Top 10 Etiquette Tips for Airbnb Guests
If you like to travel, save some money and meet the locals, then you might enjoy using Airbnb. However, it pays to remember that you are staying in someone’s home, and the accommodations are furnished and decorated with someone else’s possessions.
Airbnb Problems
As a former Airbnb host, I met many wonderful people, but I had some truly horrible guests mixed in who were disrespectful of me, my time, and my home. I experienced numerous Airbnb problems as a host because guests either didn’t read the rules posted in the listings, or simply felt entitled to be jerks by breaking them.
Airbnb Guests: Top 10 Etiquette Tips
Here are a few tips on how you can be a good Airbnb guest and not just some jerk who doesn’t know how to behave in someone else’s home.
1. Read the host’s instructions and manual if they provided one so you know what they expect. Just because you are paying for the room doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want. You are staying in someone else’s home and they may have rules posted in the listing. It is your job to read them and follow them.
2. Show up when you say you will. Your host may have to be up early for work and strolling in two or three hours late may be a huge inconvenience.
3. Stay in designated areas. Your Airbnb reservation only gives you access to certain areas unless otherwise stated if you are staying in someone’s home, and they live there, they may not want you roaming through their house. During a pandemic, they may not even want you in the kitchen. Kitchens and coffee makers are NOT included in every listing.
4. Don’t bring food into the bedroom. It is too easy to spill food on the carpet or bedspread. Depending on the food or beverage, the stains may be permanent, forcing your host to replace them before the next guest arrives.
5. If the listing says no pets or no smoking, don’t show up with Fido, a joint, and a pack of cigarettes. Again, you are in someone’s home, and they may be allergic to pets or cigarettes or have their own pet who is incompatible with your pet. In addition, there may be no way to remove pet, cigarette or marijuana odor before the next guest arrives.
6. Be conscious of quiet times. Your hosts may have jobs, children or medical conditions, and even if they don’t, everyone deserves a good night’s sleep. Turn the TV down low or turn it off, and keep your phone calls to a minimum after your hosts to to bed.
7. If you make a reservation for one, don’t plan to sneak your boyfriend or other friend in unless you work it out with your host ahead of time.
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| How one guest left her room. There was also a broken art print hidden in the closet. |
8. Don’t be a slob. Pick up after yourself. If you break something, or stain something let your host know ASAP. A stain might come out if treated in time. Don’t try to hide broken items in the closet.
9. Leave at check out time. Don’t be a squatter. Your Airbnb host will need time to clean the room and do laundry before the next guest arrives. They might pay someone who has a schedules time to arrive to clean. It is completely inappropriate to tie up the room after check out time.
10. Turn in the keys at the end of your Airbnb stay. While hotels use cheap plastic key, your Airbnb host has to drive to a hardware store and pay for a new key every time you are too careless to return yours. If you have a key to the house, they have to pay to change the locks. Someone else has to pay for your carelessness.
Following these tips will help you get a high rating as an Airbnb guest as well as avoid hard feeling from your Airbnb hosts.
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