Four Ways to Guarantee B&B Staff Will Hate You

Posted on: Nov 9, 2009

As a Calabria B&B owner, I’ve seen my fair share of guests – some, wonderfully charming as they are become like family and our days are a little dimmer when they’ve gone. Others … eh, not so much.

You might feel the urge to chalk that up to personality preferences, but you’d be wrong. We love 95% of the guests who frequent our bed and breakfast … and I’m not just saying that in case they are reading.

(But if you are … hi!)

Regardless of their personality, be it outgoing, serious, shy, funny, we love having them around and over the years we’ve established strong relationships with many of our loyal guests. Sometimes they join us for a night out, sometimes we meet up with them when we are traveling to their home cities and other times we connect on Facebook or through email.

But sometimes a lasting connection is not in cards.

If you want to guarantee your next B&B vacation ends with the hosts counting down the minutes and shuffling you out the door, here’s what you do.

Hey you!photo credit: Quinn Dombrowski

Steal Liquor From their Kitchen

Last summer we had a larger-than-life guest visit us from Prague-she was beautiful, outgoing and sassy. And she brought us liquor. Two bottles, in fact.

Last week I offered this Czech specialty to some friends who had stopped by to visit. I reached in the freezer and low-and-behold-it was gone.

That’s just not cool.

Don’t Check-in on Time

True B&Bs are family-owned businesses that are generally staffed by two or three people. For this reason, they set limitations on check-in times-usually from 3:00 – 7:oo or 8:00 at night. I’ve seen B&Bs refuse to accept guests who can’t make their check-in time. While we aren’t that strict, we do appreciate guests who either make an effort to meet our check-in time (8:00 PM) or who notify us in advance so we can be prepared.

Loyal guests who continually abuse our flexibility and check in after 9:00, 10:00, even 11:00 at night aren’t my favorite Facebook friends.

Break Something … and don’t tell them

Yes, yes, accidents happen, people drop things, wine glasses break. I get that and B&Bs owners know these things will happen. But if you really want your B&B to hate you, break something … I mean, let it shatter into hundreds of tiny, glass pieces, mix in some soap or shampoo, and don’t tell them.

Ha ha ha ha ha … just imagine how funny it will be when they walk in to clean your room and slide on the glass-infested suds you’ve left for them. Ha ha ha ha!!!

Make a Mess

To really put your B&B owners over the top, all you have to do is make a mess-not in the soap sud scenario described above-bur rather, in common areas and better yet, during the night when they are sleeping.

To help cater to our guests’ needs, we offer use of the B&B kitchen, to eat takeout, store snacks or sip wine with friends. If you want to take advantage of something like this-and not in the good way-then be sure you stain the tablecloth, don’t rinse your dishes and leave your plastic cups and napkins tossed on the floor so they can pick them up before the other guests arrive for breakfast.

So, are you ready to go out and make some enemies with the B&Bs in your travel future? What other things do you think you can do to get on that do-not-admit list?

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Category: Il Cedro Bed and Breakfast

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3 Responses

  1. How awful! I hope you don’t get many guests like this.

    Oh we don’t. We are very lucky!! It’s just those one or two can “hurt.” :-)

  2. andrea says:

    I’m going to make sure I do all those things next time I stay at a B&B. Just kidding. What would possess someone to mix soap/shampoo with glass shards? I just don’t get it.

    Well they broke the hand soap dispenser-which, seriously stinks since we got them in America, but yes, accidents happen. That was stressful because they didn’t tell us and we walked in and started sweeping, then almost fell and had to throw away the broom.

    andrea´s last blog ..Blog Share My ComLuv Profile

  3. Martha says:

    We love all our guests too. One very small thing borthers me. When at check out time, the guests ‘help’ by gathering up the dirty dishes, dirty sheets and towels and bring them up to our house. Oh thanks, now I have piles of dishes and laundry to step over and clutter up my small spaces. I am trying to remember to ask the night before not to do that. It really isn’t helpful. So as guests please think if something is really going to help or hinder.

    Good point. Also as someone pointed out on Facebook – smokers who don’t follow “no smoking” rules.

    Martha´s last blog ..Happy Blog Anniversary to Me My ComLuv Profile

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