Nose Prints

Glowing nose print clearly seen at night with headlamp.

 We now qualify for the Big League of vacation rental cleaning.  Because we have discovered a trick for cleaning windows of the most troublesome and annoying of whatever-makes-windows-dirty: the Nose Print.  And not only the nose print, but the palm print, the forehead print, the butt print, and the print of unknown origin.  How do we find these prints?  Not by the usual, flawed window cleaning method of having one person on the inside of the window on a sunny day and another person on the outside.  No.  The best way is to do your window cleaning at night when it is dark outside, and inside, too.  At night.  Use a headlamp or flashlight and simply shine the light on the window.  Prints of any kind will glow like florescent powder under UV, making it possible to see the prints without strain.  

It's fascinating how vacation rental guests seem to be unable to calculate where a window is and mash their noses into the glass as they gaze at the lovely scenery outside. Children love to decorate the windows within reach with their personal oil of palm.  Anthropological psychology questions acide, in this insecure world, we have made it a secondary business to assist law enforcement in the surveillance of our citizenry by collecting these prints of every type, along with the oils for DNA samples, for identification purposes.  Surprisingly, it pays well. 

The Artwork at the Brown House

Appalachian Writer James Still's Cabin on Dead Mare Branch

The art work in the Brown House, as are the furnishings & everything else, is highly personal. Much of it has been “rescued” from Goodwill, purchased at bargain prices. Sometimes I bought a print just for the frame, which I then used with another print, poster, or photograph. Most of it is unusual &/or unique. I have two long, crosscut saw blades that belonged to my dad. What follows is a description & known history of the each of the pieces. One of my ideas for art work in the house is that it depicts nothing you can see by looking out a window of the house. For example, I have almost no representational flowers or plants. I didn’t hold to that rule absolutely... 

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Eleven Essential, Big Rules on How to Earn a Coveted One-Star Review from Your Vacation Rental Host

Sample of artwork in the Brown House

Everyone is concerned about their online reputation these days. Reviews of you and your conduct become part of your permanent record that, unlike school grades, but like a rap-sheet, is totally public. If you want to really make a statement in virtual-land, and you ever stay in short term rentals, be sure to follow as many of these rules as possible.

1. Don’t pay attention to any of the material your host sends you. This is essential to achieve that one star review for several important reasons, which I will refer to in the list.

2. Remember, a vacation rental in a private home is exactly like a cheap hotel room, which means you can treat the host, staff, and the rental itself with as much disrespect as you can muster. If you see the host, just keep walking and say something, brief, meaningless, and insincere. Never thank them for their beautiful place and hospitality.

3. Don’t bother writing a review of your stay. It’s a waste of your time and no one will read it anyway. And if you do happen to blow it and write a positive review, it will mean the host can raise the rent for next time. Better even is writing a bad review, and especially complain about things that the host told you about in the material they sent you. Like if they say upfront they don’t have a large TV, you complain about not them having one.

4. Show up at least a half hour before the stated check-in time without asking and stay at least a half hour after the check-out time. This will be fun, as the host will be in a muck sweat to clean while you are in the way.

5. Leave all your trash scattered here and there throughout the place, as it suits your convenience. You’ve already paid a huge amount of money for the rent and the cleaning fee, so you are entitled make life easy for yourself. If you clean any of your nasty messes, the cleaners won’t earn their money. For extra points, bring your smelly food garbage from home and stuff it into one of the inside garbage cans.

6. Be sure to bring your pet to the Pet Free rental—they are always cleaner--then when the host later finds animal hair everywhere and asks if you brought a cat, tell them you left it at home with a sitter. Don’t tell them you brought your ferrets. Hosts are sensitive to bad reviews, so you can lie and bully them into submission.

7. If you accidentally or purposefully cause damage, never tell the host. They probably won’t see it until it’s too late, and then will not know exactly who did it.

8. When you make your booking, select dates that begin on a Saturday night or end on a Saturday. You will save money because Friday and Saturday nights are more in demand and hosts charge more for them. This keeps the host from making more money. Another trick is to check out on New Years Eve day, or otherwise cut any holiday season in half, thus preventing someone else from enjoying the whole holiday and the host from making a fortune.

9. Lie, and lie, and lie about everything. Or tell them nothing. Whatever they may say, hosts love not knowing what is going on in their place.

10. When you make a booking, always ask for a discount, inventing a sob story about how you are only trying to have a family reunion with your brother and mom for the first time in 10 years, and everything is so expensive, and that you might have to borrow money to afford the fees. Or make up your own stories. For extra effect, flatter the host. Hosts feel guilty about being rich enough to own a second home, or an extra room, so they always cave.

11. Ask the host all kinds of questions, especially ones they’ve answered in their online literature, and get them to invest considerable time with you. Treat them like new-found friends. Then later on cancel the reservation at the last moment while you can still get a full refund. The downside to this is the host can’t write that one-star review. The upside is that they will never let you book their place ever again and you will save a ton of money.

12. Leave all the lights on, inside and out, even in the daytime when you are out and about. You are bringing light to the world and inspiring the climate activists.

13.  Attempt to break the world record for how many full-garbage-bags/poundage/per day of trash you can leave behind.  Extra credit for whole watermelons and such.  Hint: recyclables add to the bulk, so don’t separate those.

Wood Shed or Woodshed?

Our son built this woodshed at the Brown House last week.  The inside dimensions are 6' x 16' with a variable height, enough space to tightly stack four cords under cover. I cut the seven locust posts on our property some years ago, and stored them under old roof metal. The roof of the woodshed matches the metal siding of the Lower Level of the house.  As you might see, the triangle sections under the overhangs on each end are made from old barn wood that our son brought from his place. We plan to stain the barn wood and posts something clear and oil-based. The pressure treated wood will receive a unique, fanciful color: brown.  A girl who helps with cleaning asked what the shed was for. I said, "It's a woodshed."  She said, "I know, but what's it for?"  I guess her family doesn't heat with wood.

Transition

I began writing a novel in the year 2000 and it took about 10 years to complete.  Then, with the encouragement of my wife, who said it would help promote my novel, I began writing short stories.  Many of those stories were published here are there, but for the most part, nowhere of significance to advance a career in writing.  My stories and novel are all available to purchase on Amazon, as is my monarch migration book.  The short stories are available to read here.

My plan was to transition from a decades long career in what I will call "social reform" to writing and selling books and stories, but the writing part never went anywhere, except as a hobby.  As it happened, I didn't have any significant "retirement" revenue. Fast-forward to the punchline: we built a house on about five acres near Asheville, North Carolina, equipped it as a vacation rental, and since the early spring of 2022 we've accommodated guests through the AirBnb and Vrbo platforms.

Those platforms are rigidly designed for formally presenting our place in words and pictures, and booking guests. They have a helpful mutual review process between guests and hosts. As a host, you want 5-star glowing reviews, and you want them as guests, too. Everyone is as polite as pie, typically. What the vacation rental formats don't have in is an environment for sharing news, and frankly, more candid and humorous stories about the joys and terrors of letting complete strangers live in your beautiful new house on your private property.

So, given the economic failure of my writing efforts, and given the success of our modest vacation rental business, I'm transitioning this blog toward, well, telling stories from the Brown House under High Swan.