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Hell to the yeah. I do not allow guests to cook, per se, BUT >>>>
THEY CAN cook for the entire house, which has resulted in MANY spectacular meals of specialties from Jiangxi, Wuhan, Dalian, Kunming and a few other Chinese towns, as well Emilia-Romagna in Italy, Gujarati and Hyderabad in India, Hue in Vietnam, and I think I’m forgetting a few more.
My variation of your reply to the pre-K dad is basically, “Nope that’s MY time.” (11 a.m.-4 p.m.), I don’t want late check-outs, early check-ins.
And if a dad offered to “help” as a hypothetical, and I get asked a LOT by my young guests (from China & Mexico especially, or U.S. Midwest) if they can help (very sweet), I tell them, “I don’t know how to tell you how to help, because the cleaning is in my head and it’s actually easier to do w/o help, than figure out how to explain the precise way I do this or that.”
I just had a guest ask for early check in. First she asked if I could allow her to book 4 nights instead of the five night min. stay, I said yes as a courtesy since she stayed here last summer. Then she asked to bring her pet, I said no, and today she asked to check in early. In my head I said to myself, three strikes and you’re out! If she wants to book again for next year, I’m blocking her. Too needy.
She’s slipping, no request for a late checkout?
I charge $30 for an early check in at 1 pm or a late check out at 12 pm. I explain it as a rush fee that my cleaners charge. I get 1 or 2 requests a month without any issues. Occasionally a guest will ask but doesn’t want to pay and what I tell them is that if the place is ready before check in I’ll send them a message. 9 times out of 10 even when I give them an unpaid early check in they show up well past check in time and never contact me.
I stopped worrying about my guests. I give clear info on what I provide and work hard to provide what I offer. I do have the advantage of having well over 300 5 star reviews and often have 3-5 changes overs a week which helps to have bad reviews disappear although I really only get bad reviews when the guests complain about stuff that is very clearly written in the listing description.
Early check-in is way too difficult to coordinate, if your cleaning crew happens to be late or you have to fix damage, you’re screwing yourself.
If a guests asks, I usually offer to hold their bags for them, which is not difficult to coordinate. Otherwise, I instruct them to book the day before, especially if they are asking for early morning check-in. Most people just choose the bag drop.
When it’s possible I allow early check ins and late checkout, but if I were you and already said NO, I’d be consistent and probably say something like “I’m sorry but due to the fact that we are fully booked before and after your group, we can’t allow early check=ins and late check-outs. We need that time to clean”. I’d safe this phrase and copy and paste it each time. this way you stick to your guns but also deny nicely (not patronizing), so they won’t possibly complain.
I had someone like that last week. It starts with one innocent question…how far from the airport are you? Then how much is the Uber ride? Then are you flexible with arrival and departure times? Strike 3. Mind you, this inquiry appears to be for a one night booking with a payout of $50. So I blocked off the whole week (it was in mid Sept) and said someone else booked it, sorry. And then a few days later I actually did block all my days starting Sunday for an undetermined amount of time until I see if Open Homes needs me. One week back from my own vacay and I had 10 inquiries, 5 bookings but 5 inquires where they need something in addition to what’s on offer. Lots of newbies.
No early check-in without a fee.
No late check-out without a fee.
No “Bag drop” without a fee.
Folks, we are in a BUSINESS. As Robert Heinlein wrote, “TANSTAAFL - There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.”
I was recently offered a 3 hour early check in, I didn’t ask about it I simply told the host my arrival time in her town. No fee requested. As long as some hosts do this freely without fees it’s going to encourage guests to keep asking. So people just need to set their rules, enforce them and not get their knickers in a wad just because people ask.
I try to match hotel offerings. I’ve been traveling on business 4 or 5 times per year for the past 25 years, mostly international, and I’ve never once had a hotel charge me for bag drop or early check-in (if rooms were available). I only got free late checkout through loyalty programs, though.
OK a hotel has 250 rooms, specialized cleaning/front desk/maintenance staff who get DAYS OFF, and PLENTY of the rooms are ready early or unbooked totally so they can accommodate.
Us little guys, don’t.
You are leaving money on the table by giving it away. Just curious, how many repeat guests do you get a year? 0? 1? I do not think the off chance that they will be back is worth giving them the late checkout or early check in for free, even worse if they do come back they will expect it.
RR
Yes, but putting a price on it will discourage guests from doing it, so the money left on the table is small.
If I had to rush my prep for an early check-in or late check-out, I definitely would charge for it. As it is, I have setup a 1-day preparation time, so I allow 2 hours early/late because it’s always available and costs me nearly nothing. I don’t advertise it and I have no problem saying no if I need that time, though.
The guest requesting 4-hour late check-out is unusual, but since my next guest isn’t coming for 12 days, the cost is still nearly nothing. I did have one other guest that asked for a 4-hour early check-in and I just told her I couldn’t guarantee it but I would message her when the house was ready. That just happened to be 2 hours before regular check-in. 
This is a little off topic but I’ve wondered about this many times. I get several a year. I don’t know if it’s worth making concessions to them or not in terms of $$ but I always prefer the devil I know to the one I don’t. I’ve also wondered if repeat bookings is one of he 100s of factors in the search algorithm. I got back from my vacay on Friday and opened my calendar on Saturday. I had 1 booking for the coming week but no new bookings until Tues AM when I got one from a repeat guest. After that over the next three days I got 4 bookings for this week and one for later in the month.
This discussion seems to come up regularly! In my own home listing I allow luggage drop-off from 11am free of charge. It actually suits me because then I have the rest of the day to do my stuff. But for the entire property, that’s a different matter. Seven sets of luggage take up a lot of space so cleaning around it is a pain. So it’s no there.
Checking out late is a big NO unless it’s very low season and I like the guests. I need everyone gone asap so I can move on to the next guests.
Right now it’s Silly Season where I am. People go a bit crazy and I’ve had two sets of guests recently who think 11am checkout means oh I can just have another slice of toast and tell you about the amazing show I saw last night.
Only a few more weeks to go… 
I suspect the huge difference here is that many of the hosts on this forum charge a fraction of a business-class hotel. Although the hotel costs are higher, the incremental cost to the hotel of allowing you to drop off your bags is very low, as they have font desk staff that can do it in their spare time.
Samen here… just 6 more weeks to until peak season is over.
Hotels are in business too and they offer free early check ins without any additional pay if there Are rooms available.
Check outs is a different story.
It never bothered me when people ask for early checkin and I always let them if room was empty from.the night before.
I don’t do by night anymore so this doesn’t concern me any longer but as a traveler I really appreciate those early checking. Thats why after long flight I prefer to stay in hotel
You can mention in Capital letter about check in after 3PM…or No Check in before 3 PM…its all up to you