Communicating with Guests

Your trip is coming up quickly.  You’ve planned it for a long time and can’t wait to be off.  But a week before your departure date, you open your email to find a message from your home exchange partner:  “We’re so sorry, but there’s been a family emergency and we have to cancel our trip.”

Yikes! You’ve bought airline tickets for the whole family and scheduled the time away from work.  You’ve all been looking forward to this trip for months. You feel stunned. What are you going to do? [Read more…] about What If You or Your Home Exchange Partner Cancels?

In all the years that we’ve been exchanging and renting out our home, we’ve had only a handful of problem guests. There was the man with the crazy girlfriend who liked to scream in the middle of the night; the couple who lent the house to their daughter for a party during which a guest backed into a neighbor’s car; the woman who dripped red wine on our favorite duvet cover and didn’t bother to tell us about it; and the delightful couple from Amsterdam who used our car and left it filthy.  But it’s a very short list. Nearly all our guests have been wonderful, respecting our property and often leaving the house in better shape than they found it. In fact, our neighbors usually remark on how pleasant and friendly they were. [Read more…] about 5 Tips for Avoiding Problem Guests