Get out! Now!

Maybe you don't say it exactly like that but how do you get guests to leave?  You know the ones, one to two hours past checkout time and they're still there.  The last time it happened (20 minutes ago) they said 'Oh, we're leaving today.  Where's a good place to get breakfast?  Can we leave our bags here for 2 hours?'  Uh, no.  I'm already late for work.  You've got a half hour.  All done politely and they responded politely too.  But why should I have to tell them?  It's in the description and also in the instructions I sent the day of their arrival.

Have you been in this position?  How did you handle it?

News round-up

• Airbnb Vows to Fight NYC Ruling Against Room Sharing
• Airbnb co-founder: 'We believe it's time for our invention, and it appears the world agrees'
• How To Be More Like Uber And Airbnb
• Will Berlin follow New York and rule Airbnb-style sites illegal?

Someone left the chair out in the rain

This past Sunday it rained steadily all night.  One of those moderate but soaking rains.  We desperately needed the water - all my plants were showing signs of stress.

Guests left on Monday morning.  Everything in the apartment looked fine until I found one of the dining room chairs out on the small deck. One of the guests had carried it up a flight of stairs, used it outside and left it there overnight.  This is a molded plywood with veneer chair and it soaked in the water. This, in my mind, is an excellent argument for why you shouldn't buy anything other than Ikea for airbnb rentals. Better a ruined $40 chair than a $200 one.

Now I'm giving it a chance to dry out to see if the veneer settles down. How things turn out will determine whether or not I ask for a deduction from the security deposit.

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.