u/WilbysDream

I’ve been hosting over four years and things are just getting to me at this point. I do all the communication, cleaning, and deliver freshly baked homemade cookies to every guest. I have a firm cancellation policy.

My current guests booked over a month ago, and just a few days ago asked to add an extra day to their stay. I informed them there’s already someone checking in the same day they checkout, so I can’t accommodate them. They ask again, explaining they have children and don’t want to have to move to another location during their two night stay — I again explain I can’t accommodate but offer to reimburse them if they cancel and their night gets booked by someone else. They never respond.

The day before check-in, they ask for a late checkout, to which I reply I cannot accommodate because I clean myself and need the time (checkout at 11, check in at 3). They never reply. They check in around 5PM and later that evening at 10:30PM message asking to check-out at 1PM. I again politely decline and explain why, but offer to hold their luggage until 1. They said they needed to drive 45 minutes to the airport to pickup a rental car and will come back for their luggage (makes no sense, but whatever) and ask for a +\- 15min buffer. I offer to hold luggage, free of charge, until 130PM.. I reiterated they NEEDED to vacate the house at 11AM, they confirm.

They end up checking out of the house at 1130AM (after I messaged), and come back to get their luggage at 2:15PM. My only checkout instructions are: (1) make sure all trash is in a receptacle; (2) leave all used towels on the floor of the bathroom; (3) lock the door and windows upon exit. There was food and packaging all over the tables, countertops, etc. and used towels on the beds.

I sympathize with traveling with children and trying to save money, but at this point I feel like actually enforcing my late checkout charge is valid. My listing says $50 for every 30 minutes beyond checkout — so that would be one charge for the leaving at 1130AM and another for picking up their luggage 45mins late. Is this reasonable or am I being nitpicky and should just leave a review reflective of their stay?

Rant: what an absolute fucking waste of my time. I had SEVENTEEN of these things to go in and answer today. So many of the questions lack critical context to have an informed answer and others were unnecessarily verbose. Not to mention most of those questions didn’t even have the truly correct answers selected. The only way I can rationalize this is someone with zero experience working with sites directly wrote them…

For example: one question asked what makes a printed document from an EMR able to be used as source for verification. The “correct” answer was that the CRA manually verified all the data on the printed document matches the site’s EMR. Somehow the “correct” answer was not ensuring the site staff had signed, stamped, and labeled as a certified copy.

When we have a built-in SOP that says we do periodic spot checks of EMR to ensure pages are being printed in full, and the fact that any EMR printout I’ve ever seen has the audit trail at the bottom of the page, the question’s “correct” answer is just wrong. Because the “correct” answer would make printing the documents a moot point. Why bother printing from the EMR if you’re not able to use the certified copies anyway?

What a waste of my time.

Rant over.

Can someone at the site level explain why some sites will only allow us access to your eReg for a few days at a time? It just seems so inefficient like can’t you just set the accessibility parameters to an entire month or even the entire study duration? Is there a cap? Why do I ask for a document as part of a regular SMC and you give me access “only until Friday” to get it myself? Just seems like so many unecessary steps.