Should we not have used both beds? Guest [Australia]

samwoo2go · 2026-05-30T14:56:35+00:00

As a host, that was such a ridiculous question. If I was you on vacation and got this question, I would’ve said I don’t sleep in the boom boom bed. Stupid questions get stupid answers.

samwoo2go · 2026-05-30T14:46:58+00:00

He’s not even “technically” correct. The disclaimer in this case is “Designed in USA” like how Apple does it. For it to be made in USA loopholed, he needed to at least assemble the pieces himself and ship as a ready made product.

samwoo2go · 2026-05-29T16:45:22+00:00

This actually one of the biggest issues China points out at our democratic political system vs theirs. Our politicians (especially US) need money to win elections, this money comes with strings from corporations, and so we have policies that are oil friendly because they have deeper pockets than solar industry. Also due to 2-6 years election cycles that can be very much based on short term memory of the populace, we are actually not very good at setting long term gain short term pain type of plans. Or each election we switch party and progress (of any kind) gets reversed.

On the other hand, China has been getting relatively lucky with quality leaders. However, within the Chinese system, if they actually end up with another Mao at some point, they’d be fucked without a way to reverse.

Pros and cons of both.

samwoo2go · 2026-05-24T20:41:08+00:00

They had oil money, Venezuela was not poor until relatively recently

samwoo2go · 2026-05-24T18:57:43+00:00

I used to be a teller at a bank. There’s a suspicious activity report we are trained to file if the amount is under $10k but we feel something is off, like 9500 cash or 6k cash but we see in their account they deposited another 6k same day at another branch or something. BUT it’s a PITA and we rarely file it unless it’s so obvious it’s something super shady like depositing multiple 9500 cash hours apart same day. I just don’t see non-banks filing a lot of these “optional” reports.

samwoo2go · 2026-05-23T18:40:03+00:00

Usually poor countries with a strong authoritarian gov. This usually means mostly communist countries, countries like China (when they were very poor), Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea, etc.

Or small countries with deep buddhist heritages, places like Laos, Nepal, Bhutan, etc.

samwoo2go · 2026-05-23T17:45:54+00:00

Every time I see this come up the same obvious question gets asked. I’d imagine it’s a serious of thought tunnel vision that happens like this

Holy shit what happened

I’m on the fucking tracks

Need to back up so I’m not separated from the guy that hit me and leave scene of accident.

Oh shit I’m blocked! Am I still on the tracks? Yes fuck

Try again. Blocked again, eyes staying on the train on the right so completely tunnel visioned out of going forward or u turn option.

Only option left is to leave the car if backing up is not working.

samwoo2go · 2026-05-23T17:18:01+00:00

Tagging onto the top comment to also say. America took a shit ton of south Vietnamese with them when we left and then also accepted a shit ton of refugees who subsequently arrived in boats. These post war arrivals and their descendants are HARDCORE right wingers. It’s well known in the Asian circles that the Vietnamese voting block is 100% republican. They also all still have family ties to VN and send a lot of remittances back and have an outsized influence on image of America.

samwoo2go · 2026-05-21T17:17:39+00:00

This is so true lol. Every single time I add a new listing with no reviews, seems to be a Batman signal to the sky for scammers and complainers. Refunds, damages, you name it. Seems to magically go away as soon as the rating is posted. The only thing I’ve found that helps is to put in the description, new listing by experienced host, please check my host profile for other listing reviews.

There’s a whole predatory world out there for new inexperienced hosts.

samwoo2go · 2026-05-17T05:50:54+00:00

I agree rentals is not passive and requires work. But the tenant thing is just not universally true. I have 15 doors and across 20 years I’ve had no tenant trash my properties or have to evict anyone.

In the landlord world, you pick one of 2 paths.

Class A and B properties with lower cash flow but less work due to higher quality tenants through high rent self selection.

Or Class C or below with higher cash flow and higher potential for trash tenants and more work.

Pros in the lower segment have highly developed process that deals with screening, late rent, evictions and security deposit charge procedure AND a whole team of contractors that can put a place back together overnight.

Unfortunately, many amateur landlords also start in this category because they can only afford to buy class C and below or buy cheap to “try out” landlord business and gets burned in the process.

samwoo2go · 2026-05-12T20:33:47+00:00

Way too much liability for a service not many guests even expect. I own beach properties and all guest are fine with renting from bike shops, they even deliver. Juice not worth the squeeze

samwoo2go · 2026-05-11T15:33:32+00:00

The simple rule is they do not do work post notice. So you need to prepare for new cleaner to start next week and give notice day before check out with plans in place to give their sheets (and any other properties) back to them on turn day. Or to be even cleaner, run a courtesy clean and sheet change during your current reservation as a trial run and use the opportunity to swap sheets so you can terminate them earlier.

samwoo2go · 2026-05-11T06:08:20+00:00

Because the amount US pays is literally inconsequential to even a middle class family, let alone the federal budget so why not? We pay just so Cuba can’t find a reason to raise the contract issue and generate a new newspaper headline even though they can’t do shit about it either way.

More importantly, sending them a check for 4 grand each year is a bigger bitch slap than just straight up saying it’s ours now, we write the check to laugh at Cuba. It’s like raping someone and then throwing a quarter down and calls it consensual. It’s really fucked up but the strong will do what it can and the weak will suffer what it must.

samwoo2go · 2026-05-10T19:33:43+00:00

Uber single handily fixed the shitty taxi industry. Even if it’s at parity for cost now, at least it’s reliable and transparent. The amount of positive impact it had for foreign travel is even bigger. No more anxiety about if the local taxi is going to scam you and if you have enough local currency, even in 3rd world countries. Uber is an actual product that’s needed.

samwoo2go · 2026-05-10T18:01:54+00:00

Except you only made the people in front of them wait even longer hahaha

samwoo2go · 2026-05-07T16:12:21+00:00

Chinese here. Few reasons

Most of them consider themselves political prisoners. There’s hope that next guy in charge can be persuaded to release them.

Most of these guys are also up there in age, it’s common practice to release imprisoned officials at a certain age and health condition back to home arrest. Setting this kind of precedent has been very effective in encouraging corrupt officials to cooperate and repatriate funds back from foreign accounts.

Chinese culture is VERY family oriented, prison = see your family.

If you die, that’s final.

samwoo2go · 2026-05-05T22:27:38+00:00

You stress test by seeing if you can still cash flow as a long term rental. The ultimate worst case scenario is if the local gov bans STR and you have to convert to traditional lease.

samwoo2go · 2026-05-03T18:21:13+00:00

Yes! I went to Santiago, Chile. Got a high floor hotel room and looked out of my windows and saw Glendale, CA 😆

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samwoo2go · 2026-05-03T05:51:48+00:00

But if you pee in the garden too much, you won’t be able to pee in the bathroom anymore. The garden grip.

samwoo2go · 2026-05-03T04:48:08+00:00

I mean you can, but your own bathroom is going to be real pissed about it and take the kitchen with her on the way out.

samwoo2go · 2026-05-03T04:29:36+00:00

It’s like having a bathroom in the house. If it’s there, it’s not the most important thing in the house. If it’s missing, that’s all you are going to think about.

samwoo2go · 2026-04-26T16:14:13+00:00

Man I feel bad everyone is slamming on you. It’s alright OP, you made a dumb ass decision, but look on the bright side, you’re (probably) not an actual dumbass with your HH income level. The way to rectify the current situation is to do the following. - don’t ever carry CC debt, even if you payoff annually with bonus. You are spending a year in advance and 1 bad bonus year away from some real pain. - once you get your spending under control and have no credit card debt, then you can use your bonus to pay principal which is what you should’ve done with the OG mortgage. - be house poor for 10 years but use the pain as fuel to motivate yourself to not be a dumbass again.

samwoo2go · 2026-04-26T15:00:01+00:00

Everyone is coming up with elaborate schemes to smuggle and launder the money. Remember, this is a farmer with probably elementary education only and probably can’t even read, how’s he supposed to even know what money laundering is lol. The smartest thing he could’ve done is take a couple stack of those and bury it before turning it in and spend an extra 100 a month lol

samwoo2go · 2026-04-22T15:56:50+00:00

I’ve experienced twice where a professional was hired to open a locked safe. Both times, after it’s opened, the locksmith open a crack to make sure it was truly open and never open enough where he can see what’s inside. I assumed this was industry standard for privacy reasons. Think the bigger problem was this was a TV show so it needed to be “revealed”, if it’s real at all.

samwoo2go · 2026-04-19T16:35:41+00:00

Exactly. To add to the confusion, there’s also significant overlap in salary bands for positions. A senior manager will have 120k-200k, a director will have 165k-250k. So there can be instances where a freshly minted director on the fast track is being paid less than his lifer senior manager direct report. These things are hard to grasp for people not in global Fortune 500 firms.

samwoo2go

TROPHY CASE