season 1 episode 4 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 4 of the St Str Street Talk Show we've got the whole crew and a few extras here today we've got Felicity and Cat hi everyone this is ASN she's decided to come and uh join everyone we've got a great topic that we think you're going to enjoy Jeff's all alone she's doing this always
alone cheer us up meridith oh H I've got Tyson here with me but he's just wandered off for a minute so uh we're going to talk about pet friendly and child friendly I think that's a great topic for today and spare a thought for poor Sue up there shivering in the cold up in the Sunshine Coast I know right start Meredith at nothing so if we're GNA start with pet friendly um let's let's give it to sue because she's the pet friendly Queen and we'll um give her she can outline the topic for us and then maybe we can time in a bit later yeah go ahead Sue pet friendly is huge it's kind of like a rabbit hole you can go down um and honestly my best advice is honestly just to get really into pet friendly um my properties I've got a lot of properties that are branded just for pets and I don't generally take guests that aren't bringing pets you've just got to be care Market a pret friendly and how you name a pet friendly and how you work with a pet friendly because you can uh discourage normal what I would call a muggle you can discourage a muggle from booking because takes pets that's gross it's got hair everywhere and you do have to come across people with allergies and things like that or W look my properties are really really walking there with pets and go oh my god I've never stayed in anything this nice that takes pets because generally pet friendly aren't very good quality so mine are so there's just things like that so you just got to be careful when you're targeting pets in specifically or another big obstacle that you come with with some of the Lar family homes I've done we may allow pet on and if they bring a pet really charge that pet fee and make that pet free something similar to what it would cost to have them go to a boarding C even we found with some of the large familyfriendly homes people would bring pets purely and simply because it was cheaper than going to a kennel and we allow them if you don't if you charg the pet fee we found that the better quality dogs came because they were used to travel it's a it's a rabbit hole I could go down for hours let's start at the beginning why would you be why would you decide to be pet friendly as opposed to being unet uh yeah non-friendly and sorry do you w to um I was going to ask about some fees as well and keep in mind this this program is probably targeted at those that are setting up or thinking about uh joining Airbnb what were you what were you thinking uh Felicity
so I'm really interested to hear about the pet friendly fees how much does it cost to put a cat a dog into a kennel or to board so what sort of fees do you charge and do you charge them daily or do you charge them as a lump fee unfortunately Airbnb only um whereas vbo you can do it daily first day so you're looking at at least $40
$50 um having someone come to a house would be about $35 to come to the house to feed an animal um and we did find that once we started charging a pet fee the guests Behavior became so much better because if it was going to be equivalent to leaving them at home and having the next door neighbors kid feed them then they left them at home you know so we had we attracted a completely different type of gu guest guest that I have with my dogs travel all the time and they won't go anywhere without their dog that's just the way they are um so yeah P fees became very very interesting once they were inted on it do you reckon we can charge a child fee I would you can't charge child under two um was you know I've I've gone back and forth over the years with being pet friendly not pet friendly there is no doubt that if you kick that pet friendly box um it has resulted in an increase in bookings the problem that I find is and this is not all pit friendly people but some just hate the Mickey really like bringing four Al that's not acceptable in my world bringing your scy poo or your Snoodle or anything like that is acceptable um but when you bring you know four and five animals that's just
ridiculous a house rle don't you Jeff yeah Trouble Is by time they're in Residence what do you do you you need to be careful too because Airbnb default if you tick pet friendly Airbnb default pets correct as your limit correct so you actually have to go back and limit the number of pets that you uh you allow um the other problem I have is and now offense solcity to kitty cat cats are just the worst who would bring their cat on holiday with them pet cat hair everywhere I am not taking I am not taking my cat on holiday she goes on her own holiday and I would not subject any other host to it but I'm I'm curious Sue I am not pet friendly and I dipped my toe in the water a few years ago during Co when we were all scrambling to get bookings to keep ourselves going and and I took a guest who bought a dog and it ended up being a bit of a disaster uh well not maybe not a disaster but it ended up with a lot of extra cleaning I had dog hair all over the bottom of the long curtains and I had this smell that was just lingering and it took me you know a week to get over it I mean the guest was staying for a month so the dog was in and out I guess a little bit um do you have any tips for people who bring
dogs to properties and how owners can make sure that the homes don't then smell of dog when the next owner arrives see that that's the that's exact with my dogs and it sounds like dogs stay there and that's all that happens um never ever have
um I don't have carpet in my properties they're all vinyl plank um we do have rugs and the rugs would just vacuumed and cleaned and like shampooed we do that relatively regularly we we also a neutralizing spray it's a foam neutralizing spray and that goes on all the soft furnishings and the the rugs because we do have rugs in the loms and things like that you know and if we have to swap those out but yeah everyone's perception of a pet friendly one is that it will smell but there are things that you can do we also air everything out we leave F going days we've got guests checking in that day and we do have a lot of turnovers all the windows are open the seab breezes are going through so we're really particular about what we have where um with the property so okay you've got the you've got Rex there and he stinks um is that something you've ever charged or or made an air cover claim for additional claiming never no and I've actually hosted cats as well just ask more questions I guess if you said for people thatav you'll find that people is iton you'll know more about your dogs than you do about the guest coming yeah do you think so you're set up for it so that means that you're you're ready to handle any any of the things that crop up CLE their yep certainly think properties without carpet are much more suitable to pet friendly when when you're in another trick is if you've got a two story carpet and everything in the bedrooms upstairs you have a baby gate across the downstairs across the downstairs area to the stairs and no dogs permitted upstairs yeah that's a good idea yeah and no dogs on the bed either they'll go on the bed so what things what other things are more important this area
policity so I was just going to ask you when you I mean you sound like you've completely nailed this pet friendly listing and to me you sound like the guru of this I don't have a dog so if I wanted to attract well not me personally but if there was a guest out there listen host out there listening who wanted to attract guests who want to bring a dog are there any basic fundamental things that you would would say maybe think about adding these to your listing maybe is it pet blankets or do people bring their own pet beds or food bowl yeah they do they do we have them we have them as a as a standard thing look it's and firstly if you're not a dog person don't host dogs don't do it well and it's it I've had students in the states that have said to me they only want to do it for the money if you're doing it for the money you really shouldn't do it you really won't attract the right part like I said this is a subject I could talk about for hours you speak a certain language when you're a dog person like kind of dog people like we are we weren't able to have children so dogs are our family dogs are our kids and that's the type of people that we deal with fur babies you refer to them as fur babies you're not bringing your dog dogs are family they are their children right will go on the beds dogs will go on the furniture I can guarantee you that so if you don't want dogs on beds or dogs on furniture don't post dogs like I do all right we I think that's pretty good and I know everyone's going to be horrified and freak out at that it doesn't bother us because those guests will bring their own because we say very very clearly you sleep with your dog dogs are tuned to this we just request that you bring your own linen as a courtesy to the future's guest in app c as will bring L they honestly do
in a crate and you'll know they'll go hey I'm bringing fluffy po bar or whatever their name is um they're going to be sleeping in their crate and this this and they will explain I know more about the their breed what they do than the humans come in and then every so often you go oh I'm bringing my husband too but I don't know about much about the husband I know about the dogs um so blankets beds balls leads all those kind of things in a special dog cupboard like the humans have their things we have a little dog cupboard and it's got all the spare bowls cuz we've gone away sometimes forgotten foodb travel with fur babies they travel with everything I know when we go away anywhere it's like half a bloody Land Cruiser full of stuff so
Yeahs we leave a gift for the dogs it's it's completely different it's a it's a I said it's a rabbit hole you could go down all day so it's a big topic Mark it's a huge top and and the yard playe up what do you put on your exit instructions yeah um do a the day of checkout message that we'll go to them um look most of them are so responsible I think in the nine years I've been hosting pets I have that are specifically pets and pets only really don't don't bring just normal humans I think I've had two where the cleaners have said they didn't do the art people dogs like we do that's just their routine you see your dog go to the toilet you pick it up or you do poo Patrol morning and afternoons um we're just those types of people people come back if you're supplying A really lovely pet friendly property this is why 70% of my guests are return guests they want come back to my place cuz it's nice so they're not going to leave poos in the yard so we call it a puppy you have on the last day a message to those guests of what they have to do on checkout yeah absolutely just like anything else and so we and I actually do it on the last day as well so we have the checkout expectation message the day before checkout then the day of checkout we go thanks hope you had a lovely St just a gentle reminder if you could just quickly check the yard for puppy surprises we ourselves have known that you know in the busyness of packing and getting everything into the car you could final sweep at the yard if you could do that to be fantastic you know travel safe because that's the only I've only I know one that really forgot to do the yard they'll never return and my cleaners do do a che of the yard too it's not their job to clean up but yeah down down below we've got uh uh links to each of us and uh we'll also put in the um in the notes uh some links to Sue's tips on the exit tips so uh we'll give you some samples some some sample templates of uh what to do if you're considering hosting and um how to tee your uh guests up to do the right thing as they're exiting I know Felicity you want to say something but I'm I'm looking at at Jeff and he's itching to talk about those two-legged fur babies um and and what to do with Kitty friendly uh
properties no not I can I know one big tip don't Supply crayons
pencils I've done a lot of family friendlies as well and I had a friend setting up and go oh I've just been down to the shop and I've brought some coloring in books and this a magic eraser while you were there she goes what I said well you do know that the crayons are going to end up on your walls it's a big blank canvas you know
there oh no coloring inputs no textes no pencils no you know what no definitely toy boxes Games books
I found it in an OP shop you would have loved it he freaked out one of those little Fisher Price dollhouses that folds up into a little plastic one two bucks dogs Furniture everything all folded up kids would play with that for hours because it's new if it's not there publicity yeah well I uh I I agree I love um we we've set our place up to be kid-friendly um that is one of our hosting we're a family four couple of what we're little kids but they've grown up a bit now and so we did we set our place up to be family friendly and we have a lot of families that come back and stay but the other thing that we also have is we have a lot of guests who come and stay with us who are grandparents who are visiting families in the area and they love having our place set up that is familyfriendly because it means they can
roll they can have that um live like a local experience where they can pick their grandkids up from school or preschool and bring them home and they can feed them using the plastic Cutlery and Crockery and they can get the toys out and read them a story and they they love it um so we have a lot of happy families who come to stay the other thing that we leave out are buckets and Spades we live quite close to the beach and so we always leave out and Spades and you know the grandparents love it they pick up the kids and go down it's one last thing they've got to think about and um that's pretty popular uh self-interest we love the money as as hosts um talk about uh if you're kidfriendly or Pet Well I think we've done pet friendly but if you're kidfriendly can you expect either more bookings or more money or a bit of
both no yeah definitely basically no I mean it's it's you know it depends on how you set your place up doesn't it I mean if you're r if your if a guest is booking your place they're booking a place and there's a few things to to remember here firstly Airbnb does not consider children under the age of two to be guests so don't be surprised when somebody rocks up for your three-bedroom property having marked off six guests and they've got six guests and two uh babies babies are not included in the guest count um you know we offer we do have high cheese picots you know plastic cups sauces knives Forks but we ask the guests to actually bring their own linen for the portic
cots now that sounds a bit odd but I just go back to when my wife and I used to travel with the kids when they're small no parent of a newborn cares about having to bring their own sheets and blankets in fact most of the time they prefer it because they know it's clean um not that our linen is not clean else goes out to commercial laundry but you know parents are always suspect of somebody else's linen for for newbs um I have seen you know a large property that can cater for a family so really the only thing that possibly attracts more guests is you being able to tick in your amenities that you have high chairs and picots because that's just two less things that somebody has to put in the car and bring with them Meredith it's more an occupancy then um a money per guest thing it's an occupancy thing they'll have St great we'll take that one because it's got Porter cops high chairs blah blah blah I think if it's it's very similar to um being pet friendly being um child friendly if you love having kids around your house and you're used to having it um you're going to be prepared for it so um you know I think having all those things that kids love and I I sort of disagree a bit about the paper and pencils I I do have paper and pencils I wouldn't have crayons but um I've never had any problems with that but anybody who's child friendly you know when the kids have been you're going to have extra cleaning so you do need to be aware of that because like Jeff said under two and they're the toddlers that touch everything um you don't get any extra money but you're going to have to have extra cleaning for them so you need to be prepared for that but um you know it will bring you more bookings because a lot of people have children and like they have fur babies they have their real babies so that's pretty important to think about Mark I'm pleased to hear you say that and Jeff was quite definitive what is know that you don't get extra bookings or extra money I I think I think you absolutely 1 million per wrong wrong wrong there Jeff but um uh that's just my own personal opinion um another another one of the favorites is um I was married to someone once who um love having everything in the right spot and uh after we're we've got a place that's on five acres and people would come here and um the the kids would you know rearrange uh the decorations and all of that so uh they were never in the right place so my ex-wife would spend the first I don't know hour or do on a visit uh just uh putting things back in the right place um what do we do there to if you're that way inclined what do you do
um okay you'll take these bookings and I I think you'll get extra money but what else do we do I think Felicity you've got some thoughts there Jeff yeah I think you know if I look at our place and and for those who don't know I have a three-story Stone house in Regional Victoria um we built it back in 2008 so it's been on it's been on uh short day since then the the house for the children and how it's set up has developed as my own children have grown so when we built the house my two oldest were three and five um as we've gone through the years you know we've added there's a football table uh in the basement area there's now a kids chill out area with their own TV their own couches their own fireplaces where if they really want to sleep in their sleeping bags they can um it's then developed into you know as we went through and the kids got older that was when we introduced WiFi um because teenagers just absolutely kill the mood uh with they complaining all day about no WiFi um it then went into a stage where it now caters for older kids as well there's a box that put out if kids are coming no matter what age they are it's got footballs and soccer balls it's got books it's got and that stuff all gets packed away so that if it's if it's a group of adults that are staying it doesn't come out but if it's a group of if it's a family it does come out um but I think also the thing I would say Mark is I get your former partners approach I hate it when guests rearrange things um but here's the simple heads up do not put anything out if you're afraid that it's going to get stolen by a kid or broken because it happens all the time yep Y and here's the reality if bre you really can't claim it on air cover I mean it's more effort than what it's worth for get broken all the time and I never ever make guests pay for those little things like that bity I um I I hear you Jeff and I've got a little story we have um we host a one bedroom Cottage that's my co-host Asen um we host a one-bedroom Cottage next door to our own place
and and we have it set up the forgot to tell the bit about being at the
beach it's pretty close to the beach it's an awesome location we're very very lucky to live where we are we love it but the bedroom has the option to have the bed set up as a king bed or as two single beds and we have a lot of families who choose to stay with us and they'll put the two kids in the two single beds and the parents will sleep on the big sofa bed in the living room and they love it it's a great way and it's been a great business decision for us to carry all that extra linen and extra trouble it's it's worked out for us um and we do have a lot of and they will come back and stay with us which is which is lovely um one of the other things that we talk about for families is we know ourselves is sometimes when you get to a new place and you're just like oh got to get the kids out got to run them around you want to know where the local playgrounds are so in our guide books we mention where the local playgrounds are and how far it takes to get there and which is the playground with the great coffee shop and how long that coffee shop is open for um so that's that's that's one of our um key little tips as well and many parents are very grateful for that and the other thing we have on the bookshelf is a guide for kids and what to do in Sydney with them so that's a well thumbed book on the
bookshelf you actually read my mind and I guess we're coming towards the end of this section on kids and uh pets but um maybe some thoughts or some Reflections um what do people find uh do guests usually stay at the house and sit in front of the fire and use all the firewood or are they like felicity's clients that um they're going to take the car and drive two blocks to the park and you know spend most of the U most of the time that they're in Sydney or Regional Victoria or tazzy are they going to be out there sightseeing and what's the thoughts on that are people staying in your house you know and staying there and having their events or they're going they're coming there so that they can spend time at the
beach but um so this is one of my little things sort of is a problem at times because we've got a pool and our guests sometimes if they've got kids they might go out one or two days but the rest of the time they'll hang around and use the pool if if the weather's good of course in tazzy but um you know we have a swing and we have games outdoor games and indoor games so yeah sometimes you get your guest to stay around and um it's it's I guess it's good to have things for them but you also want to encourage them to get out like so like Felicity we often give them a lot of info about other things they can do and that helps to move them onto uh you know visiting sites
Jeff yeah same same here rith I mean we um well for all of our guests we give them I suppose appropriate direction as to things to do in the area but for families in particular we've got a whole raft of really great child friendly restaurants that are within walking distance of the house there's a whole lot of fun things they can do you know in my area kids love climbing we had this old water tower on the top of one of the hills surrounding the district um great view but you know it's exciting to be able to climb up an old water tower you know go chase the Wombats um unfortunate that I've got a natural tourist attraction at my place it's called Kangaroos and it's not just one I think we've got about 20 or 30 of them at the moment um so kids go out and count the kangaroos in fact we actually have to give actually this is actually quite a good good point on the topic of kids and also on the topic of pits if you bring
dogs um we actually have to give our guests warnings when they come to stay that kangaroos are actually wild animals they're not domestic pets even though they look at while they're laying around my property um and they react rather badly if you try to chase them or catch a Joey or going bark um and you you'd be surprised how many people check in that do not realize that they send me a picture of their child chasing a joey down the field and all I can actually see in the picture is the father kangaroo thinking of what stage am I going to go and kick the kid yeah I was thinking about litigation yeah with the tower was I was thinking about that with the tower climb the tower uh that's on that's on Council land not my problem and there Hanging Rock as well uh I actually think Felicity was first Sue but um did you have something you were gonna say look I was just going to say look I think um if you are open to being child friendly or pet friendly like Sue said you pick your hosting Avatar if you are comfortable with hosting children or animals that's great but if you're not don't do
it try it it's not for you works that's just a whole another woooo topic you can get into but um we do at the moment no I was as you're going through there like it's the same with pets like with your animals where the pet friendly restaurants are pet friendly
activity we have in the book toads and first aid for toads because some dogs any dog raised in Queensland knows about toads and you train your dogs not to go near toads but you've got a dog traveling from into State toad is and they're poisonous to dogs we have vet information um we have pet services it's just like you'd have a babysitting service in your welcome book that are available so we offer exactly what you would do for child friendly and another quick thing to with things going on I've recently just started putting things in um if I happen to see something on Facebook like I did this week about um particular Market that was on it was a food truck Market I just screen captured it sent it off to the guest and say hey did you realize this is on on this week anything like that boom doesn't take two seconds screen captur you send the photo it's done round up they love that our most important things
each person quickly give their most important things as to whichever
category cck all right I'll take it away I'll start that off merth my key thing is as I've saying before don't go into pet friendly or child friendly if this is not your bag because you won't do it well and you won't you won't actually get the guests who will come and enjoy it and appreciate your property it's it got to be authentic have it an authentic thing and you don't have to be everything to everybody so if petsy specialize in that if kids are your thing that's great specialize in that um and think about the size of your home and the location of the home and the Furnishing of the
home that's great Sue so I agree with what both of you guys have said and I also think that you have to enjoy it I I think hosting is not going to be for everybody um much less pets and kids you you have to enjoy it and you have to like people having kids in home or like people having pets in your home uh and you have to be comfortable with hosting both of those things so um you need to do everything you can to get yourself to that point one of them being um make sure that as Jeff said you haven't got things in that place that you're going to miss that's going to be upsetting you uh that are you know family heirlooms or anything like that be prepared for things to be damaged and if if you can cope with that you'll be comfortable with hosting Jeff I would say two takeaways Meredith um try it uh I tried pit friendly for three months before I decided it wasn't for me so I think you I wouldn't just rule it out um so I think you got to give it a go second thing I would say is with regards to kidfriendly um if you've got kids go and stay in your property from time to time for a couple of nights the only way you're going to find out does your property work for a family with kids is to road test it um and like I said you've got to remember kids don't always remain the same age so over the years we probably stay in our properties at least once a year uh with all three children um and as a result of that that's led to what the property is today and how it caters for families Mark that's probably a perfect uh place to round up the episode um thanks very much for for joining us Meredith Sue uh Jeff and Felicity now if anyone wants to get in touch with us uh we've got packages of free help uh for new hosts uh all you got to do is hit the links below to pick your fa and uh Airbnb will give us some Jeff's saying pick me but um no pick me uh pick who you feel comfortable with if you've uh if you got any questions we've got an instant chat tool in on our web page uh so you can hit up the Sue page and uh me message Sue or uh correspond with each any one of us um if you've got any questions don't hesitate to to call and my final thoughts is that hosting is about hospitality and uh yes Hospitality can be rewarding uh financially but it's also a lot of fun you get to meet some great people and make friends along the way and uh they're they're interesting uh and as I've met all of all four of you uh I I meet I've we've met each of us has met hundreds and hundreds of uh guests so uh there is the money uh and there is the guests and the friends and uh you can make someone feel very welcome so uh on that happy note thanks for joining us uh hit the messages hit the like And subscribe button on our YouTube channel uh be in touch with anytime and if you've got any questions uh we'd love to hear from you this been uh Mark Felicity Jeff Sue and Meredith thanks for joining us on season one episode four of the St Str Street Talk Show thanks a million bye what