How to Start & Run a B&B BandBED2eBook-1 | Page 86

almost as much as the fact that he had left without paying. The smoking in our home
felt somehow more personal a violation than his crime, which in effect was theft. We
immediately reported Mr Baker to the police, and were agreeably surprised when they
took DNA samples, and amazed when they found a match. We heard later that our
former unwelcome guest had been arrested, and our crime added to his long and
impressive list of charges.
Lessons: this emphasises how important it is to keep security of payment in mind.
Clearly, alarm bells should have rung because of the circumstances: arrival without
notice, without a car and with little luggage (a backpack). We were probably
unconsciously reassured by the fact that he was “referred” by an expensive hotel, but of
course the hotel knew no more about Mr Baker than we did (he had told them a
different story, we discovered). We even failed to ask him for his home address and
phone number. Nothing you do, short of taking full payment on arrival rather than
departure, will stop this happening, but our failure to take any details from him at least
opened the possibility of an opportunistic, spur of the moment departure. If we had
taken his address and contact details on arrival, and if this was opportunistic rather
than premeditated, we might have avoided it. Having said that, of course, such a
habitual offender would be likely to simply give a false name and address, although
one of the oddest things about our “Mr Baker” was that he did in fact give us his real
name.
*the name has been changed to protect us from the guilty
The Party Girls
We had a two night booking for a twin room from Miss d’Arcy**, who casually
mentioned that they would be arriving late. David’s big mistake was not to query
exactly what “late” meant – from her tone he assumed it simply meant the evening
rather than the afternoon. Never assume! We did at least get her mobile number, so
when it got to 9:00pm and no-one had arrived or phoned, David called Miss d’Arcy to
check whether they needed directions to find us in Sherborne. Miss d’Arcy breezily
said that they had been a little held up leaving London, and were just getting onto the
M25 at that point. This meant they were at least two and a half hours away, perhaps
more. When David said this, our guest asked “is that a problem?”. Of course, we said
“no”. No problem for her – just highly inconvenient and annoying for us!
A Mercedes sports car finally pulled up outside at about midnight, with much noisy
door slamming, and David was greeted by two expensively educated and expensively
dressed twenty-something women with the words “I know we are a bit late but I
guarantee I have had a much worse day than you have” boomed out loud enough to
ensure even our deafest neighbour was woken up.
Our guests talked loudly all the way up two flights of stairs as David took them to their
room and carried their bags – just in case any of our guests (or family) were not quite
fully awake again.
The following night Miss d’Arcy and friend went to a wedding reception, from which
they returned at 2.30am the next morning, then spent the next hour and a half creeping
up and down our (creaky) stairs and sitting in our courtyard smoking and talking with
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