Surprising unintended consequences of Airbnb hosting
We’ve been hosting on Airbnb for a full week now. However, my perfectionist wife has been setting up the room for a month prior to that…
We’ve been hosting on Airbnb for a full week now. However, my perfectionist wife has been setting up the room for a month prior to that. The possibility of someone giving us a three star rating is just too much to bear. Thankfully, we’ve been getting only five star ratings so far.
To ensure the five star rating keeps coming, we’ve had to go through each corner of the basement and clear it out, rearrange the furniture and fix any outstanding nagging maintenance issues. As a result, we’ve taken several trunk-loads of stuff straight to Goodwill — mostly random junk that was packed away in the basement, forgotten about and collecting dust.
The basement was also the place where our TV lived. We do not have another one upstairs. It is also the place where I kept my clothes. My wife graciously allowed me to keep my stuff in the basement while she took over the bedroom closet. It incorporated my own private bathroom as well. We’ve never had to worry where to keep my shaving paraphernalia versus her hair products.
Since we’ve started renting the basement, things had to change. We’ve shifted from having 1600 square feet to 900. My clothes moved upstairs. We’ve had to isolate a small corner in the closet for me. The bathrooms were unified (it is going through a clean up process as I am writing this). There’s also no more television.
Essentially, we’ve forced ourselves into adopting a certain level of minimalism.
Minimalism was never the intention when considering Airbnb. Instead, I was always thinking about our TTF (time to financial independence). That’s because Airbnb is the classic example of passivish income (I made that up). Your existing asset (the house) is doing most of the heavy lifting. You just need to remember to pay the bills. The more you automate, the more passive it becomes.
One glance around here and you’ll know right away that I am a huge fan of minimalism and intentional living. That’s why it came to me as a very unexpected yet pleasant surprise when I realized I am forced to downsize substantially.
Before you jump to conclusions, this is not some personality disorder or twisted reasoning. I am not actively trying to induce self-harm. This is a very conscious decision. Ponder this idea of happiness through subtraction for example to see where I’m coming from. If you’re still not convinced, that’s fine. I’ll have a lot more to say about minimalism in the future.
In the mean time, for anyone thinking about their TTF, you should know there are some unintended consequences to Airbnb that go well beyond the money; intentional minimalism happens to be one of them.