Most house rules are written once, in a hurry, after something went wrong — a party, a stain on the sofa, a 2am noise complaint from the neighbor. Each incident adds a line. A year in, the list is twenty items long, guests skim the first three and stop, and the one rule that actually mattered this week is somewhere near the bottom, unread.
The fix isn’t a longer list or a sterner tone. It’s a shorter one, phrased so a tired person scanning it on their phone actually takes it in.
Why the long version doesn’t work
A guest reading house rules is usually doing it at the worst possible moment to read anything carefully: mid check-in, phone in one hand, bags in the other, often after travelling most of the day. A list that reads like a legal disclaimer — “guests shall not,” “it is strictly prohibited to,” clause after clause — gets the same treatment a cookie banner gets: closed without being read.
Two things make a list actually get read. It has to be short enough to finish, and it has to sound like it was written by a person, not a lawyer.
The rules worth having
Not every rule needs restating everywhere. These are the ones that actually change what a guest does, so they earn a place in the guide itself rather than a line in the listing they’ve already forgotten:
- Quiet hours. A specific range, not “please be considerate.” “Quiet after 10pm” is a rule; “be respectful of noise” is a suggestion a guest can interpret however suits them.
- Who’s staying. How many guests, and whether visitors who aren’t on the booking are welcome — and if so, until when.
- Parties and events. Say plainly whether they’re allowed. Most hosts don’t allow them; say so once, clearly, rather than implying it.
- Smoking. Where, if anywhere. Indoors is the one that needs to be unambiguous either way.
- Pets. Whether they’re welcome, and anything that follows from a yes — extra cleaning, areas that are off-limits to them.
- Parking. Where, and anything a guest would otherwise get wrong — a permit, a specific bay, a street that tows.
- Check-out. What “leave it reasonably tidy” means in your place, specifically — see the welcome book guide for how much detail actually helps here.
- Rubbish. Which bin, which bag, which day — only if your building or town makes this a real point of friction, which in a lot of places it does.
That’s eight, not twenty. If your property genuinely needs a ninth or tenth — a pool, a shared courtyard, a landlord who lives upstairs — add it. Resist the urge to also list the ones that aren’t really rules: “please enjoy your stay” and “treat our home as your own” fill space without telling anyone what to do.
How to phrase one so it gets read
The pattern that works is short: the rule, then the reason, in one sentence each. A rule without a reason reads as arbitrary, and guests are more likely to follow one they understand than one they’re just told. Compare:
No noise after 10pm.
against
Quiet after 10pm — the walls here carry sound more than they look like they should, and the neighbors have been good to us.
Same instruction. The second one explains itself, and a guest who understands why a rule exists is more likely to follow it than one who suspects it’s arbitrary. It also costs you nothing — you’re not asking for more, just explaining once why you’re asking at all.
The same goes for phrasing a rule as an instruction rather than a prohibition where you can. “Quiet after 10pm” tells a guest what to do. “No excessive noise” makes them guess where the line is, and guests who have to guess are the ones most likely to guess wrong.
Where they need to live
A rule a guest never saw gets broken far more often than one they disagreed with. Put the same short list in three places: the listing itself (so it’s seen before booking, and a guest who can’t live with it self-selects out), the pre-arrival message, and the guide they actually have open once they’ve arrived — which is the one that matters most, because it’s the version they can still find at 11pm on the second night when the question actually comes up.
That’s the same reasoning behind the welcome book template: a rule stated once, in a place nobody can find later, isn’t really stated. It’s the reason we built Askello the way we did — you write your house rules once, guests can ask about them in their own language whenever the question comes up, and the answer comes from what you actually wrote, not a guess. You can see what a guide looks like from the guest’s side on the sample guide, and how the questions land on the host’s side in the FAQ.
Eight honest rules a guest reads beat twenty a guest skips. Write the short version.