Airbnb hosts join water-saving bid

ORDINARY citizens, businesses and entrepreneurs are pitching in to save water.

Now Airbnb hosts have followed suit, making adjustments to their homes and even suggesting that guests shower with a friend.

Several hosts have been placed in touch with one anotherr so they can exchange ideas and make sure Cape Town doesn’t run out of water.

Some have already found interesting ways to get guests’ co-operation.

Jo Duxbury listed a room in her Claremont home and made her water-saving efforts visible to her guests, subconsciously “channelling” them into adopting her behaviour.

“All my guests have been really open to the water restrictions. I haven’t had any complaints. They’ve been great. Maybe it’s because they see me lugging buckets out and pouring them over my pot plants constantly. I’m kind of a bit ostentatious about what I’m doing in terms of saving water.”

She has also boasted to guests about the lengths some of her previous guests went to during their stay, and ended up turning saving water into a competition. It’s been working like a charm, she says, with many guests wanting to do more.

Estee Lazarus, who has been hosting in Simon’s Town for about a year, has turned saving the environment into a game.

Lazarus has persuaded some of her guests to water her food garden with their own bath water and, if she really likes them, she uses ingredients from the garden to make them a green smoothie.

“It’s really to present it as an opportunity to your guests to do something great. Here’s an opportunity for your guests to be a superhero,” she said. – Staff Reporter