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Was hoping to get some advice from any hosts who may have “private rooms” or “shared rooms” where only certain areas of the house are available to the guests staying.
I have a finished basement and have turned it into a bedroom and living space, separated by a room divider.
Guests have access to the bedroom, sitting area, full bathroom and laundry in the basements. They also have use of the kitchen on the main floor.
However, everything beyond the kitchen is off-limits to them.
They have their own entrance through the side door of the house and do not need to pass through any other spaces to get to the kitchen.
My question is … Do I put up some kind of gate? Do I just make it known that their reserved space only goes that far? What have people done in the past?
Just an added note: I do CLEARLY state in the listing what areas are accessible to the guests booking. Multiple times.
The best foolproof thing, if possible, is to put up a door that can be locked. If that isn’t an option or too expensive for the layout of your home then put locking door knobs on all the rooms they can’t enter.
If I had a basement with separate entrance I would put a refrigerator, microwave, coffee maker in the basement, take kitchen use off your listing and lock the door from the basement to the rest of the house.
If spending is out of the question right now, put a sign in the rental about the rest of the house to be off limits. Sometimes people don’t read the rules (LOL, understatement!) and need a reminder in front of their face.
The problem is there isn’t any doors btwn the kitchen and the basement.
And as a rental, it’s not something that I can really install either.
Plus, myself and the guest upstairs still need to be able to get into the basement to use the laundry.
So basically my best bet is to keep it very specific on my listing and then when they arrive, give them a tour and point it out to them exactly where they can go/not go?
Is that something I could kick guests out for though?
Not that I would want it to come to that … But looking at possible issues that could arise.
If it’s in the listing multiple times, they are given clear instructions when they arrive and if it happens once a, a warning … Then is that grounds for removal if it happens again?
I suspect that you can always ask a guest to leave. The question really is, can you ask for a guest to leave and still keep the money. I suspect that the answer depends on which customer service person you get when you contact AirBNB.
I’m sure most will understand if you mention it on the tour. Those that wander will need to be ready for possible consequences…
I’ve never wandered in any of the properties I’ve stayed in and would find that type of behaviour bizarre but others would be relaxed about wandering guests. All you can do is repeat your expectations (which are perfectly reasonable) on the tour.
My guests get their room and bathroom - that’s it. So far I’ve had no issues apart from a few people asking if they could use the kitchen, and one guy who said in his review he was disappointed he didn’t get a house tour (which I deliberately don’t do, because why would I when I don’t want them wandering around my house?). I have it at least 3 times in my listing, in the house rules and the first sentence on my printed out welcome note, which is where the wifi password is so they have to see it.
If I found anyone wandering the house after all that, which I think makes it perfectly clear, I would ask them to leave
Ya, I definitely don’t plan on giving them a tour of the entire place.
Basically only the space they are provided and nothing else.
I wonder if a curtain would do the trick, separating the kitchen from the rest of the house.
Putting it on a tension rod would make for easy install and removal whenever I wanted, but acts as a pretty clear barrier between the spaces.
Yes that could work. We have doors to every room so I just make sure we keep them shut while guests are here. But really I don’t think you need to worry if you’ve made it clear to them. I find most people are generally very respectful of our space and as I said we’ve had no real issues in about 50 sets of guests.
What problems have you had with guests wandering into spaces they shouldn’t? It’s only when we know this that we can truly advise you. What is their reasoning for going into private areas and what have they said when you challenged them?
This is a bit of a rant and not a solution but back in the 80s when I had a traditional B & B guests knew that they were only able to access their bedrooms, the dining room (for breakfast) and the bathroom. (Only one of the four guest rooms had an en suite).
I never had a problem with guests going into the sitting room, the kitchen or our (2) private bedrooms. And this was in the days before ‘house rules’.
We have a similar set-up to yours, except that we also have a garden that we share with guests and they don’t have access to our kitchen (they have a kettle and mini-fridge in their sitting area and we do serve breakfast.)
We’re actually pretty relaxed about private/guest demarcation, but in general we’ve found that guests hardly ever come into our space unless we specifically invite them. If you emphasise that they have “all this lovely private space to themselves” but that " of course if there’s an emergency" they can knock on your door, or whatever, I think most people will respect that.
I say most because as we all know that at some point there will be a semi-naked (insert nationality here) who will wander into your bedroom for a chat at 7a.m
