Handling extra guests & parties

[Mindy Nicol]

Some of my larger homes are experiencing more guests than we can sleep.  I know this is an ongoing issue. I have tried asking guests to invite every adult staying into the Airbnb booking.  We send a message prior to check in about no parties and how we need to have everyone's names in the group.  My client has video cameras around the property so we are aware when there are many more cars or guests than expected.  Does anyone have a good way of addressing this?  Do we charge extra, tell them to leave?  Watch the cameras on check in day and count people coming in?  He is ready to call the sheriff but I honestly don't know if they can do much if there is no disturbance.  Thanks!

[JD Martin]

Quote from @Sean Wilt:

One thing we have done is we never allow less than a 3 night minimum.  This has helped with avoiding College Parties as they don't even search for 3 nights so that has helped greatly.  Otherwise, if people ask if they can have a few extra "people" over, we always so no. It's just not worth it. You want to trust people of course, but it only takes one bad one to cause cleaning headaches as well as unhappy neighbors.  

Our minimum these days is 4 nights, which virtually eliminates the "host a party" crowd. Once you add that 3rd & 4th night to the cost, it's too expensive for those types of groups. Do you give up on a few last-minute weekend honeymooners? Yes, but the trade off is worth it. We never had a terrible problem with huge parties - I have full-time homeowners on both sides of me that keep an eye on things - but I did have some problematic guests when we had a 2 night minimum.