Shocking encouragement of guests disregarding checkout day & time

[Mary419]

These are just a few images of Airbnb's twitter page including their own reps condoning guests not leaving on time. On Wednesday this week I had a distressed call from my housekeeper about someone's stuff still being in a condo that was supposed to be turning over. I called the guest repeatedly, sent texts and airbnb message saying you were supposed to be checked out at 11am... no response for hours. We had new guests waiting to arrive that same afternoon. I will glaze over the details in this initial post to not muddy waters for my point but it took hours to get Airbnb service which was useless once I got someone. I should know that by now but was desperate and thought reporting would be important protocol. The Airbnb agent gleefully informed me that she would be refunding the next guest... not out of any Airbnb insurance/fund but out of my payout which instantly became zero...  SO if your guest does not leave, you lose your income from the next guest and you are supposed to thank them for canceling the next guest without penalty for you... and on top of that you are stuck with getting rid of them and their belongings if they do not willingly leave.  Robots talk to you for hours about emergencies like that Airbnb's got real humans posting replies like this making a joke out of people not leaving your property. 

[Helen3]

Sorry to hear your guest overstayed @Mary419 

If you have a guest that stays beyond their check out time and you can't contact them. After advising Airbnb of the situation,  message the guest through the platform to advise you will be packing up their stuff and it will be available to collect until x time or they will need to contact you to arrange and you will keep for X days before disposing of @Mary419  .

You didn't need to wait to hear back from Airbnb before doing this.

If you had done this you could have still had the next set of guests check in and not lost the booking/

Also look up Airbnb's terms for guests overstaying and the charge you can make if they do so.

I'm not sure what the partial twitter feed you posted relates to your guest. If your guest one of the people shown?

[Lawrene0]

I do understand your twitter screenshot, @Mary419 . It is discouraging to see the human rep joking while the "bot rep" is taking away your money for the same thing.

But @Helen3 is right about the protocol of getting the guest's stuff out. That's the way to avoid the situation in future.  

The social media officer should have tweeted, "Yes, just overstay! It then becomes an Airbnb Experience! We call it What Getting Kicked Out Feels Like."

[Mary419]

 

[Mary419]

My point is exposing the encouragement of violating rules. I wasn’t asking other hosts what to do about the over stay. While packing an entire apartment full of someone else’s belongings is actually not something I wish to do, I’ve had to do it before. I didn’t need anyone to tell me how. In this case the person had a gun so I wasn’t able to do that legally. Leaving her laptop and revolver in the condo hallway wasn’t an option. With the volume of bookings I’ve hosted I have had to pack up abandoned items and we don’t get paid to do it. It’s a big deal. And seeing the topic made into a fun joke on Twitter by Airbnb’s own employees is shocking. Twitter is also full of party jokes on Airbnb’s own page. I’ve got tons more social media examples but I sense my point is lost. If other hosts see this and want to teach me how to pack people’s stuff up for free,  I see how Airbnb gets away with this 

[Emilia42]

I agree with you @Mary419. Seeing Airbnb post that is really disturbing. Also, what happened to proper grammar and capitalization?

[Lawrene0]

So, yes, definitely, disturbingly, beyond a suitcase of clothes in this case.

Sorry, @Mary419 , I did dispense advice about packing them out while missing that your entire point was Airbnb turning serious rule violations into social media jokes: fun-loving guests and fun-loving Airbnb versus old meanie hosts. 

The teaching moment was unhelpful. 

[Jillian115]

@Mary419 @Lawrene0 @Helen3  I agree with you Mary. I wouldn’t have touched a gun. I may have called the police though. Airbnb polices do not support the host. Disgusting that they are encouraging guests to overstay. 

[Mary419]

Yes calling the police is part of your unpaid job if you have to pack up an apartment that included a gun. Good guess. It’s a great way to spend an afternoon. I had a guest forget a gun once a few months ago and literally told me it was fine for me to leave it with the local police. Because they were on a plane. No recourse for disrupting the flow of a business or a person’s day.  

[Sarah977]

@Mary419  I'm really glad I host in a country where private citizens don't have guns. Quite honestly, if I lived in the US, I wouldn't even consider hosting. The worst guest horror stories I read are almost always from US hosts, particularly from certain parts of the US.

[Doug772]

Way to turn this into a political debate and bash another country in the process. This contributed nothing to the discussion

[Sarah977]

@Doug772 It's you who sees it as a political issue. I see it as a social issue. Guns don't kill based on the political affiliation of the victims.

[Jillian115]

@Doug772  Weird take on that. As someone who has never held or owned a gun I would not be comfortable picking up the gun or asking my cleaning service to do it. I see this as a safety issue. 

[Katrina79]

@Mary419You have only shown a partial glimpse into this Twitter thread...what’s the theme?! I’m not convinced Airbnb is trying to create a guest culture of disregarding checkout times and overstaying. 

[Lawrene0]

@Katrina79, go to Twitter and look up @Airbnb. Click on "tweets and replies". Should still be near-ish the top. The theme is guests loving a place so much they don't want to leave, and one of them joking they could pretend they didn't know the checkout time, and Airbnb joking that it's a plan. It's all in the usual sort of banter-y fun that such accounts get into these days. When a cereal or fast food company does it, it doesn't hurt anyone but maybe themselves. When Airbnb does it,  the joke is at someone else's expense -- it's at a host's expense. 

Reading it myself, after months of lockdown and no guests (so no problems), I would have just rolled my eyes. 

@Mary419 reads it after being forced to fund a guest's decision to ignore checkout time, and, rightly, flashes angry. Then I suggest she should follow protocol. She must have hit the ceiling. 

I'm not going to tell her to calm down.