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2024-08-04 

STR Street Talk Show 2024 - S1E3

STR Street Talk Show

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Season 1, Episode 3 of the "St Str Street Talk Show," hosted by Mark Smith, dives into the intricacies of setting up Airbnb properties, focusing on creating appealing listings and managing guest expectations. The episode features a lively discussion with the show's regulars, including Sue Jordan, who shares insights on the importance of "hero shots" in listings—these are the first images potential guests see and should capture the essence of the property attractively. The conversation also covers practical tips on making properties pet-friendly and child-friendly, emphasizing the need for hosts to consider their target market carefully. Additionally, the episode touches on the significance of providing amenities like fast Wi-Fi and the strategic use of images to enhance listings, ensuring they appeal to potential guests effectively.

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season 1 episode 3 of the St Street talk show my name is Mark Smith and welcome along if you loving this show make sure you hit subscribe and like or even smash that notification Bell so you never miss an episode

season 1 episode 3 can you believe it episode three of the St Str Street Talk Show I'm joined today by the entire crew we've got ficity back from New Zealand in hi we've got Jeff filling in for Boris again when are we getting a haircut Jeff probably Christmas at least you shaved I've got Meredith noing ahead there agreeing how are youi je needs definitely needs a haircut and Sue Jordan still sponsored by the NBN C coming in from the Sunshine

Coast that wasn't a nice look that was a side eye well last week we talked about many things about setting up your uh Airbnb including uh setting making plans for your target market setting your avatar um we talked about a few other things we talked about publicity not being present um and this week we're going to De a little bit more into uh our setup and some of the key Basics GNA throw to

sue um Okay can I'm just trying to was just going to take some notes here with the with the hero shot um tell us what a hero shot is like that I had the first shot that they see it's the same real estate that first shot that they see captures that person why do they want to click on you it's got to be it needs to tell a story in one photo who are you who you attracting so with my dog friendly would always have a dog a dog running on a beach a dog like it's I am a beach dog friendly property I haven't changed my avatars in years because I mean my um hero shots for years because it worked really really well and if I'm scrolling through you'll

go I know a lovely one in um my area actually has this really cute uh veranda and there's a dog just running around Across The Veranda every time scroll through my area that photo stops me it just says what it is it's a nice home it's got a lovely veranda and it's still friendly um I know that we've used with the house in the background for a lot of family friendlies because coming up to the Sunshine Coast if you got a large familyfriendly home they want a pool it's really important to people School holiday September January you know um December Christmas Easter they all want pools here as well so uh seeing that photo they go yep that gee that's a big house that's going to suit me that photo worked really well as well so think about that um if you're a rural setting um you know and if you're attracting maybe Internationals and you're in a rural setting have a kangaroo you know in a yard you know that sort of thing they're going to stop and go all Kangaroos and click on that just like we're talking before amongst ourselves be a patent interrupt inter up the pattern of the brain from monotonously just

scrolling be a louer in a world of bedrooms as I said last week that's that's my opinion and showcase it like I was explaining again before I saw a property during the Commonwealth Games very and I was taking photos um I was taking screenshots of photos to do a presentation on poor hero shots and this lady basically had her garage

as you just see the Gage and I thought I don't want to spend $85,000 to say in your garage thanks yet when I went to screen capture it the next photo came up and you'd spend $8,000 on that house so she had the wrong prob the wrong hero so sorry how about um I'll insert some what not to do photos and some good hero shots just down below if you've got any other shots you want to stick in at any point sing out people and if it's if it is a bedroom like I know some of them with that had beautiful bedroom I had one this week at this beautiful L it's all about the bed make the bed look comfortable make it look lushed have minimum plus feature cushions plus a throw blanket make the bed look Lush don't make your pillow look flat and uncomfortable and

yeah people don't want to sleep on that I have actually seen hero shots of I have some of them probably happy to share those hero shots of dirty mattress protectors

and that was a hero shot yeah no i' got agree Sue I mean you know I've seen pictures where people have put up I mean why do you think a picture of the unclean toilet is going to get a guest to book or why do you think a picture of your kitchen with all the dishes and crap hold up all over the place is going to get somebody to book um the number of times you got to tell people to tidy the kitchen tidy the bathroom tidy the bedroom you know make it look presentable you're trying to get people in here to come and stay nobody's got a book to stay somewhere that's got six weeks worth of food scrap sitting all over the kitchen that's like quickest way to sell manella poisoning that brings up another Point um that I'd like to to say um some people um don't clear out their personal

belongings when they list and I think that's a pretty important thing that we have to consider if you're listing maybe a room in your home that's a bit different but if you're listing an apartment in your home or an apartment anywhere or you're listing uh your home when you're away you need to remove a lot of the personal stuff not everything but you don't want your own in the drawer and and like Sue was saying you know the dirty old um covers you know you really have to start thinking from the bottom up when you're you're presenting a place don't you soe yeah like the one thing that is really interesting the topic last week and I had massive discussions with very very good hosts very good stylist like these people really know what they're doing so I was talking I was taking their opinion on this because something came

out I personally don't like humans in photos now I know there people out there at the moment that are doing a lot of human shots I've always found and the people that I spoke with who are very good hosts of me this for a very long time are the same as me they don't like humans like the OD human may be on a balcony in a distance with a cup of coffee or something that's fine what you're trying to achieve is you're trying to make that person person wanting to book your property both see themselves there and feel most important thing they can feel themselves there's nothing wrong with saging a property because I know Jeff does this really well with his shy board having a blanket having a glass of champagne having a cheeseboard having a cup of coffee and a book so you got this um occasional chair with a throw over it and a cup of coffee in a book and you go could see myself sitting there I don't want to see a super model sitting in that so we want that sense of belonging don't we which is what yeah we want all about I want yeah so I found this one particular property recently that we assessed for a lady on the coast and I said I don't there's a there's this model in the outdoor shower I'm not there's a lady cutting up food in the kitchen well I don't want to be in the kitchen with her so a lovely pineapple that's cut in half with the fruit amazing oh my God I can see myself doing that but I don't want to see a superm model doing it you know like it makes the space feel like it's shared as well by somebody else you want to see and feel yourself there not not someone else like there's in a phot but then the dining room table there was six people around there oh gross it was terrible any that's just my personal opinion you can play with it yourself but I did speak to a lot of I thought is this just my opinion or is this opinions of others and this one particular lady is very good at styling has amazing properties and she said no people in photos no from me that makes me feel bad so I don't have anyone else's opinions on people in in photos but I I personally don't like them no I think uh you might be right there so but I I really think we need to sort of move on to Wi-Fi who'd like to talk about WiFi all right Wi-Fi at my property used to be my single biggest complaint because in Regional parts and when you get outside the city um to be fair the NBN is not good um it's great when you're in Melbourne no problems here I have no problems when I'm in Sydney or in Hobart but when you're in the middle of the Madan ranges halfway up Central Victoria um our Wi-Fi and our property used to be slightly better than dialup we literally used to plug the NBN modem into the telephone line in order to get it and it would always drop out and the problem that I had with that is that in some respects I think you know surely you're not coming to stay at my house to go online and play on your bloody iPad all weekend well the reality is if you bringing children yeah they work that's exactly what they so we're doing well it's an interesting one isn't it I remember when I first started out hosting and Wi-Fi did you offer the question was do you offer free Wi-Fi or do you ask your guest to pay for Wi-Fi or do you just not offer Wi-Fi and these days I think in many many properties it's a given that you offer free Wi-Fi and not just offer free Wi-Fi you offer fast free Wi-Fi I mean some platforms even let you measure your WI Wi-Fi and you can do this really effectively and then it actually shows up on your listing um and I have heard of guests who have booked a property solely because of the rate of the Wi-Fi so these are people who are generally traveling for work from what I understand they might be working for a big tech company and they have a lot of calls or they have a lot of work they need to do and they need fast reliable Wi-Fi and they will book a property that has fast reliable Wi-Fi so I think it's it's interesting but then on the flip side we also have that guest who wants to travel and they want to get out of the whole world of Wi-Fi they don't want a device connected so it's interesting it's yeah Mark there's a little button down here it's I know that I know that one and you get a que I'm just happy to share with you that uh my Wi-Fi speed at the moment uh well that's listed on my profiles 295 megabits per second so Jeff and I big on fans and we've got the starlink happening out here in Regional Australia so um I don't think you need to quite get that high but um I think what we're what a lot of our guests are looking for is to be able to have the call to be able to join in on a zoom and get an uninterrupted feed I think the upload speed is just as important um do you notice on on those wet days in country Australia Jeff uh the the the upad speed you know it used to be maybe around five and it would drop down to under one upload uh one megabit me was big one for me was windy Dusty day so if we were having a dust storm coming in off the desert um the dust really interferes I mean I switched over um mainly because I suppose two things firstly there's not good um mobile reception in our area in fact you can't actually get some carriers so to say to guess just hotspot was not a satisfactory answer but also we needed to be able to provide guests with an alternative means to be able to contact emergency services if they needed to when they couldn't connect via you know Telstra or Opus or voone um and the only way you can do that obviously is by connecting via Wi-Fi um so that was that was one real issue um I upgraded I suppose I didn't NE so we use Starling right I don't necessarily use starlink because it's starlink I use starlink because it was the only other viable option that we had in our area um outside of using a NBN product if the NBN product had have been upgraded enough we don't even have fiber to the node we up in the up in the goldfields district um so I don't know how it actually classifies as as NBN um but I think part of it is thinking about apart from being I was an early adopter of Wi-Fi we never charged for it the reason we never charged for it was and you know we've all stayed in hotels nothing annoys me more than when the Sherer wants to charge me $28 a day for WiFi when I know it only costs me $60 a month for unlimited usage um so that used to really really annoy the crap out of me um so we Prov we've always provided it for free um but and then for me it was a safety issue we we provided it secondly so that people could actually connect because at the same time as we took um Wi-Fi on we actually disconnected um the landline telephone

service what do you uh do you mentioned you don't charge for it but do you think you get a premium um or do you I put it another way are do you think you get um bookings that come to you that wouldn't have come had you not had no I get look I've had I've had a couple of bookings where they have specifically asked about the Wi-Fi um when I was originally hosting um the executive producers of the block at the house they wanted to know that they had good reliable fast Wi-Fi because they still needed to be able to uh work and you know Converse with all parts of the business but no the average the average guest no I I think the average guest assumes you have Wi-Fi um I don't get asked about it by the average guest I don't think I get a premium for it I think it's now an expectation um and I think more importantly mean I know that when I book as a guest when I've actually booked a property that did not have Wi-Fi up in Swan Hill I'm thinking what the hell how does this work because we actually had to go down buy a telra tole to connect to the Wi-Fi to actually create Wi-Fi and I thought that was a ripoff so would you be more careful next time not to book um I now check so when I'm when I'm booking on arnb uh there's a couple of filters that I actually use Wi-Fi is one of them if I'm coming to Queensland air conditioning is one of them um and if it's the summer holidays swimming pool is one of them and I will cut out all properties that don't have aircon sewing pools and Wi-Fi can I say um if you are going to offer premium Wi-Fi or a premium sort of service that um for really good uninterrupted um internet you really need to have an ethernet connection for your guest yeah I mean it's old style but it works much better um you know that's what I have here I plug in and you don't get the dropouts that you get the up and down of WiFi and interesting point Meredith because when you think about in the good old days when we did have dial up and let's face it most of the people listening to us will not actually know what dialup was um I was showing my own children who are 21 and 22 how we used to plug the phone jack into the actual computer we I don't think we actually had dropouts I think it was a far more stable ction and it is still is it still is a more stable connection even with Wi-Fi yeah so so with your Wi-Fi do you set up a separate Network so you've got a wall between um you and your guests so that you even on um even on streaming services like um Netflix we have a wall um we have you know how you set up for your children so they have to have a code to be able to get in and can only get into children's um programs we have a a separate guest section in Netflix so that our guests can't interrupt our viewing of our

programs uh so in your Airbnb uh profile do you put up a a different network name and and you've got a different user and your Netflix um are they are they password protected yes right so Robbie has his own password for his his programs I have my password we have um one for the grandchildren when they come and we have a guest password which is very very simple but um it's to stop because when we first started offering Netflix to our guests we'd be watching a particular series and the guests might start watching the same series and then we wouldn't know where we were up to so um it's much better this way and for Wi-Fi purposes they can't get into our system and which episode of the Teletubbies are you up to now oh I think we've seen all the series have you got to the well yuppies yet yeah the well y Wellington Wellington when I was growing up got right into the Teletubbies and the local radio station did these funny little takes on the Teletubbies but put set it to current events that were happening and they they were called the Welly yuppies one of the great things about one of the great things about Wi-Fi which I'm currently investigating there is a tech add-on you can get that requires the guest to put in the and I know Mark's going to tell us more about this in a second that get the guest to tell us put in their name their email and their phone number and this is a great way to collect and start to build your own direct um mailing uh client base for your properties you think your guests might be annoyed by that I'd be a bit worried about putting my information in there yeah it's an interesting point because I I think about places we go to where we just do it all the time automatically when you're when you're connecting to somebody else's system

um what what do you think of I mean does the NB an offer less than 50 megabits per second these days it offers a lot but it doesn't always provide it yeah that's a good point that's the whole point of the NBN you can your your provider can offer you 200 and you you might get 50 um you know you you can pay for premium service doesn't mean you're going to get that premium and you do your best to provide your guests with a good service but you are really at the whim of your provider so and mother nature would everyone agree that 50 is probably the minimum that um you should be offering well it's you know I have a disclaimer on my um listing that says whilst we we try to offer a premium service we are at the whim of our our providers and um we can't really take responsibility for it going lower policity I look I agree I think 50 is probably the bare minimum for what you'd what what guests would expect um it's difficult isn't it because over the years guests are expecting more and more and more and more and more but as you say we can opt in and buy the fastest Wi-Fi but at the end of the day we are at as meridith says we are at the wh of the network and we are at the wh of Mother Nature yeah I buy at home from Opus whatever it is 100 megabytes per second I have never received that ever the best I have got was 53 and that's the problem that's problem with Wii and I think part of it has to be you know the service providers need to be held accountable if they're selling you 100 they must surely know that they're not delivering you 100 maybe it's a test case for the A C great oh that would be a good one let let's do a group class action by be hosts you and I can Fund a class action Jeff and you know the other thing I think that's quite it can also be quite difficult is when you do have guests coming in from overseas some of them are used to very very quick Wi-Fi so it can take a little bit of an adjustment for them to get used to our slightly slower Wi-Fi like our Singaporean friends I mean aren't we all envious hey um I think we've probably covered the Wi-Fi um we have got some we've got Meritus checklist which you'll find below and we we comment there's a link to Meritus checklist and it's bloody good I have to say so um do we want to cover anything else from um some of some more of our Basics I think the next on on my checklist anyway is is food and Extras extra amen so um this is a bit of a a contentious issue as well do you or do you not provide tea and coffee maybe um some snacks um personally I think it's a good thing to do and I think that it gets you better review stars and um better reviews in in total but some people say it's very difficult because they have um you know they have to then get get their housekeepers to restock and and so on Felicity well I think it's a really important one when we set our Cottage up we set it up with the the thought of if we were going to stay there what would we want to find and if our parents were coming to stay what would they want to find I don't like to walk into an empty place and I also have stayed in places where I've turned up and there's a centimeter of dishwashing liquid in the bottom the dishwashing um container and I'm thinking really you can't even give me stuff to clean my dishes that's a [ __ ] especially when you're paying a premium paying a pretty good dollar for it and the other thing that I have is uh I actually have guests who come back to me and one of the things they comment on is how well stocked the our place is and they said it's so nice to be able to walk in and know there'll be fresh milk in the fridge there's plenty of tea bags and coffee pods there's plenty of salt and pepper and tomato sauce I don't have to go out and buy those Basics and I'm not going to run out of toilet paper exactly you know you make a really good point you know I've I've book places in NOA that I go to you know 1500 bucks a night for a week and you turn up and they leave me with two dishwasher tablets a dishwasher tablet cost 29 for God's sake you're getting $1,500 a day for me and you can't give me more than two dishwashing tablets it drives I've rated people down based on on the the poor supply of amenities um you know we Supply obviously because of where we are it's cold there's unlimited firewood for guests okay for the winter yeah they want to use the wood fireplace it's really nice it looks pretty very romantic okay don't leave out two logs if somebody's staying there for two or three days when I stay there we would burn through four or five six logs a day um and I think that's one of the key points if you've ever tried you know if you stay in your own place and actually have a look at how much of something you use yourself then that should be a pretty good guide about what you should be leaving for others uh I was actually thinking about this point and there I've got got some very nice photos of your place in the fire Jeff we'd all love to come and drink your coffee and sip your tea uh but what what I was thinking before Sue cut out p for Su um was and I was thinking about those hero shots and I mean we've got to ourselves put ourselves in the shoes of the uh paying guest and what would we be looking for uh if we were staying there and have any of us actually stayed in our own places recently me as a guest and and and actually deliberately sat there and thought well what how can I improve I I Felicity because

um Mark good I think it's a really good question I haven't stayed in my place recently um but uh one of the things I was going to say is I actually have guests comment on the photos that I have in my listing of the amenities that are on display so as you know I wear a sustainability hat and these days more and more people are taking steps to reduce the waste that they have so I have shots of my refillable products in the bathroom and on the kitchen bench and I now have guests calling me out and saying hey I love seeing that you're using those products I know they they're the refill products so it's quite interesting I mean these are brands that are known locally in Australia and they're Australia specific so of course it's Australian guests but it's interesting to see guests responding are you who gives a crap toilet paper uh user well actually one of these I actually ation one night didn't we pH yeah we've done it we Jeff and I are the um uh environmental Auditors aren't we well no just just wait till what Felicity is about to tell you because I use recyclable bamboo until Felicity told me something to look at which I did look at look I think the thing with sustainability is that we're always learning and what might be the best product will change and maybe in a few years time it might change to be something else and we become more aware of things that are happening so when it comes to toilet paper I bought who gives a crap for many years love the product I love that it doesn't come with any plastic packaging and those great rolls they're always fun I can use that as wrapping paper it's brilliant if you've ever had a present from me in the last five years it's probably been wrapped in who gives a crap wrapping paper however then I started thinking about the transport miles and the who gives a crap fantastic product but it's coming in from overseas and I started to think hang on is there a product that's made locally from local materials that doesn't have the transport emissions and so I have found a product and so I've changed the wrapping paper is quite fun um but not as colorful and I'm a colorful girl so um yeah I've got a mix of wrapping papers now but use the hand but it's little things like this that we can make an impact with our decisions of what we we buy and what we put in and um it's interesting to hear what guests say about it too yeah so for those that are interested in Felicity sustainability tips have a look down below there there's some links there Meredith you were gonna say something no I was just passing on to you Mark and telling you to use the hand down below instead of lifting your hand up that's what it's all set up we've got technology we need to use

it um well maybe maybe the four of us can get our heads together and and put our suggested shopping lists and um suggested quantities uh I I know uh we had someone stay for 24 days recently in one of our properties and uh we didn't Supply them 24 days worth of U espresso coffee pods but um is it fair enough to supply people you know enough to get them going for I don't know three or four days and then if they're staying for 24 um they can oh they can go and their own yes no I think yes I I for certain things it's fair enough because um when it comes to toilet paper and body wash and shampoo and conditioner that sort of thing I think you need to supply that constantly but as far as food's concerned I think you know you just provide them with maybe a welcome pack of food and then after that they Supply their own but toilet paper I have the cupboard full of toilet paper and you know if they run out of the shower gel I'll replace it Etc but you know um food is another matter I'm not going to con constantly uh offer it flick yeah well I was just going to say I I agree with you Meredith we set our plates up with enough you know a welcome amenity pack of food that will last maybe two or three days just a few Basics but when it comes to the products that we we provide like shampoo conditioner dishwashing liquid laundry liquid I really don't want my guest to go out and buy another plastic container full of that stuff so I have refill products but I have the luxury of living on site so I can easily come home from work and find a bottle on the doorstep that says please refill me and I do and we drop it over we swap it over um but for people who are not living on site that can be more of a challenge so that might be where you need to work with your housekeeping team and say okay well as you're setting up the properties if you notice something's a bit low let's swap it over and you might have a cupboard Under the Stairs or a cupboard in the garage that you keep your products and you can take them and swap them and what's quite interesting is there are housekeeping companies out there who do offer refill Services um where they will take and swap over your dishwashing liquid or your dishwashing powder Mark I think Jeff I'm just reading Jeff's body language you're gonna say something look I'm at the other end of the spectrum um and and where I have had guest stay for a week or for two weeks or something um we do go in and we restock everything um halfway through or or weekly they're staying more than than once a week um a bit like Felicity I don't want them to have to go out and buy more stuff which just gets ched into rubbish in in the bin so we switched over about a year year and a half ago now to bul amenity um in the showers in the bathrooms and the kitchen um and they're always um they're always kept up to L I was a bit I was a bit worried about doing that because we had like many hosts to use the little you know shampoos and conditioners and I was kind of concerned initially as to what would be the guest reaction when we switched over um none no negative reaction whatsoever um in that most common question is guest ask what is the product and where can I buy it from for myself so that that's quite good but I think we're all agreed on that the amenity side of it yeah just the food side of it that made yeah I I I restocked the I restocked the food for them I restocked the coffee pods and the teas and the hot chocolates and um more chocolates for them um so at my place you only get wine and chocolates cuz everybody likes something for free um if you're there for two weeks you'll get another batch of wine and chocolates halfway through um it's already factored into the nightly price so it's it doesn't really impact the financials for me well it's interesting um Jeff because I think where you've h on a very interesting topic there with the bulk amenities I know when we started doing it it seemed like a bit of a novelty but over the years I now notice that many hotels and accommodation providers are now opting for the bulk fill containers and they've got dispensers in their bathrooms and in their other spaces where you can see and they do say if you need a refilled contact housekeeping and they'll come and swap it over for you so it's not Once Upon a Time some people thought oh that's a bit cheap but these days when you look at the range and the breadth of products you've got things that are at a cheaper level but you've also got products that a very high level and you can choose what you want to put into your place and there's so many different bulk varieties around but it's no no longer thought of as the icky thing and the other thing about offering bulk refills um is this is great for our Waste Management so we have uh councils all over the world who and and and business and um you know governments all over the world who are not quite so happy sometimes with what we're doing and when we can talk about doing things like this we we are reducing the waste that goes into landfill it's a small step but it's a meaningful step and it's also a great way to be a little bit more sustainable and our guests don't have to do anything all they've got to do is come and stay enjoy it and let us know when we need to refill if we've missed swapping it over fingers crossed we don't so something different from bity sorry sorry m is where do you sit in relation to Shared condiments tomato sauce oil barbecue sauce you know all of those sorts of things because that from a from a guest perspective when I have sted houses that have them no never used it in a million years um unless I'm saying it notice I it's inter interesting Jeff because when I did speak before I did mention tomato sauce and I thought oh that's actually a bit of a faux part I don't keep tomato sauce in there um because it's you know it can be heat sensitive and you know we're Australia there's a lot of heat around and I don't want to have anything like that left behind the only things I share is um oil pepper and salt that sort of thing herbs and [ __ ] I do put yeah herbs and spices I do put a um squeezy veggie Mite in the fridge oh nice squeezy veggie Mite is a great

welcome I did raise my hand as a as a Mr Smith um I does anyone call at the magic word summit does anyone recall at the last Summit at the Margo kton or the kton Margo in Sydney how good those bulk Mr Smith um oh yeah that great they they were so sexy looking I looked up where you could try to buy them I haven't found where to buy it from yet there's lots of different great amenities actually I

heard here's one for you do you supply like condoms no I do but I need in my singles I need my coup's property because there are so many times I've got a call from a mail guest at 8:30 on a Sunday night I mean it's regional Victoria there is nothing open maybe the garage but there is absolutely nothing open so as a result of that we now Pro and we now provide condoms is that in your house rules what to do to those of them uh yeah they do get instructions they need to put them in the rubbish spin not on the floor for the cleaner to pick up and certainly KN down the toilet which clogs up the seid system okay that brings up the next point I think we need to move on to which is are you going to be child friendly well je Jeff Jeff thinks there's enough humans in the world but what what about you Felicity look we we are a family of four and when I started doing this um my children were five and four so they were very little and we would go away for little weekends little holidays here and there and we wanted to stay in places that were child friendly and some were some weren't and so I made sure that when we set our Cottage up I have made sure that I can make it as child friendly as possible so we have things like a high chair we have even put a little bib around it so that if the mom's forgotten a bib or Dad's forgotten a bib you've got that we have a range of toys but we also do things like we have the little Cutlery do you remember that little Cutlery that kids use so we have a couple of sets of those in there we also have this sort of standard set of plastic bowls and cups and plates it's really easy for them to do to use um we have toys we have children's books um do you play sorry do you no I don't have Duplo but I've got a range of choice one of my favorite kids books is um the lrics of course so that's definitely on the bookshelf um but we have lots of families come and stay and they comment and they say we love staying because we know you've got all of this and then the other flip side is I get a lot of grandparents who come and stay with me and they're visiting me while they're visiting the family in the area and often what they'll do is they'll take the children to school pick the children up from school bring them back to the cottage and this is like the the kids are visiting granny and grandads so they'll come in and they'll play with the toys the other thing we also do is we leave out buckets and Spades so the grandparents can take the kids the grandkids down to the beach and build sand castles and they love it so simple so easy we may well do another episode on linen and cleaning and so on but what do you do what do you do uh with linnen for your uh cots and your travel cots do you do you Supply a travel cot like iav c i Supply a travel cot but I make them bring their own L for it again that that's based on when Sarah and I used to travel with the kids when they were little um Sarah never wanted to use somebody else's l so we would always bring our own blankets and the kids Cuddy blankets and their lamb skins and um and so I just tell parents we've got the high chair we've got the porter cart we got all the plastic bowls and stuff you want but you need to bring your own linen and I've yet to find a new mom um who's complained about having to bring her her own linen we Supply the linen and I've never had a problem everybody's uh you know if they don't want to use it they don't if they do want to use it do I don't mind either way so at least they don't have to bring extra stuff if they don't want to yeah I I would think for Tasmania do most of your guests uh I would think there wouldn't be a lot of locals that come and stay with you is that do get locals but most of them are Interstate or overseas visitors so it's a bit harder for people to bring their own um baby stuff to us so you know we try to supply whatever we can yeah it's interesting isn't it we we Supply it but we have recently had um a family stay with us and I set up the portol with the linen that we have and said to them before they arrived look you know the cottage is really early if you want to come in early the bed's all set up so you can put your little one down for an afternoon sleep and they said thank you that's really thoughtful and kind but we've actually bought our own cot so we will take yours down

Fine uh interstate interstate yeah but driving driving yes yeah but look I remember I went um we did a trip around the world with um one of our our oldest when he was 14 months old and we took our own portica because we just didn't know what we would find where we were going and it just folded down they're brilliant these days they fold right down Sit Them in thecase Easy blow up the mattress and you're you're good to go do we think the um Airbnb advert advertisements um comparing the the bed times at a hotel compared to an Airbnb is on spot on Absolut spot on they're brilliant I once had to share a room at the Sheran with Zach when he was n months old it was awful you can't even have the TV

on oh poor Jeffy couldn't watch his show I feel like going to bed at 5 5:00 pm I know it's terrible isn't it when you you're in a hotel room with kids um yeah no it's much better in an airband but you know one of the best things that we have here for kids friendly uh is the swing I mean I've always had a swing for the grandchildren that hangs off my deck um but I recently A couple of years ago upgraded it to um adult strength so it doesn't matter if an adult sits on it you know it's a good strong swing and um and the first thing kids do when they come here is they hop on the swing and you know you can see the parents smile oh my kids's happy I think it's Meredith I'll pop some photos of your swing and and my swing but I did notice in the BDSM uh episode last week the the adult swing that um Jeff absolutely swears by but Felicity sorry you've got your hand up what what can I say well I was just G to say I think it's it's interesting that we've both brought up swings because it is A really lovely feature that you can have and I know we used to have a a tire swing and our kids love playing on it and anytime we had friends over the kids would rush over to it and it it takes me back to some guests that we had who came to stay with us and they were a Swiss Family and they had two little girls similar ages and one day they came back from their trip out and we sort of were talking and I said look do you guys want to come around for a cup of tea in the garden and so they said oh yes love to so they came around and our our kids were all playing together and they were just fascinated by the swing and it was wonderful to see these children just playing together happily language barriers were there but they just got on and it was all about playing on the swing and I think that's one of the lovely things about hosting is you meet these families and you can form these connections which are just great and after that we actually would make it a point of welcoming people with families to come around and play on the swing if they wanted to wasn't everyone's cup of tea but we' met some really neat families and they' stayed in touch and it's quite neat to see how their kids have grown up and our kids have grown up and well they're not really interested in swings anymore but um uh it's it's a neat Icebreaker well ladies and gentlemen I think we've covered a fair bit there uh there's lots more that we could talk about but I think we might call it a day at that we've covered a fair bit of uh a fair few topics is anything we need to really touch on today anything further yes but after you turn off the

recording is it about Jeff speed swing Wednesday turn off the recording and I'll tell you see you later everybody this has been a great um uh session and when we come back next time we've got so much more to talk about in uh setup and if you haven't uh click the like the Subscribe and uh send us a comment any comments uh we're we're happy to receive thanks for joining us on season 1 episode 3 of the St Str Street talk show thank you bye

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