Outlaws, crackdowns... the backlash begins?

NY Court rules against Airbnb host

• Airbnb Stays Are Illegal In New York, Court Rules
• NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

Here comes the backlash

• Let's Stop Pretending Hotels and Airbnb Exist on Different Planets
• Why Hotel Industry Lobbyists Want A Global Crackdown On Airbnb
• Quebec cracks down on Airbnb

Hosting while ill

I guess it was bound to happen - I got sick as a dog during a fully booked month.  It's taken 2 weeks to recover, a few days of missed work but not one day of cancelled reservations.

How did I do it?  First, I asked guests to follow a self-checkout procedure.  Then I gave myself extra time to clean and took breaks as needed. Fortunately, no one stayed past checkout time or I would have had a tough time making the check-in deadline.  Then, to reduce the chances of infecting guests, I left the (sanitized) keys in a lockbox for them.  The result is that I didn't get to meet my guest for 2 weeks but, hopefully, I didn't pass anything on to them either.

Thank goodness the apartment is private and not shared.  What in the heck do you do when you host guests in shared living space and you get sick?

At my worst point I had a true friend volunteer to come over and help me with the cleaning.  Don't know how I could have done it without her.

Creepy guests, legal woes, scared hotels

At the top of the news pile is the article from the New York Times' special Sunday travel magazine titled Su Casa Es Mi Casa.  This is the kind of guest you hope you never have to deal with: Someone who invites complete strangers he met at a bar over to his Airbnb place to look through the owners things.  Revealing quote: "The voyeuristic frame gives some Airbnb experiences a kind of erotic charge" Yuck.  Take a cold shower, get a girlfriend, stay away from my apartment.

Legal Matters

• Airbnb Case Inches Forward. Waiting for the outcome in this NYC case of an Airbnb host who wound up on the wrong side of the city's Dept. of Buildings.  Airbnb company representatives are involved. 
• Landlords beware: Airbnb is booming in big cities, but many users run legal risks

Should the Hotel Industry worry about Airbnb?

• AirBnB Flexes Its Muscles: Is the Hotel Industry Scared?
• Airbnb could disrupt supply-demand equation
• Airbnb: More Than a Threat, It’s a Great Disruptor To The Hotel & Travel Sector

Too bad for your wrinkly ass

One of the amenities I provide to guests is a travel iron and ironing board.  Well, not any more.

For the 2nd time in the few months since I made the iron available, a guest has used the $2,000+ bedroom dresser as an ironing board rather than the actual ironing board provided.  This time they left the iron sitting on the dresser and let the steam water dribble all over the top.

You would think people who's kid is graduating from the University of Pennsylvania would know better.  Apparently not.

For this I'll create a new category: Things you shouldn't have to tell adults.

Here's a suggestion for getting an iron burn off a dresser.

ADDED NOTE: If you're questioning the wisdom of spending that much money on furniture for use in an Airbnb apartment, I wasn't even thinking of Airbnb when I bought it.  It was for my own use in my own apartment.  Had I known what was in my future, I never would have spent that kind of money.

One's an accident, two's deliberate?

Had 2 washcloths disappear after the last guests checked out. I can see one being taken by accident but two?  And yet I have a hard time believing a nice couple would deliberately steal 2 washcloths (albeit, nice cotton/bamboo blend ones.) And, yes, I do remember putting them out.  I've checked in drawers and under furniture.  Even checked the linen cupboard to make sure I put them out. Yup.  Gone.

Now the 2 towels are missing their matching cloths. So, what do I do.  Eat the cost?

ID verification coming to Airbnb

Just caught this in the news: Airbnb is starting to require offline ID verification.  It will link offline and online identities and make sure that someone who misbehaves can't just start up a new Airbnb account. Part of me likes this idea; I already require that a potential guest has a profile, a photo that shows their face and at least 2 verifications. This seems to weed out 95% of potential problems. On the other hand, I'm not crazy about them storing scanned copies of my ID.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2013/04/30/airbnb-adds-identity-verification-in-big-step-for-sharing-economy/

The check-out checklist

Besides the normal things such as changing the sheets and cleaning, there are some less obvious tasks that need to be done at check out time.  I haven't formalised this into a written list, until now.  Here it is:

In the Kitchen:
1. Check that the garbage disposal is working
2. Check the refrigerator and freezer for left over food.
    Throw out anything you find.  In my experience, no future guest will ever use it.
3. Check the dishwasher.
    Unfortunately, guests sometimes leave the dishwasher full of clean or, worse, dirty dishes.
4. Count the forks
    Knives and spoons never seem to go missing but forks have a habit of growing legs.  Don't know why this is.  For this reason I keep an extra set on hand and replace pieces as they go missing.
5. Check inside the microwave.

Living room:
1. If you have sofa cushions, look under them.
    If someone spilled something they may have flipped the cushions so you won't notice. Now's the time to find out so you know who to hold responsible.  Or they may have left something behind. To date, I've never found money but I did once find a brand new unopened box of Maldon salt flakes!
2. Check the settings on the TV/Cable system.
    Sometimes people tamper with the settings which screws things up for the next guest.

Bedrooms:
1. Open all the dresser and night stand drawers to check for left items. Wipe out as necessary.

Make sure any small appliances like hair dryers are where they should be.

Do you have a check list?  What's on it?

There will be hair and other unpleasant things

There will also be urine, semen, flecks of shit and occasionally, yes, there will be blood.  There will be used condoms, the aftermath of travelers diarrhea and waste baskets full of bloody sanitary napkins. The most unpleasant surprise I've come across was a waste basket full of poopy toilet paper.  This made absolutely no sense to me until I traveled to South America where this is a common practice in places due to the limitations of the waste treatment systems.

If just the thought of any of the above makes you queasy, maybe you should rethink the whole Airbnb thing.  Or at least pay someone else to do the cleaning.

I worked my way through college cleaning people's apartments and houses so I've seen most of it  before. Now I do my own Airbnb cleaning for 2 reasons. 1- I want to maximise my income, and 2- I don't trust anyone else to do as good a job as I do.  But there are times when I wish I had someone else to fall back on.  Where do you find cleaning people when you can't offer them a regular cleaning schedule?  And what's a fair price to pay?  I'd love to hear from anyone using a cleaning person/service.