I've only just found this thread and very glad it worked out for you Tansy. Interestingly (to me anyway), I had a not dissimilar situation this last week. A woman contacted me last Thursday inquiring about a last minute booking to arrive Saturday, just for two nights, for herself and her sisters. She told me that their father had passed away the previous week. He lived in the same town as us until a few years ago, and they wanted to spend a quiet weekend in the area and around the places he loved. She said she couldn't believe her luck to find that our house was available.
Facing less than 48 hours to go until current guests checked out, then an empty house for a week, and the only other prospect a highly dubious one, I decided this was my best bet if I was going to make a dime out of the place for this week, even though we don't even do two night rentals.
I couldn't imagine she had more than 2 or 3 sisters at most, so I gave her my bottom line price including cleaning and laundry and all the usual trimmings of $1,000. I expected the cleaning to be half the normal and didn't feel obligated to leave wine, or lavish toiletries for a two night booking, and felt very self-satisfied when she readily agreed.
Early Friday morning, she then emailed me to discuss the sleeping arrangements and it soon became apparent that there were not only 3 sisters, but they all had husbands AND she also had 2 children. They were 8 people, not 3. Ooops! I decided to bite the bullet because I had already given her a price, it was only two nights and I did not want to upset someone in bereavement, even though a part of me didn't buy the family death story.
I went through the motions of booking her in, but as the day progressed, I started to feel some resentment towards her and by the end of the day, I didn't like her at all, even though I had never even met her and she had been nothing except very pleasant to me. Nevertheless, it felt like she was taking something from me to which she was not entitled, even though the truth was that without her, I would be getting nothing at all.
Then she emailed me to confirm she had obtained a bank check for the rent, so that was fine, but had completely forgotten about her sister's 6 year old, who would also be coming, so in fact, they would be 9, not 8. Our maximum is 8. We don't have the extra bed. We don't want an extra bed.
At this point, I took a big breath, phoned her and was completely honest about how uncomfortable I was starting to feel. I told her that I should have quoted her at least $200 -$400 more for 8 people and now it was 9, not only did I not have the extra bed, I didn't want to pay for the extra cleaning and laundry cost either. She apologized for not having explained properly at the beginning about the numbers and said she perfectly understood my concern, and they would go somewhere else if I didn't feel comfortable. This was not my idea of an ideal solution since I really wanted the $1,000 at this point. Obviously they weren't going to leave the 6 yr old behind, so I asked them her to cover my cleaning and laundry bill as an extra charge of $180, or even pay half, whatever she thought fair.
She said she needed to talk to her sisters and would get back to me in 10 minutes, but probably OK. 10 minutes passed, an hour passed, 2 hours passed, nothing. I felt terrible. That horrible feeling that you're being greedy and going to end up with nothing because of it. And worse, guilt from giving a poor woman who had just lost her father a hard time. Nightmare. Of course, it was all worry for nothing. She phoned and it was absolutely fine, they would see me tomorrow, bring an air mattress and their own sheets for the 6yr old and pay 100% of the cleaning charge, not just half of it. I felt better, sufficiently well to leave the same wine, toiletries and trimmings as I would for a weekly booking. I'm glad I did.
When she arrived Saturday, she was charming and we chatted for a while, then the other siblings and their spouses arrived. There was no mistaking those consoling hugs they gave each other. They were fresh from the funeral and the deceased father was the strongest presence there. It was a very moving moment and we slipped away.
I never did see the 6 yr old and don't know how they spent their time, but if it were not for the extra bedlinens, you would never know that any more than 3 had been there. When they checked out, they left everything neatly in it's place, washed and folded all the towels and stripped all the beds. The place certainly doesn't need a full clean after all.
It never occurred to me before that a family would want to book our home as a place to grieve together, but I'm very glad we were able to offer this lovely family what they needed at a difficult time for them. I hope very much that they will rebook at a happier time.
So now I feel really good, and banking $1180 doesn't hurt either ...
it is 3 couples (3 double rooms) + a cot in one of the rooms beside one of the doubles..guess what - that room is a twin room....I'm beaten unless I take the beds out!!!!!
could be quite a good wind up though 
!!!
