Suggestions for what I could/should have done differently?
Hi everyone! I'm fairly new to hosting (about two months) and would love some advice on how you would have handled this situation.
We had guests staying over the 4th of July weekend (checking out this coming Monday). On the day of check-in, we were hit with a record-breaking heatwave, and about 15 minutes before check-in, our window AC units started overworking and tripping a breaker. We've never had this happen before, but we've also never experienced 100°+ temperatures.
We immediately messaged the guests to let them know what was happening and that we were actively working on it. We mainly wanted to avoid them arriving while we were in the house and thinking we were intruding. Thankfully, we got everything working before they arrived and simply asked that they avoid running every AC unit at maximum, at the same time, throughout the heatwave.
A few hours later, they messaged saying the house was too warm and asked if we could provide another AC unit. We shared that we were concerned about overloading the electrical system even more, given what happened earlier, but that we'd try adding a smaller unit if we safely could. We immediately went out and bought a lower-amperage unit (which wasn't inexpensive), along with a few other supplies.
We returned to the house, rearranged which circuits the AC units were on, installed the new unit, and after a bit of troubleshooting got everything working. We did let them know that, because of the extreme temperatures, there was still a chance a breaker could trip again. We showed them where the breaker panel was and told them we'd be on standby if they needed us. Fortunately, we haven't heard of any additional issues since.
Here's the part that's been bothering me. While we were in the house making these repairs, we noticed they had significantly more people than were listed on the reservation. Our maximum occupancy is 8 guests, but we counted at least 14 people - and that's only in the rooms we entered. Naturally, a house with nearly double its intended occupancy during a record-breaking heatwave is going to generate a lot more heat and put additional strain on the AC units.
Our house rules specifically state that onsite parties or group events are strictly prohibited. Looking back, I wish we had addressed it in the moment or at least documented it. But as new hosts, we were worried about creating conflict or receiving a poor review. It was also incredibly hot, we were exhausted, and our only focus was resolving things as quickly as possible.
It just left a bad taste in my mouth that we were bending over backwards - buying another AC unit, making an extra trip, and spending time troubleshooting - while they were openly violating our occupancy rules.
If you were in this situation, how would you have handled it? Would you have addressed the extra guests immediately? Contacted Airbnb? Or waited until after checkout? They still have two nights left, and so far there haven't been any other issues, but I'm curious how more experienced hosts would approach this.