Yesterday at about 4pm I received an alert from Party Squasher that I have upwards 30 guests at one of my properties. The reservation was for 5 and they been staying a couple of nights already without any issues. I called the guest who said that he was having a few people over. I told him it was not allowed and that they should take their gathering elsewhere. He promised to do that. Since this was early evening and there were no other red flags from this guest, I wanted to give him a chance to peacefully disperse. An hour later the number creeped up a little bit instead of going down so I called and messaged him again. This time he did not answer. I called Airbnb. I would’ve normally just gone over there, but I was at a family birthday with my kids and I didn’t feel this was a home trashing rager but rather an unauthorized gathering so I thought I will give this whole party line a chance to take care of this for me as per its intended design.
After being on hold with the original customer service agent, I was transferred to somebody else. That person's role was to just gather information. Another half hour later somebody else called me back and went over everything yet again. I assumed this person would jump straight onto dealing with the situation and then call me back to discuss. However, I never heard back from anybody and the counter was still showing a good number of people so I decided to head over to the house. On my way I called Airbnb one more time and was told that I have a case manager (the last person I spoke with) and that person communicates by email only. The only way to get answers to any of my questions was for either me or this representative on the phone (who by the way was lovely) to email him and wait for him to email back. Clearly an extremely unproductive way of doing anything. My main question at that point was if I have the right to remove the entire group or only the unregistered guests and what the consequences would be to me as well as what action if any he took so far. The rep on the phone emailed the case manager and was hearing back regularly, but they were generic answers and not specific to my questions. When I parked, I started to exchange emails with that person myself and was getting really vague responses – quotes from various policies all having nothing to do with the questions I was asking. By the time I arrived, the party was over. This was about 7:30 PM. The guest was extremely apologetic and claimed he would pay for damages if there was any. Visually I could only see some splashes on the walls and I could faintly smell smoke in one of the bedrooms.
I was still not given a clear answer on what would happen if I ask the guest to leave. The person on the phone could not authorize anything without the case manager and the case manager was not answering the questions asked. I made a decision of letting the guest stay. I’m not a big fan of kicking people out on the street. The party was over. There was nothing to gain for me at that point by leaving these people outside to freeze at 8 PM. Yes, maybe that should be a punishment to them but hopefully karma will step in. I also didn’t want to have a cancellation and loss of income on my account at that point when everything was said and done anyway. Also I thought by letting them stay I felt I was keeping the door open to getting the guest to pay if anything major is discovered at departure.
I emailed the representative one last time but never heard back until midday today. His message said he was closing the case.
To summarize: the party helpline is a farce. Most importantly, there’s absolutely no sense of urgency. If a naïve host relies on them for help, it will just never come. The problem may be is that some host will call them thinking that something will be done and waste precious time instead of taking their own action. There are also no policies in place. I should’ve received an email outlining what is going to happen, what my rights are, how to get in touch with customer service through a priority line and what the next steps would be. Ideally they should have a security company or retired law-enforcement in big metropolitan cities or areas on retainer to come and help. Prior to them establishing this line, what would’ve happened was this: I would’ve realized there was a party, I would have either kicked them out myself or called the police without relying on anyone but me; then I would’ve followed standard process to get reimbursed. Now all the regular steps are taken away from me but there is nothing to replace them (if you choose to engage Airbnb).
