The latter experience which trashed my well being occurred minutes before New Years Eve 2017 when I had started my second cold with barely a break between the last, 2-month monkey on my back sickness. I decided that I must become more proactive on increasing sales in the slow season. I was finally going to add weekly and monthly rates to my January Airbnb site while working at midnight and sick as a dog. It was a recipe for disaster but, as always, I am the chef and master designer of all my future train wrecks.
In a fog, I worked diligently for hours and calculated my minimum rates, forgetting the automatic deductions on my commissions and I changed all five listings to read continental breakfasts only. Done. One minute after I activated it, I had my first inquiry, which is a very very bad sign. They had a 5 month old baby; would that be a problem? Beggars can't be choosers although I have read literally 1000's of responses from other B&B owners to say NEVER, under any circumstances, take kids but especially babies. I knew better and I could never tell my group what hellfire I brought on myself for fear they would vote me off the island.
I confirmed the booking and a nagging idea told me to make sure I had put the note about no large breakfasts for monthly bookings. Nope and OMG!!!!! They had read the reviews about the amazing breakfast and they wanted what was rightfully theirs whether they bankrupted me or not. Not their problem as they were young adults and the universe rotated for this couple.
Let's do the math. If a typical small, unfurnished one bedroom for one person goes for $550 in the burbs, minus the booking commission, I would receive $526...for a month.....but for 3 people? They were not even being charged for the 3rd one- yes yes, a baby. Ok, let's forget the baby. That's about $9 per day per adult. Now, because I must keep my word, I have to find some way to feed a breakfast which I lowball normally at $7 pp. Now I'm making $2 pp daily. OM freakin' word. One is a vegan so no eggs, milk, cheese; the staples of every B&B, and sadly, doesn't like oatmeal. I'm probably down to -$5 pp since he, however, prefers meat at every meal. Meat's pretty cheap, right? So -$10 a day is what percentage of the cheapest hostel in Ottawa going for $30 per bed and no food served. These guys had found a cash cow. they had capitalized on finding the needle in a haystack mistake, like the rare Expedia error of flights for under $10 that sell out in seconds. That is a huge chain tho and I'm a struggling entrepreneur in the off season. I know, no points for guilt trips.
When the booking error was made, I immediately called head office and was told I'd have to pay a $100 to cancel the booking that had been in effect for 2 whole minutes. He told me to try to find a way to make it work because if the clients were upset or mad, it wouldn't go well. Hindsight, I should have fought tooth and nail and won as I'm one a Superhost but I didn't. Error number... what are we up to now, 1000?
All correspondence thru the online booking agent was strictly French and I'm not great defending myself in another language so any clarification on their part is interpreted as angry requests which makes me nervous. Imagine hosting a family for an entire month and they didn't appear to speak a word of English and they are confrontational- I knew it would be brutal. Turns out they were perfectly bilingual.
Now I didn't want to undermine my years of working hard to be a Superhost then losing this heavyweight title. I explained that I made a mistake and couldn't possibly feed a regular breakfast for this fee. I would however be able to have on hand a basic continental breakfast of coffee, toast, cereal, milk and maybe fruit, or eggs.
Having gone thru my write up with a fine tooth comb, she said, "well you wrote no breakfast for longer than a week so you will feed us for a week and after that I only get milk and eggs?...I'm vegan. Is that all I'm going to get?" My God, we B&B owners hate vegans....it's so expensive to cook continuously. And I was told later that she became vegan almost at the time of the booking, maybe a week earlier. WHY WAS I CHOSEN TO BE PUNISHED??? I'M A NICE PERSON DAMNIT. Oops, I'm yelling. I've been afraid that if I started to yell, I'd never be able to stop from the frustration of everything. Make no mistake, if I could have someone pay me $10 a day so I could hire a personal chef to cook me vegetarian or vegan every day of my life, I would jump at the chance too.
So back to the non-existant profit for two of the three guests. The baby is a freeloader. I was asked about laundry which makes me leery because my machines are new and I don't want a stranger breaking them and I hoped they would offer to pay per load. Nope. Stupid me for assuming. The load was started, and started and started. I started to suspect they were running a black market laundromat as the machines were running day and night for 24 hours. In retrospect, I should have hire the baby to work there too. I didn't find out until later that the dryer vent trap was never cleaned so it was solid with lint, or firestarter, and the washer is permanently stained with dried soap. Also, the baby uses reusable diapers. What if the poop was not cleaned properly? I wonder how much electricity and water 800 loads cost running at peak times. Nevermind, I'm rich, I forgot.
Then, to avoid my having to cook, I said they could because they were there for a month and cook she did, for an entire day to prepare all her meals for the week. It looked like a sauna in my house while the outside was minus 25 degrees. Not to worry, the stove was heating the house. I like to keep it at 19 or 20 but there was a baby in the house so now it has to be higher.
On a more personal note, some of you might remember my rant about germs and being contagious for the first 3 days of a cold. If you suspect you are becoming sick, I do NOT want to have you sharing my breathing space. Not now, not ever because I work alone and if I'm too sick to work, the business is going down. Well, he showed up on arrival with a newly budding cold. Fortunately for them, I was just in the throws of mine altho it was a very short cold, over in record time. Then she caught his cold and all plans stopped. They squatted in the living room surrounded by baby toys everywhere and numerous Kleenex boxes, all now empty, (hmm I wonder how much I paid out in Kleenex) and they never left the building. Not a problem, I light my fireplace with $20 bills.
I won't clean my house with guests in the house so my house is completely trashed. I had a workshop the next day with 16 people coming to do Paint Night. In 2 1/2 hours, I would make more from them than I would from 2 weeks of hosting the current ones.
Now don't get me wrong, they are nice enough people but they are very self entitled so they cannot fathom my pain although as i write this, I remember that they do know my pain and just didn't care. It was cheaper to stay at my place while they rented out theirs and made a profit. He even told me they once made a mistake like this and had to eat it but it changed nothing. Gawd I hope karma invites them for dinner soon.
I just had a potential guest ready to check in just tell me, "there is a baby there? Sorry, I've changed my mind." I wonder how much more business my newfound lottery of guests will cost me. $100....flush.
It was the busiest solo summer of work I've ever experienced. I've been sick for two months so all I want is perhaps, a single person renting my room quietly and making their own meals. Is that too much to ask. I explained one day I'm thinking of closing my doors if I have to make breakfast every single day, it's that exhausting when you know each meal bleeds away your wallet and each fancy breakfast takes time to prepare. After the one week of full breakfasts, I sent them a text saying that was your last breakfast. She started to harp on me and I went ballistic. Called Head office and they made me an offer to soften the pain. So rather than let me out of my initial mistake and forgo the $100 penalty, they were going to pay twice that for costs. Gawd I hated these guests.
Oh, did I forget to tell you that they all slept till 11am. I have to have laundry done by 11 am before the rates jump. Nope, not happening. They did go to sleep at 8:30 which meant right about the time I would start another load, they would be in bed for the night so I had to postpone to WHEN?????? In retrospect, I should have shut everything down, no laundry, no cooking, nothing but hindsight is a bitter pill!!!
Being the most perfectest damnedest hostess on the planet, I wouldn't flush toilets or drain bathtubs if guests were in the basement because it's really loud but the passive aggressive frustrated side of me wanted to so I could serve the infernal breakfast and jumpstart my day, even tho I've been up since 5:30. Agghhhh! I now you are both feeling my pain AND shaking your head at my stupidity.
I looked at my neatly folded and displayed plush white towel tower in the guest bathroom and realized it was all gone. Almost every single towel was wet and it was only day two with two paying guests. I politely asked if I could wash some of their towels and told, no , it's ok. So many things I should have done but I don't like rocking the boat. Forget logic, what do I do if I get even one more booking. "Sorry folks, no towels. Hope you brought some from home."
My biggest challenge was either putting the bug in their ear to choose something even more exciting than my place (there isn't and they won't care) , praying for them to realize they are too sick to stay (they love the Florence Nightengale remedies I'm using for my protection) or to suck it up and realize all the benefits of this arrangement. Ummmmm..... there has to be something.
Ok, here goes....
1. It was a new year and I had lots of leftovers on me from the previous year. Cooking vegan could only help my figure.
2. My grandbabies were stolen away from me at their most interesting stage and I have no one to kiss and smell their sweet baby toes...except for the 5 month old who is here (sadly just not the same).
3. I used to do unique dress up photography with the other babies and now I have no one to spoil, until now but they didn't appreciate it either. Sigh!
4. I was losing guests and money because there was a baby here but I didn't really want guests anyway on my down time.
5. Knowing they never leave the house, I can come and go as I like to get things done.
6. I'm free to spring clean hidden rooms that hold the horrors of last minute storage and hoarding that may never have been properly cleaned since dinosaurs walked the earth.
7. I am fulfilling the dream of a young military couple to live in the lap of luxury before they take off for another adventure. Ok, that one needs a lot of work. That's a stretch for even me.
So, every time you are having a bad couple of days, re-read this War and Peace journal. I said I wouldn't ever rent my place for a month again and it's now 2019 and I haven't and won't. They beat some sense into me and I guess that's good. I guess I better post this because if I have to read it one more time, I'm going to burst in flames. Thanks for coming out.
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