Party Guests - no thanks

[Charles224]

I have finally taken off Instant Book.

The booking was for a guy who said he was 'looking for a nice place to pop the question". Sucked me in bigtime.

Of course the profile was just made and there were no reviews.. a big red flag right there.

Our AirBnB is attached to the main house and specifically says 'No Parties'.

What a weekend - I ended up evicting a group of 10-11 young men who were really enjoying their afternoon after lots of music the night before. 

The quantity of booze they had consumed was actually quite impressive (based on all the empty spirit and beer bottles).

So, with some conversations with the police in hand, I 'severly repremanded them for their behaviour' and demanded they depart immediately.

Fortunately they respected my grey hair, as they were all genetically a full 2-10 inches taller than me; and they left.

The place is a mess, there is a hole in a wall, and so much repainting required. I had just repainted 2 weeks ago after having a couple of long-term stays.. but that's the luck of the draw. The bathrooms were disgusting, I had a damaged large flyscreen, and they removed a flyscreen from a bathroom so they could climb in (????).

As I read lots of posts here, I immediately took lots of photos and submitted them. Estimated costs about $1600.

Now to be fair, they had no intention of trashing the place and are just thoughtless and wayward kids, they just had no respect for my property.

They have obviously never read a Jordan Peterson book..

I had to cancel a guest (the 1st time I have ever done this) and have snoozed the place for a couple of weeks to get things back to normal.

- And, I took a booking which starts in a couple of weeks! Not Instant Book. I'm loving my new decision.

Stay safe out there folks.

[Emiel1]

@Charles224 

Good decision. I never use(d) Instant Book.

Hopefully your costs for damage will be reimbursed

[Lawrene0]

I think you did everything right with kicking them out, @Charles224 , but if the fellow lied to you when he instant booked, wouldn't he have lied to you with a reservation request? Wouldn't you still have been sucked in, as you say?

I used to be dead set against instant booking, but have found that I am not the detective I think I am. Same number of fantastic vs not-so-fantastic guests either way. 

I had a guest instant book last night and then tell me she and her husband would be bringing along their toddler, who, as with all toddlers who attempt to book here, is very bright and obedient. (Unlike his parents, who cannot read and do not follow a listing's rules 😉 )

I was able to cancel that booking with no fuss. 

I'm not advocating for instant book at all, but I haven't been able to blame it for anything bad happening.

[Sarah977]

Have to wait to see an answer to your question from Charles, but to me, if it's an IB and the guest just sends a short message, like Charles indicates this guest did, the host may think "Okay, that sounds fine", or if it doesn't, the host has to go through the hassle of cancelling the reservation without penalty. 

If a guest sends a request, the host might be more inclined to exchange a couple of messages with the guest if they were feeling iffy, and the host has 24 hours to make a decision. So lets say that the guest didn't bother to answer the host's messages, the host might decide that a non-responsive guest was a red flag and decline the request. 

You've used IB before and I haven't- did you find any difference in prompt guest responses to your messages from those who IBed versus those who sent booking requests? I would think that guests who IB would be less responsive because they expect booking to be an instant and seamless process, without need to communicate with the host unless the guest needs something, but maybe that's not true at all.

@Lawrene0

[Charles224]

Hi @Lawrene0 , you're not wrong about parent's who cannot read, and you can never tell a parent they have an ugly baby...

My issue is that I now am getting jumpy about people who have no reviews and who have just joined. Particularly locals.

With Instant Book they have been able to book me, and now they can't. To get some traction they can always book one of the hundreds of anonomous hotels which now use the platform.

As to my soft-side and falling for a story; once bitten twice shy. The story better be amazing for me to accept them in the future!  🙂