What it's like to be an Airbnb Host
Our wedding turned out to be considerably more expensive than we'd envisaged. It turns out weddings cost absolutely loads. Who knew? I'm not saying we are deserving of sympathy, though. A harpist, for instance, is not essential.
Despite generous contributions from our parents, we were still coming up short so, in the months leading up to the big day, a quickfire money-making scheme needed hatching. Louise was unconvinced by my idea of a trip to Napoleon's Casino, and suggested, instead, that we list our house on Airbnb.
“Do many people visit Leeds, though?” I asked.
“Well, I've somehow ended up living here,” Louise replied, before falling silent for a few seconds.
I wasn't hopeful. As much as I am a fan, West Yorkshire is not a renowned holiday destination, is it? My brother once took his Canadian Japanese wife on a three-day trip to Bradford and, despite two trips to The Science and Media Museum, she was less than thrilled.
The results, though, were surprising; within an hour of listing our house, we had attracted plenty of interest. I must admit, the validation was good for my ego. As someone who settled down pre-Tinder, an Eastern European woman complimenting the colour scheme in our living room is as close as I will ever come to the endorphin rush of a match.
In the subsequent days, Louise took the lead with the admin and my role was largely reduced to looking at potential guests’ profile pictures and assessing whether they looked normal enough to not murder us in our sleep. Given the urgency of which we needed to make £3,000, I was lenient.
Our first guests were a Bulgarian couple in their fifties who were visiting their son, an engineer at Leeds University. Although they couldn’t speak a word of English (the language barrier was further hindered by Bulgarians nodding their heads for no and shaking their heads for yes), they seemed trustworthy, and I felt comfortable leaving them the house keys.
After a day at work, I momentarily forgot we had a middle-aged Bulgarian couple living in our house and was confused to hear Europop music blaring from our back garden when I got in. Their son, who spoke good English with a slight Yorkshire accent, had joined them, along with a stereo.
"My mum is cooking, pull up a seat!" he said.
Given they were paying us to be their hosts, I felt uncomfortable, but his mum was shaking her head adamantly and I was peckish.
I joined my new pals outside where the older man introduced a plastic bottle filled with a non-specific spirit, took a glug, and passed it to me.
"Bulgarian firewater," his son informed me as I winced.
Louise returned home in time for dinner and the five of us had a merry old time eating salami and potatoes and drinking the foul spirit, with the son acting as an interpreter. He spent much of the evening translating his increasingly drunk dad's stories about Baba Vanga, a Bulgarian nun who could allegedly foresee the future.
Our guests stayed for three nights, were extremely friendly, and caused no issues whatsoever. We’d been paid £120 to be cooked for, plied with alcohol, and educated about Eastern European clairvoyants. Were we onto a winner here? Perhaps I could give up the day job?
Our next offer was from two Latvian "academics" (their words) who wanted the entire house for a week. This was a much more daunting proposition but, aware of the price of canapés at our wedding venue, we accepted immediately. My parents kindly allowed us to stay at theirs for the week to free up the space. Whenever they think they have got shut of me, I come crawling back.
The Latvians arrived when Louise and I were at work, so we never met them — key under the plant pot job — but I did pop home one lunchtime to check they hadn’t burned the house down. I’d planned a transparent, “Hi lads, has there been any post?” but they weren’t in so, instead, I tiptoed around my own house feeling like a burglar.
There were, reassuringly, piles of textbooks on the dinner table and, scouring the house, nothing untoward. However, in the kitchen cupboard were three empty litre bottles of vodka. Why did staying at our house turn people to hard liquor? Also, what the heck had they been doing? I told Louise everything was fine and didn’t mention the vodka bottles.
When we returned after the Latvians had vacated, two further empty litre bottles of vodka had joined the cupboard collection and a bin bag full of cans of Tyskie lager was outside. The house was relatively clean but upstairs, our mattress had been turned upside down and the bedside lamp was cracked. Neither of these things was a particularly big deal but it was disconcerting. Something had gone on, hadn't it? What exactly? We will never know. I don’t think I want to.
Anyway, canapés ticked off.
After the Latvians, we had a stream of steady, non-alcoholic guests over the next few weeks: a French woman who had worked for a record company in the nineties and once taken Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love for a night out in Paris (Kurt — "très agréable," Courtney — "très folle"), a young scientist from Oxford, an Instagram-friendly Austrian couple, and a Welsh university lecturer.
The university lecturer, Richard, became a regular, often staying in our spare room for two nights a week, and we became mates. We would regularly have a glass of wine or two in the evening as Richard told us about the interesting characters on his journalism course, including an Irishman resitting his first year for the fourth time. Surely, you call it a day after two?
One week, Louise and I were away, so Richard stayed at a house on a nearby estate. When he returned to ours, he looked fraught. The couple he’d stayed with were, he said, alcoholics (had the Latvian academics taken a shine to North Leeds?) and he'd been kept up all night by banging, shouting and music. On his final night, the police arrived to question his hosts about matters that he never ascertained. Two star review.
Our final guest was a middle-aged journalist from London who was up to see his son for a few days. He arrived late on a Friday evening, said he was tired, and headed straight up to the spare room. Meanwhile, Louise and I opened a bottle of wine, flicked through the channels, and were intrigued by the description of a new show, Naked Attraction, on Channel 4.
For the uninitiated, the show comprises of five people standing in glass cages getting completely naked while a single man or woman decides which one they would like to go on a date with. How this got commissioned, I will never know. Still, we didn’t change the channel and became so engrossed that we didn’t notice our guest walking down the stairs until it was too late.
Louise pressed pause at the exact moment there was a close-up shot of five penises on the TV screen.
"Um, do you have the Wi-Fi code, please?" our guest asked, ashen faced.
Nobody said anything about the penises, I gave him the code, and he shot back upstairs before making a dawn departure, never to be seen again.
Shortly after this, we closed the doors of our Airbnb for good. Overall, it was success; we met some wonderful characters, received mostly five-star reviews (still waiting on a rating from the man who saw the penises), and got some valuable practice in for running a hotel in the South of France, something we’ve mooted for our twilight years.
Most importantly, we paid off the harpist.
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