport. So they wake me up at 4am with the whole shower/bodily squeaking routine x 2, the clomping around in shoes on the wooden floors, the unnecessary dragging of luggage around the house when it could’ve just been put by the front door, the excessive distribution of short black hairs around the bath and up the shower walls (okay, no noise created there but worth a mention I feel).
I emerged at 5am to ask when they were leaving … “now”. “Great” I say, “I’m going back to bed, bon voyage…”.
Am now on the 14 day wait to leave their review at the last possible moment simply saying that these people would be better suited to a hotel.
Three days to recover from the sleep deprivation but all my future bookings are in my self contained accommodation so none of this can (hopefully) recur!
Cheers @jackulas!
Kia Ora, that sounds terrible!! I grew up near Auckland airport actually (Weymouth) these guests sounds terrible! They should have just got a hotel in town. Melbourne gets as cold as Auckland too. How annoying for you!
@suzehamling
This is soooo well written and really funny, too bad it’s true lol! Could they have been screened? Did they have prior reviews? Anyway I really enjoyed reading it and laughing.
