Host contacting my soon to be x husband

[Andrea5657]

Hi everyone, 

I recently stayed at a home with my three children. I communicated the entire time with the host about incidents- my daughter broke her mirror and I let her know right away. I was charged 35.00 nbd. I had told her that the garbage was halfway full and we ran out of room to put it. She said no worries. Go ahead and bag it. Leave it inside. Ok well I did that. I brought my esa animals and I said I wanted to clean the linens and wash everything due to allergies even though my animals are hypoallergenic you just never know.. she said don’t worry about it. 

well… I get a claim for reimbursement of 590.00!!! Saying she spend 4 hours cleaning… had to do linens… the mirror… had garbage all over the place. Stuff I literally had talked to her about and communicated. Not only that but I was accused of stealing her hair dryer. Of braking her heater? It’s summer. Why on earth would I even use a heater. It was a nightmare….. This host went to the extreme by contacting my soon to be x husband on social media. She literally told him that she searched his name on the database of Airbnb to look him up and to let him know that I’m unstable. That she hopes he gets custody of my children ( he posted some awful things about me on social media) and said even more horrific things. I am dealing with a very very high conflict divorce. The only thing I mentioned to her was I can’t wait to be out here.. I am dealing with a messy divorce kids and I are so excited to have our little get away… we have been talking since it was back in November when I booked. I tend to be very social. That was the only thing I said which was my mistake… but for her to contact my spouse and to go into my personal life? It brought up a safety concern to my kids and myself. I was literally harassed. She told my spouse she is rooting for him all the way from Michigan. She brought up my children and my mothering not even knowing a single thing about me. I have contacted Airbnb and they continue to close my case. Several times. She wrote a very disturbing review about me and Airbnb took it down. I am in tears just thinking about the harm she caused by contacting my spouse. I don’t know what to do.  I went on vacation to have some peace of mind with my kids and to get a break from what I have going on. For someone to do this it is just malicious. My spouse forwarded the messages not only to my parents ( ridiculous) but also his attorney for divorce. I am just in disbelief that someone literally used my profile information to do a search and contact my spouse. 

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[Kate867]

@Andrea5657   Clearly your Host was very angry and whereas I appreciate that you communicated issues to her during your stay it would seem that the issues were a great deal more serious than she anticipated hence the large claim.  You don’t say if the claim was upheld or not?  Your Host will have needed to provide Airbnb with evidence such as photographs and receipts in order to substantiate her claim.

Airbnb do not normally remove reviews unless there is a clear violation and as they have removed this one then the host clearly went too far in some of her comments and took your side .. to a certain extent.

Your Host was beyond a doubt both extremely  nasty and vindictive by tracking down your husband on social media and saying what she did.  In your position I too would be absolutely furious about it.  Your personal issues are absolutely none of her business.  However, your contract with both your Host and Airbnb started when your reservation was confirmed,  commenced and ended when you checked out and there is nothing Airbnb can now realistically do with regards to this.   I suspect it is now a civil matter and would advise that you pass this same information to your lawyer.

[Andrea5657]

The invoice of the cleaning was handwritten and a clip art of a lady with a mop!!!!!! It was just someone she knows. It’s not a company. Nothing. It looked like a word document. Airbnb honored the cleaning fee… I have a message to the host where she told me not to worry about the linens and then she charged me for them. Literally for her having to run out and do laundry? It was all written out with someone’s handwriting. It was embarking to even see it 

[Loni56]

@Andrea5657. que coisa desagradável espero que consiga resolver tudo da melhor maneira

abraço

[Fred13]

Que fiasco.

[Anonymous]

@Andrea5657  I can imagine how upsetting it was that the host took the bizarre measure of contacting your husband. She was clearly angry about the condition of the house, and after her review was silenced she must have been all the more determined to be heard.  But while it's unprofessional for a business owner to contact their customers' families to gossip about them, Airbnb hosts aren't bound to any confidentiality clauses to protect guests' privacy in the same way that your doctors or lawyers are. Apart from blocking the host's profile so she can't contact you any further, there's not really anything that can be done.

One does wonder how it all came to this. You described your pets as "emotional support animals," but did the listing you booked explicitly allow pets? Was there anything in the House Rules saying the home wasn't suitable for children? I only ask because this kind of dispute usually begins with the guest choosing a listing that isn't optimized for their needs and the host feeling forced to accommodate them anyway.

[Anonymous]

@Andrea5657   Updating the last part of this comment as I was able to find the listing based on the image in your last post (which will soon be deleted because they don't allow private conversations to be displayed on the CC). The host does accept pets and advertise to families with children, so there's no indication to me that you chose an inappropriate listing for your family.

I also see that the host is pretty inexperienced - just 13 reviews going back to December - and while they're uniformly great reviews, it's hard to tell whether the host had well-educated expectations for the cleanup or experience with the claims process. In light of the fact that you weren't breaking rules by staying there with cats and kids, the host's actions seem even more excessive and vindictive to me than they did before seeing the listing. Sadly, those actions and the pain they caused you can't be undone.

You're going through one of the worst emotional experiences life has to offer with this bitter divorce, and I'm truly sorry that a host has needlessly added to your suffering. Your husband also acted inappropriately by harassing your parents with this stuff, and his determination to subject you to harm and public humiliation while the kids are in your care is going to be relevant in court. A caring parent would not seek to put their children's caretaker under distress like that.

[Andrea5657]

I just got an email from Airbnb. Based on all the messages Airbnb decided not pursue collection and I already worked out the mirror incident. I am still working with them on the safety concern. 

thank you everyone 

[Laura2592]

@Andrea5657  strictly reading between the lines here:

1. You broke things

2. You brought animals who may have made messes

3. You had little ones who may have made messes (and admittedly broke things.)

4. You thought your clean up prior to vacating was fine

5. Your host was agreeable until he/she saw the extent of the damage

6. Your host filed a claim which you probably refused because you thought your clean up was fine.

7. Your host tried to leave an appropriate review

8. You were upset and demanded it get removed. Airbnb complied

9. Your host went off the rails and reached out to someone he/she should not have, maybe to get some kind of compensation, maybe just to vent?

Both of you are in the wrong here. Many times guests feel like the condition they leave a place in is just fine, but when the property owner or cleaning crew reviews, its far from it. $590 may have been steep, or it may have been reasonable for a deep clean after pets and kids and replacing damaged items. I really don't know. Why not try to negotiate to something where the host could get compensation for damaged items? If you felt $590 was too high, what did you think was reasonable to replace the mirror and assist with turnover? 

As for someone finding out about you on social media, did you book with a shared account? Any chance your husband's name was anywhere on this reservation? Not excusing your host's behavior but I do wonder if there was something obvious they saw in the booking that they reached out to, perhaps in desperation for assistance with the damage/cleaning fees.

I would advise that in the future you stay in hotels where there is a specific protocol if something is damaged or missing. Far better to avoid this sort of drama. Best of luck.

[Andrea5657]

Nothing on there. She looked the last name and saw his profile and pictures of us from the past. 

[Andrea5657]

She had reached out to Airbnb and I had 72 hours to respond. She didn’t even give me one hour. I had contacted her about the linens. My pets did not make a mess. The pictures she sent to Airbnb were absolutely ridiculous. It was the chairs being misplaced. Complaining about things we discussed already like the garbage being left inside and bagged up. The mirror I paid for it already and contacted her right away. She upped the charge in the report when she had told me it was 35 and then reported it to Airbnb for 100.00.  

[Andrea5657]

I have the texts and everything there. Literally all the communication. 

[Andrea5657]

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[Andrea5657]

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[Ann72]

@Andrea5657  You can go to the host's profile and scroll all the way down to "Report This Profile."  You'll be given three choices - choose "They're being offensive," then continue from there.  No matter what happened, this host's actions are UNCONSCIONABLE.