Oddest things guests have done

[Michael5689]

Take a smoke detector down (to smoke in the room) and put it in between the mattress and box spring instead of in the garage that was steps away.  This led to multiple guests and rounds of the cleaners not being able to figure out where the beeping sound was coming every time the house cooled down and the battery started dying.  It really did sound like it was in the ceiling instead and this was the master bedroom even!

Try to clean up a carpet stain...with bleach.

Take a cue ball from a pool table...not an 8 ball, but...the...cue...ball.

Asked if a padlocked and marked for "owner's use" only freezer is available for their use.

Leave a garage door open overnight to wake up to a freezer broken open in the driveway (bear) and call complaining to me that they thought someone had broken into the house.

Renters are fun and you have to be able to laugh about it sometimes....

[Pat271]

@Michael5689 Those are hilarious. I am not treated as many comedic escapades as you.

[Sarah977]

@Michael5689  My neighbor has a couple of rustic Airbnb rentals- palm frond roofs, and open on one or two sides. She lives on the property herself. 

She had 3 young women stay and she was out of town, but her 20 year old son was there. 

The guests called her in a panic one night at 3 am. They were upstairs in the bedroom, which has a trap door into the downstairs, and said they could hear someone downstairs and were terrified. My neighbor called her son, who didn't answer, he was sound asleep. Then she called my other neighbor, whose cabin is right across from hers, just a few yards away. Of course she woke him up, but he went over  and walked around and didn't see anyone, but saw a dog run off, which he reported back to her. 

The guests had left a pizza box on the kitchen table downstairs half full of pizza, in an open air rustic cabin in the countryside. The dog had been scarfing up the pizza. They were lucky we don't have bears and cougars around here.

[Laura2592]

@Michael5689 so many things....

Stolen a bath mat after complaining that we didn't mention that guests should use a bath mat and saying "I am a lawyer and that will help you avoid being sued." (??)

Left the door open so a feral cat got into the house

Complained about bugs-- outside.

Lined up all the lamps in the entire house in a row on the kitchen counter.

Glued a drawer shut.

Called us in a panic to help them find their cat who got outside.

Broken a perfectly normal, standard queen bed and then claimed it was shoddy/mentioned ADA protecting obesity as a disability and said we needed to better accommodate those of large size. (we never asked for any money to repair or replace the bed-- this was thrown at us pre-emptively.)

Repotted and subsequently killed my plants. 

Left a note in our suggestion box that the neighbor was "hot" with contact info in case I wanted to pass this along (he's not. I didn't.)

And most recently, left spent pellet gun shells all over the living room carpet.

[Michael5689]

@Laura2592 Come on, you aren't a true superhost if you aren't willing to help a past renter get a date!

[Laura2592]

@Michael5689 i think it was more than a date they were looking for....

[Michael5689]

@Laura2592 Ok I just can't get myself to hit the thumbs up on that one, that's...just...

I hope you saved the note for the memories...that's just a keeper!

[Marie6762]

…and if you haven’t read the stories attached to Laura’s list, do!

I only have one: probably my 4th or 5th ever guests.  They showed up at the front door of my shared listing with a GIANT box like a large T.V would come in, and asked immediately where my freezer was, as this was all “special food from my village” -in Thailand - that they had brought for a family reunion!  Only the husband, a laaarrrge American, spoke English but he was gruff and grumpy and , having somehow lugged this box all the way (how? why?) was in no mood to hear “no”!

They we’re also my ONLY unpleasant guests-to be fair, he mumbled something about a family illness…lots of loud crying, they hung around day and night, heat cranked up so they could wear shorts and (wince!) tank tops, random loud phone conversations in the wee hours, heating their “special”food day and night- seemed to be mostly fish.

 Fortunately they left no review.  Mine was factual and I certainly checked”never again”!

[Patrick568]

There are some "Wow" items on that list for sure. I feel like some of our issues have been pretty tame comparatively.

[Jon279]

Oh my goodness. I am so glad to read these... now I know that my experiences are normal in the AIrbnb world.

Latest was got drunk or high and proceeded to go Johnny Appleseed on my neighbor's cedar tree with a hatchet they brought. And the tree was right beside a power line.

Manage to misplace an entire grill from the BBQ. I still have no idea where that went. It might be in the river.

Have picnics at my neighbor's property (in full view of a security camera) just because they were not home at the time. Also urinate on my neighbor's shed - also in FULL FRONTAL view of a security camera.

Break and then proceed to burn plastic lawn chairs in the outdoor campfire. Then deny it even though I showed them evidence of the burnt chairs.

Burn a series of holes in the laminate floor (from candle wax I believe) and then deny it.

[Michael5689]

It never even occurred to me that a guest might try to chop a tree down.  Play a bit too rough and knock over some new saplings we just put in yes, but actually chop down a tree?!

[Gillian166]

 We now have a simple, cheap BBQ, the last two big stainless steel gas bbqs have been wrecked, so we've got back to the charcoal weber style (but not weber, cheapo brand).

Guests chopping down trees is a real concern, esp if they are high/drunk (bloody idiot Australian males, it fits the profile!)  i'll have to think of something for the guest manual. 🙂

[Huma0]

@Michael5689 

Without a doubt this one: https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Condom-Girl-AKA-My-Weirdest-Guest/m-p/1223607#M294344

If you don't want to read it all, skip to the last three paragraphs.

There have been many, many others though. Here are just a handful of examples:

- Watermelon girl. It's against my house rules to eat in the rooms, but one young lady and her father thought it would be a great idea to chop a watermelon on an expensive dressing table. I know this is what happened as I caught them sneaking the watermelon upstairs! She tried to hide the damage but leaving a pile of folded towels on top and then claimed that the cat did it. I told her that if my cats could fold towels, I would get them to turnover the rooms. She was not impressed.

- Girl who got drunk at 4pm in the afternoon and fell asleep in the downstairs toilet all evening. If I had not gotten worried about her and knocked on the door, she probably would have spent the night there.

- A guest so needy and clingy that she would wait for me outside the toilet. She also drank all the wine in the wine fridge, slammed my poor cat's tail in a drawer and did all sorts of other weird stuff.

- The guest who took a hammer from my tool kit and kept it in the bedroom the entire stay.

I'm sure there are lots of other examples, but those are just off the top of my head. Even the other night, a guest who had already checked out days before messaged me at 11pm asking if she could come over to talk. I got really worried about her because she said 'something had happened' but it took a full day to get her to respond again. When she did, it turned out that it was simply because a guy she met didn't want to date her. It's weird what people think is appropriate...

[Michael5689]

Yeah, I'm not sure I could handle the oddness of sharing a house with guests.  It would drive me crazy all the even odder things that I don't know that they did because they didn't leave any evidence behind.

[Basha0]

Oh and what about the recent post from a host about guests starting a fire pit on the deck; literally on the deck!