Airbnb & Me | The "Who"
When I imagined what it would be like to live on my own, I always hoped my house would be a place where people dropped by on a whim. I envisioned a house that was full of life and light, and where people could come to feel encouraged, or regroup. Three years after purchasing my first home in Grand Rapids’ Eastown neighborhood, I can proudly say say that’s exactly what I have. My 100 year old house has become a buzzing ecosystem of friends, family, dogs, guests and people that help me keep it going.
In January, I made the decision to begin welcoming short-term guests to stay in my spare bedroom through Airbnb. It’s something I had been interested in ever since my first experience staying with an amazing young couple in Montreal back in 2012. Welcoming guests from all over the world has allowed me to create a space within my home for community and connection in a time when it seems the drop-by has been replaced by a text and the shoulder-to-cry-on has been substituted with a sad face emoji. So far, hosting has been a remarkable journey with a cast of characters that have seasoned my life in unexpected ways.
Co-workers, friends and family all ask a similar series of questions when they find out that I’m an Airbnb host. Right after, “Do you have any horror stories?!” (no) and “Aren’t you afraid you’re going to get murdered?!” (also, no) the most common thing people want to know is: “Who’s staying with you?”. I decided to take a step back and reflect on all the guests that have stayed with me so far and share a little bit about them here...
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Over the past six months, I have welcomed 71 guests into my home, for a total of 101 nights. I have had visitors from all over the world, including those born in Poland, India, Andorra, Brazil, France, Australia, and Cuba. Many people are from right here in Michigan though, 45% to be exact. Following Michigan, the other common locations that guests have visited from were: Arizona (16%), Indiana (6%), Ohio/Nebraska/California (5%), and Illinois (4%). Visitors have ranged in age from 6 years old to 65 years old. Not too surprising, the most common visitors are 25-34 (23%), followed by 18-24 (22%), 35-44 (13%), 55-64 (11%), and only a few that are either <18 (4%) or between 45-54 (4%).
I’ve hosted doctors, and med students, architects, and fans of Frank Lloyd Wright. I’ve hosted new brewery owners, and best friends on beer tours. I’ve hosted faculty from the University of Michigan and students from Michigan State. I’ve hosted professional cyclists, ballet dancers, models, as well as brick estimators, steel salesmen, and car mechanics. I’ve hosted a tech startup entrepreneur from the West Coast, a fabric designer from a small town in Iowa, and an Energy Touch Healer from Maine.
My house has filled many needs for many people: a soft bed to sleep on for a family heading North, a place to take a cold shower after an eighth grader’s soccer camp, an anniversary destination for a young couple, and even a place to prepare for handful of job interviews. My pillows have felt the bobby pins of bridesmaids up-dos and my shower floor knows the sweat of a mosh-pit. My walls have heard quiet arguments of a newly married couple, as well as tears of laughter from a 21 year old who was woken up by my puppy gently licking her armpit.
I’ve listened to stories of heartache, rejection, disappointment, and even loss. An African American woman shared the frustration of being unable to hail cabs and land jobs, due to the color of her skin, a gay man shared the unwillingness of his partner to move to Grand Rapids for fear of acceptance, and a man who had just dropped out of his Master's program to take over his family farm after his father unexpectedly passed away. I have attempted to console a young man who got the call while sitting on my back deck that he lost his job, and I have sent my sympathies virtually to a young woman who had to cancel her visit because her husband had just been killed by a drunk driver. These people, their stories, they’ve changed mine.
There have also been many moments where I’ve belly laughed and where my heart swelled. I couldn’t help but crack up when a woman from Poland visited for a wedding and told me how sorely disappointed she was in how tame the reception had been. She couldn’t believe that there weren’t the normal Vodka-bottles-served-over-ice on every table that she was used to. I had a young Autistic boy who, upon arrival, immediately started giving my pup belly rubs, only diverting his attention for a moment to quietly ask if he could call me “Liz” instead of “Miss Lizzie,” like his parents had suggested.
One of my favorite nights was when a couple who had recently moved to Michigan from Boston ended up skipping their evening plans to drink Moscow Mules and local Grand Rapids’ brews with a friend and I. A few beverages in, they told us an amazing story about how a week after they purchased their house in Ypsilanti they found news articles that revealed a prostitute had murdered the previous homeowner in the kitchen only a few months beforehand. Disgusted, they decided to rip out the kitchen, and as they pulled back the new-looking laminate floor, they discovered a wooden sub-floor below. As they looked closer they realized the boards were splintered with knife gouges and some wood had been removed as evidence. Well, that explained the new floor boards!
There have also been many wonderfully normal evenings. I’ve gone out to dinner with traveling salesmen, watched Louis C.K. with a small business owner, made meals for a Doc working 12+ hour shifts, and even brought a French student to my parent’s house for our weekly Sunday Dinner. Some of the time it’s quiet, some of the time it’s loud. Sometimes we talk about the weather, and sometimes it’s politics, policy, and potential. One of the best conversations I ever had was completely non-verbal with an older couple that was visiting the United States for the very first time to watch their daughter graduate from college. They didn’t know any English outside of “Hello” and “Thanks”; I knew two less words than that in Cambodian. They visited for a weekend, and we smiled often and gestured. Through the silence, we shared coffee, tea, warmth and gratitude. It was a powerful exchange.
In addition to giving me a platform to spread positivity about my hometown, Airbnb has challenged my expectations of what can transpire when you choose to trust a “stranger”. It has been a remarkably 21st century way to not only bring the world to my doorstep, but to constantly acknowledge how similar we all are, despite our wide variety of experiences. Everyone wants to connect, to be heard, to have their anxieties reduced, to be nourished, to be clean and comfortable, and to rest. I love that, what was once just a spare bedroom, can now be that source of comfort to new friends from all over the world.
