Mine wanted a discount on a 1 night stay. I said nope. This is what he wrote,
Thanks for your consideration. We have never been over that way and we are looking for a new place to vacation. Extended stays might be down the road, but not for this trip.
We will keep looking.
If they come back to the area, they'll be looking me up! They can find cheaper, but you can't find better!.
Yesterday's message winner - Hi, I'm looking for a room for Thursday night for just me, a single guy. It will be a brief stay. I'll checkin at 3pm then leave for the campground where the party is taking place and get back really late on Thursday night. I'll eat breakfast and checkout right afterward, so a short stay. How much for a short stay and can you throw me your cash discount too! Needless to say I didn't even call back. A single guy coming back to the B&B late after a night of partying at a campground. No, I'd rather the room be empty.
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Cash discount: For others, the room would be $115. For you, it is only $175
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Undersea - these things are not made up, this is what you can expect to deal with when you have a B&B. Even worse is when they show up without a reservation, ask to see your rooms and then stand there negotiating with you for a better deal. And they never want to take the least expensive room, they want the one with all of the amenities like a jacuzzi but they want it for the price of the least expensive room. When you've got real work to do and these hagglers are wasting your time and insulting you by offering $100 for a $250 room with fireplace and jacuzzi, you'll see why people come here to vent. Or when they steal your stuff, or they light a candle on your jacuzzi tub and burn the top off and set off the smoke detectors, or they stay in the hot tub for 3 hours getting a chemical burn and then wake you up at 1am because they want benadryl. I have owned a rental property and being an innkeeper is a world unto itself.
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I don't mind hagglers. Although I intend to have the phone do the answering, people who show up as you describe above need to be. But I cut off disrepecters:
See the rooms? No unregistereds allowed past the front door - sorry.
Better deal? If it is empty tonight, make me a reasonable offer. I don't insult, I just want to pay the bills. I get that with tenant prospects all the time.
Candles/set off smoke detectors? I had 10 fire engines in front of my place in back to back Januarys based on tenants in my house doing candles and other stuff, when we couldn't figure out where the smoke was coming from and they were out.
Want Benadryl? I plan a tiny gift shop. We will have sanitary napkins, small meds, and other stuff available for a price. As a landlord, I have gotten all sorts of calls at 3AM about Tenant X against Tenant Y. "There are 2 police cars here. Get over here right away!" (An hour each way of course). Dogs barking, loud parties, etc. etc.
Steal/Damage stuff? Landlords get that all the time. Such as follows:
My eviction last month, he threatened to paint every surface pink (two coats). I have dealt with dead tenants, people who want me to hold a $1000/month apartment with nothing down (they rarely come back), vials of crack left behind, praying no one made crystal meth in your place, people who do $10,000 damage out of spite, bringing in pit bulls, property manager who was imprisoned when I lived 700 miles away (had to move for a job) and no way to get anything accomplished, having 4 dogs in the unit, and a lot of other stuff.
The worse was the brother of a tenant, who was DISTRIBUTING drugs to drug dealers out of his sister's apartment. He turned out to be a murderer, and I sweated bullets after I anonymously informed the narc squad of the activity. They watched the place, there was a high speed chase, and I was finally done with them.
Ever help carry a body out of a unit?
Court appearances for evictions, attorneys, etc.
I could tell stories that would take away the desire for some landlord wannabees after they finish reading the real estate "Nothing Down" books.
I actually think a landlord has it harder in some ways. The level of people for a B&B tends to be better.
