We hosted the guests from hell who totally trashed our house, stole things, and broke every rule including having a party. We documented everything they did and got a cleaning quote for a deep clean, and submitted it on the last day possible because it took that long to get everything together and airbnb took 3 days to get back to me and said it was outside of the claim date when their poor customer service took that many days to respond. We took our listing down for many months as we were so mad but eventually put it up with some new protections of our own in place that airbnb does not give you tips for because they only care about making money.
Here’s what we did that has really helped not getting those awful guests and has worked for us in the last year -
Raised our prices
Raised our minimum stay
Lowered our maximum guests
Charge $10 pp for guests over 4
Turned off auto book and decline shady inquiries
Install a front door camera so you can see if extra people outside of the reservation are coming
Left a notice about $250 cleaning fee for leaving it in a poor condition
DECLINE ALL LOCAL GUESTS (these have been everything from prostitutes, drug dealers, and people looking for a place to party)
And most importantly, check the condition immediately after the guest checks out and start a claim right away.
Air bnb doesn’t care it takes time to notice things are missing or find new damage, they care about themselves and making money, not you as a host or your place.