Submitted by David Boe. David hosts in his SW Portland home and has remained open through the pandemic.
True or false?
“Home Hosting during a pandemic is exactly the same as in normal times, except with more cleaning.”
True. And false.
It’s the same, but it’s oh, so different. First of all, there’s a very real possibility that someone walking into your house could be carrying a deadly virus. So that’s always in the back of your mind.
You tell yourself that nobody wants to get this thing, and that they wouldn’t be traveling if they weren’t healthy. You hope.
Luckily, I’m pretty healthy and very careful about my interactions with others. I’ve worked to make my home safe for myself and my guests. Some people have expressed concern that I’m still actively hosting, but I believe that my precautions are adequate, and I’ll share them here.
If you’re already accustomed to keeping things clean as an Airbnb host, the additional cleaning protocols are not that much more onerous, although it didn’t feel that way at first. Initially, it added 20-25% to my cleaning time, but one finds ways to improve efficiency over time.
Before the pandemic hit, back in mid March 2020, (on Friday the 13th, no less) my Airbnb was enjoying almost 100% occupancy. That’s hard to do over the winter, but with spring break coming up, and the weather getting better, 2020 was on track to be my best year yet! Bookings already stretched into September, with guests coming from as far as Italy and Australia.
That all evaporated in one single weekend, after Friday the 13th, with more than $8,000 worth of cancellations. My rapidly filling calendar was suddenly empty for the rest of 2020.
I never closed. I kept my account active through all of March and April, with two rooms ready to rent the entire time. I tried adjusting the prices, and saw a hopeful Facebook headline about an Airbnb host in Toronto who was completely full. But at half the normal price.
I kept trying different price points, and was discouraged when Airbnb suggested a rate of just $18/night. I decided that it wasn’t worth it to risk my life for anything less than $29/night. (Although that’s meant as a joke, it’s at least half true. You gotta keep smiling through all this just to keep your sanity. See next month’s blog for a separate article on dealing with the emotional issues related to pandemic hosting.)
My Airbnb, Forest in the City, bedrooms sat empty from March 13th, until April 29, when a gentleman moving to Portland for a job at the post office booked a room for two nights. My total income for April 2020 was $79, including the cleaning fee. For comparison: in April of 2019, my two bedrooms had brought in $2,737 for the month, more than 34 times 2020’s April income.
In mid-April I got an unusual inquiry. A gentleman from Mexico wanted to book one of my rooms for the entire month of May. Over the previous four years, my average stay out of some 500+ trips was 2.5 nights. Airbnb had already noted that people were looking for longer stays, and here was proof.
Since longer stays were new for me, I exchanged several messages with the guest, inquiring about his reason (moving for a new job) and trying to get a feel for who he was. I was completely open about things, and said that having someone here for so long would make him more of a roommate than a guest. I explained that my usual stay was only 2.5 nights, discussed my concerns about the pandemic, and explained the need for a separate rental agreement.
He welcomed all of the communication, and even told me that my attention to detail was a comfort for him. He said that the fact that I was engaged and interested was what convinced him to rent at my place, although he could have afforded a whole house nearby.
This reply also made ME feel more comfortable, and I offered him a discount for the month. I also said that if he arrived and found that the situation was unworkable (by now I was feeling pretty good about this guest) that I would allow a cancellation after a week, and that I would refund him for all the nights that I was able to re-rent.
He arrived two weeks later, and worked his new job remotely, quarantined at the house in the same way I was, going out only for food and exercise. He turned out to be a terrific guy, and there were no problems at all. He eventually found a place in downtown’s Pearl District, and I helped him get set up in his new place.
Although not all guest visits have gone as well, the vast majority have been very much like in regular times, with a few exceptions. The VAST majority of people are great. However, there have been a lot more people who are completely new to Airbnb. Their expectations are often different from the experienced travelers, and that has resulted in some confusion.
For example: Some people continue to be surprised that my place isn’t an entire house all by itself. (Maybe they can’t believe their luck to stumble onto a beautiful home in Portland’s West Hills, only 2 miles from downtown but costs ~$50 per night.)
Invariably, such inquiries come from people who have never before used Airbnb, and don’t realize that they need to search for a “Whole House” rental.
To help prevent such issues, I have adapted the automated messaging that Airbnb sends to guests. The Pre-Booking message is available only to hosts who use the instant book feature. After a brief “Thanks for your interest” introduction, I inserted this line:
“In booking, you acknowledge that this is a room in a house in which some spaces are shared.”
I also developed my own set of “Special Pandemic House Rules,” which I inserted into the section of my listing that allows you to add any extra rules you like. You can find the full text of my Pandemic rules, along with instructions about how to find these sections in your own Airbnb listing, by following these links:
To make myself and my guests as safe as possible during these unusual times, in addition to following new cleaning protocols, I have:
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Added a handwashing station at the entrance to the house
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Installed an air purifier (with UV light & ozone, both known to kill viruses)
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Become much more careful/rigorous about guest screening
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Eliminated same-day bookings
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Completely changed the way I interact with guests
The first two bullet points are self explanatory. The remaining points are subsets of the final bullet point: The Pandemic has completely changed how I relate to guests.
More Rigorous Screening
Since Airbnb allows instant book hosts to cancel any time we feel uncomfortable with a guest, I don’t hesitate to ask lots of questions. One prospective guest recently wrote to say that they wanted to host Thanksgiving dinner at my house, and invite a half-dozen other people to participate. Clearly, these first-time Airbnbers had not understood that I’m a home host who lives and is quarantined in the same space. (I was rather amazed to receive such a question.) Yet if I had not updated my pre-booking questions, I might not have engaged enough with these prospects to learn of their plans in advance. Such pre-screening saved everyone a lot of headaches later on.
Eliminating same-day bookings
In the past, I had been happy to have people arrive on a same day booking. Since I was usually booked in advance, this hadn’t been much of an issue, except when there was a late cancellation.
I had already noticed, however, that same-day bookers were sometimes problematic. Although the vast majority of guests have always been great to deal with, same-day bookers tended to be more demanding and less flexible than other guests. (Maybe the convenience of same-day booking creates extra high expectations in other areas.)
With the pandemic, this negative factor seemed to suddenly become much more significant. After two or three misunderstandings with guests who arrived on the same day they booked, I changed my availability setting. This can be found under:
Listings→ Availability→ Reservation Preferences
I changed the setting from “Same Day” (with a customizable cutoff hour) to “At least 1 day’s notice.” The other available options are: 2, 3 or 7 day’s notice.
This setting, combined with my updated Pre-Booking Message, allows enough time for both me and the guest to verify that my place will be a good fit for their needs. This change has definitely helped to ensure that I have fewer negative or problematic guest interactions.
The New Way to Interact with Guests
Although I have always enjoyed meeting new people, and have found hosting to be an excellent way to connect with people from all over the world, for the time being, at least, the pandemic required an entirely different mindset:
I now view every new guest as someone who could pass along the virus to me. At the same time, I must also consider myself as a possible source of infection for my guests, and behave accordingly. Although I still try to meet every guest, I keep interactions with them to a bare minimum. I try to never spend more than a few minutes in their immediate presence, always wearing a mask:
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Check-ins now begin outdoors, in the driveway, where I greet them and ask them to maintain a 6-foot social distance between me and any other guests.
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Next, we move to the entrance, where I show them how to use the keypad.
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I direct them to the hand washing station in the home’s entryway, where I ask them to wash their hands.
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I have found that I can conduct the rest of the house tour in a socially distant fashion.
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At the end, I explain that they will see very little of me during their stay, since I minimize my own use of the home’s common areas when guests are present.
For these reasons, I explain that I don’t expect them to wear a mask when they’re alone in their room, or when using the common areas of the house. (Such as crossing the hall from their bedroom to the bathroom.) I explain that when I’m alone, I also don’t wear a mask around the house, since I do my best to only venture out when I know that no one else is present. “But I always have a mask with me so I can put it on if needed, and I request that you do the same,” I explain, and reiterate Airbnb’s policy that we must wear masks for all interactions.
I also show them the air purifier I’ve installed in the common hallway between the home’s bedrooms. Since we now know that transmission of the virus is primarily airborne from person to person, I run the device continuously.
The air purifier I’ve installed sits atop a bookshelf at the end of the hallway. It uses UV light, electrostatic filtration, and also produces ozone as it maintains a continuous airflow throughout that section of the house, which (hopefully) minimizes the chance of transmission.
This photo from Amazon is a newer version of the one I have, which I selected because the filtration components can be removed, washed, and reused. My exact model is no longer available, and has features that are now found only on more expensive models.
Human beings are walking petri dishes. We can pick up and transmit airborne viruses just by breathing. As a result, although I would prefer to have much more interaction with guests, I do my best to avoid all contact. With the exception of a brief meeting at check-in, to the greatest extent possible, I have replaced face-to-face contacts with written information.
In December 2020, a new feature of Airbnb messaging allows us to automate and send customized messages. Here’s a link to the Airbnb page that explains how it works: How to create scheduled messages & send them to guests automatically.
As a writer myself, I have always made extensive use of the tools available on Airbnb's messaging system, and have now built up a long list of (at least four dozen) editable message templates that I can easily send to guests. Topics include everything from detailed driving & parking directions at my home to suggested side trips that include links to Google maps itineraries (which I have created) for some of my favorite places like the Columbia River Gorge or Short Sands Beach.
Before the pandemic, these were the kind of fun and interesting travel tips that I enjoyed sharing with guests. Now, however, I do my best to engage with them in a written format. For example: Both of my Airbnb rooms include a wall-mounted, full page document entitled “Check-in/out Checklist” which explains everything I would normally say in person.
Getting back to the True/False question posed at the beginning:
“Home Hosting during a pandemic is exactly the same as in normal times, except with more cleaning.”
True. But the Pandemic has intensified every element, and made things more challenging. The bottom line is this:
It’s still all about finding ways to connect with people, and earning their respect and trust.
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An Airbnb Superhost since 2016, David Boe has welcomed more than 1,100 guests into his home in Portland’s West Hills. This article is based on his experience of personally hosting more than 50 trips between April and December of 2020. David is a charter member of Host2Host, and is also the author of Secrets of an Airbnb Superhost, and Walk With Me, Discover Hoyt Arboretum in Portland, Oregon, based on the Airbnb Experience he created in the Arboretum, which is within ½ mile of his home. Both books are available on Amazon.com.
