House rules, short enough to be read

How it works

Add a rules section and write one line per rule. For each one, you say whether it is allowed or not.

The guest sees a list where every line is marked: a green tick for the things that are fine, a red cross for the things that are not. They can take in the whole list in about five seconds, which is roughly how long anyone spends on house rules.

You can write up to thirty. You should write far fewer.

Write the yeses as well as the noes

This is the part that changes how the section feels.

A list of five prohibitions reads as suspicion. The same five with four permissions mixed in reads as a welcome that happens to have edges:

• Yes, the washing machine is for guests — instructions in the kitchen guide
• Yes, you can use the balcony furniture
• Yes, park in any unnumbered space
• No smoking anywhere inside, including the balcony
• Quiet after 22:00 — the neighbours have small children

The permissions also do real work. Every “yes” is a message you do not receive, because the guest who is not sure whether they are allowed to use something will usually ask rather than risk it.

Give the reason where the reason helps

“Quiet after 22:00” is a rule. “Quiet after 22:00 — the neighbours have small children” is a reason, and people follow reasons.

You do not need one for everything. Nobody needs an explanation for no smoking. But for the rules that feel arbitrary from the outside — the ones about the balcony door, the heating, the bins going out on a particular day — one short clause turns an instruction into something a guest can cooperate with.

Where something carries a real consequence, a fee or a deposit deduction, say so here, plainly. That conversation goes far better before than after.

Putting it where it gets seen

By default a rules section sits in the guide with everything else, and guests open it when they think to.

You can also pin it, which lifts it to the top of the guide for every guest. That is worth doing if you have one rule that genuinely matters — a building with a strict noise policy, a neighbour who complains, a fire regulation.

Use it sparingly. A guide where everything is pinned has nothing pinned.

The same rules, in more than one place

If you are on Pro, the rules section is one of the ones you can put on a printed card in the flat, so the list is on the fridge as well as on the phone. It is also one you can show your cleaner, which is useful when the rules include things like which windows must be shut.

You write them once. They appear wherever you have chosen to show them, and correcting them corrects every copy at the same time.

What this costs

The rules section is on the free plan, including the allowed and not-allowed marks and pinning to the top. Showing them on an in-property card or a cleaner link is part of Pro.