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.

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?

I have high standards.

I expect good customer service. A welcoming smile. A polite thank you.

Even in the US, I get riled up with businesses who lack accountability, who take their customers for granted, who act like they don’t give a damn. Here in Italy, I get riled rather often.

This really could be an (insert large number here) series on Customer Service in Calabria, but since I like to keep things bella here at My Bella Vita, we’ll keep this short and sweet.

I am heartbroken.

Our former favorite pizzeria, which I have written about both here and for my new gig at EasyJet Airlines wielded the blow and I just can’t, for the life of me, understand why businesses don’t care about their customers.

A few weeks ago my husband and I gathered a group of friends and asked them to join us at our favorite pizza place, da Ciro, in Catanzaro Lido. Our American friends were in town, we had another expat in tow, and a few of my husband’s cousins who hate this pizzeria.

Waiting is to be expected on a Saturday night, so we weren’t surprised when we arrived and found a crowded restaurant.

“We’ll wait outside so we don’t disturb you and your other clients,” my husband told them.

And we did.

We waited. And waited. And waited.

We watched while they seated another group-who had arrived after us-and we waited some more.

After an hour and a half, a large group of teenagers arrived and stood in the middle of the restaurant until they were seated.

My husband asked the waiter, the owner’s son-in-law, about the table.

“They were here before you,” the man told him.

“No, they weren’t,” my husband told him. “We’ve been waiting outside.”

“Well,” the man said, becoming defensive, “I’m working here. I can’t keep up with who gets here first.”

The owner walked by to listen to their conversation and continued to her seat without intervening.

There were small tables vacant and we assumed they’d push them together and offer us a seat.

We waited five more minutes. When no tables were combined or apologizes offered, we left.

And I won’t go back.

The worst part of this is that da Ciro Pizzeria isn’t alone.

Our B&B guests report incidents that are almost impossible to believe.

Apparently, there is a bed and breakfast in Catanzaro Lido that refused to serve breakfast to their guests because they were only staying one night. Another nearby bed and breakfast doesn’t offer breakfast at all. Another one charges guests for water.

Will someone explain this to me, in basic terms, as if I was a child? How do businesses operate with such lousy service and live to tell the tales?

Photo courtesy of Matchstic Blog

On an average, I’d say my husband and I get 10-12 emails a month from English-speaking guests asking about our bed and breakfast in Catanzaro. And nine times out of 10, I’m the one who responds.

Most of these would-be guests are interested in visiting Catanzaro because their family tree has branches here in Calabria and oh, I’d say two times out of 10, I know the village they are asking about.

Well a few months ago, I responded to a Mississippi woman now living in Colorado who wanted to celebrate her husband’s 50th birthday near his grandfather’s village … in San Fili.

Now for many people San Fili is just like any other southern Italian mountain village. There are about 2,000 people or so currently living there-and one stop light. Maybe two.

But what was interesting to me is that my husband’s mother was also from San Fili.

That evening I told him about the coincidence.

“What was your grandmother’s last name, by the way?” I asked him, still excited about this small-town connection.

“Cesario,” he said. Pronounced “chay sarr eo.”

“Uhm.” I thought about it for a second and ran to my laptop. “Is it spelled C-E-S-A-R-I-O?” I asked.

“Yea,” he said. “Why?”

Because it was the same name!

Our would-be guests who hoped to visit in the spring had ancestors from San Fili and shared a last name with my husband’s grandmother.

How exciting.

I immediately emailed them back with the news and we exchanged several emails over the next few months.

Finally, they arrived.

And they were wonderful.

While a true familial connection could never be traced, we are fairly confident that my husband’s American cousins paid us a visit.

We were also lucky that week to have a fun father-daughter team visiting from Australia. So, in true Calabrian-style. We all went out for dinner.

And gelato.

In other San Fili news, we have a house for sale there. If you are interested in a cozy, three-floor house in an ancient southern Italian mountain village … let me know.