House rules that actually get followed

Your house rules sit on your listing and travel with every booking made under them. The version a guest agreed to is kept with their session, so if a disagreement ever comes up, both of you are looking at the same text rather than arguing about what the rules said at the time.

That makes them worth writing properly once.

Specific beats stern

"Respect the space" is not a rule. It is a mood. Nobody has ever changed their behaviour because of it.

Compare:

• "No smoking" against "No smoking anywhere in the building, including the fire escape. The alarm is heat and smoke linked and a call-out costs 200."
• "Be quiet late" against "Amps and live drums stop at 10pm. The flat above is a family with a toddler. Anything through headphones or monitors is fine all night."
• "Clean up" against "Bin bags are under the sink. Take food waste with you when you leave, the collection is fortnightly."

The second version of each gets followed, because it tells someone what to do and why it matters. The first version only tells them you are worried.

Say the consequence, not the threat

If breaking a rule genuinely costs you money, say what it costs. If it does not, it is a preference, and preferences are fine but they should read as preferences.

Guests are much better at respecting a real constraint than a general request for good behaviour. "The rate assumes the room is as you found it. If I have to reset the patchbay, that is half an hour I cannot rent" is a rule people follow. "Please leave the studio tidy" is wallpaper.

Cover the things that actually go wrong

Most studio disputes come from a short list. Write a line on each that applies to you:

• Who is allowed in. Is the booking for the person who paid, or can they bring six people? Say the number.
• Noise and hours. What can be loud, and until when.
• Food, drink, and smoking. Where, and where not.
• Gear. What guests may touch, what is off limits, what happens if something breaks.
• Access. How they get in, whether they can let others in, what to do with the key.
• Overrunning. What happens if a session runs past its end time, especially when another booking follows.
• Recordings. Who owns what, if you or your engineer are involved in making it.

Keep it short enough to be read

Ten specific lines beat two pages. Anything longer than a phone screen gets scrolled past, and a rule nobody read is a rule you cannot lean on.

If you have written a page, most of it probably belongs in your listing description as useful information about the room rather than in the rules as an obligation.

Do not put policy in here

Your cancellation terms, refunds, and payment all sit elsewhere and are enforced by the platform. Restating them in your house rules in your own words creates two versions of the same rule, and the day they disagree is the day it matters. Link out, or say nothing.