I host long-term guests so I don't expect to be bombarded with enquires/requests and things have also been pretty on/off since the pandemic, but I am starting to get disheartened by the type of guests who are contacting me. I am starting to wonder if I did something terrible in a past life. Here are all the guests who have contacted me in the past month:
9th November: guest asks to view the property first. I answer her other questions but tell her a viewing isn't possible. No response. Never hear from her again.
11th November: guests ask which tube is nearest the house. This is on the listing, but I answer anyway. No response. Never hear from her again.
13th November: guest wants to instant book but can't because she has a bad (read terrible) review. Based on this and her very poor communication, I turn her away. She is very persistent and weird. I turn her away again.
19th November: guest with no reviews and a clearly fake name tries to request book. For several reasons, it is obviously the previous guest using another profile. I call Airbnb and am told to report and block her.
21st November: guest asks for dates that aren't available and if the room has an ensuite (shared bathrooms clearly stated on my listing). I politely answer her questions and tell her I can accommodate her if she is willing to spend part of her stay in one room and the rest in another. No response. Never hear from her again.
5th December: I only host long-term guests and my usual minimum stay is 28 days but guest wants my best price for "different people in our business to stay from 2-3 days per week for the next 12 months. Sometimes there will be 1 person, sometimes 2." Profile says she's also a host but she no guest or host reviews. I tell her if she is a business booker, she needs to first be registered to do so with Airbnb. No response, never hear from her again.
6th December: fairly normal sounding guest. Almost ready to accept when she tells me her boyfriend will stay from time to time. I ask if he is vaccinated and she says no. I ask her to withdraw the request.
7th December: I started a separate thread about this one (see: https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/How-would-you-feel-about-this-enquiry/td-p/1540498) . Very generic, impersonal message from a super picky sounding guest who also has a really terrible review. I turn him away.
8th December: guest whose name is just N, with no reviews, asks to book a short stay (no other info given). I tell them it is not possible. No response. Never hear from them again.
8th December: guest wants to check in before the room is vacant. First says she will book elsewhere for the first night but then comes back asking to sleep on my sofa because she has a lot of luggage. I say no because it is a communal space. She decides to go ahead and book for the remaining nights, but hasn't told me anything about herself. Her profile has no reviews but says she has another profile with lots of them that she has forgotten the password to. I tell her to contact Airbnb so she can recover the previous account and I can see her reviews (guests usually start a new profile because they got a bad review so I want to be sure). She just won't do this for some reason and makes every excuse in the book. She is messaging me every few minutes from early morning to mid-afternoon. Eventually she realises that I won't budge on this point and goes away. She starts messaging me again in the evening.
And that's it.
Meanwhile, the one remaining booking I had lined up this year (for 29th December) cancelled because he hadn't really considered the restrictions regarding COVID tests and quarantines.
What the bleep is going on??!
