Unauthorized Guests

[Stacy43]

hey, I have a pretty unique situation here. I rent a room/w a bath inside my home for about 2 years now. I've had lots of guests and pretty much everything rental has gone great. I'm a superhost and I love hosting on Airbnb!

I currently am hosting a longterm guest for 3 months. He arrived on January 1st. He made the reservation via his girlfriend's Airbnb account bc something was messed up on his end and he couldn't figure out how to correct it. This is fine since it was noted that the reservation was for him. I've had spouses/partners book for each other and this has never been a problem. In this case, the guest seems to think it's ok to bring other people into our home. He brought 2 guys he in taking classes with to our home last Saturday while we had family here visiting. They did stay in the room but the room is pretty small. When they left we were sitting on our sofa watching tv, my husband was snoring. It felt somewhat invasive to me. The next morning, he had someone in his room that he left to take home.  I'm assuming someone he met since he arrived. Then a person (we couldn't see who it was) arrived again later in the day just as we were leaving our house. I'm not sure if they were here later or not when we got back. 

We discussed whether to say something or not. Then decided not say anything to our guest, hoping it was just a one time thing. 

Well, nope. Tonight, a young woman showed up with coffee and they've been in the room for over an hour. It's not noisy.

There is no major issue really except that I feel uncomfortable with basically the GUEST of a GUEST bringing people into our home. 

We were robbed by a friend of a friend a few years ago and I guess it just sticks with you. I try to be safe and I don't feel that having people that aren't here officially through Airbnb is safe. We also have dogs- which could easily get out if doors aren't closed as they should be. 

My question is how to handle this? Normally I would send a message through Airbnb to the guest to keep it all on the up and up. In this case, I don't feel that would be 100% appropriate and might cause issues for the person staying here. 

I don't have this in my house rules or my guest binder because honestly it's NEVER been an issue before. 

Please give me suggestions. I'm open to thoughts on how to handle. 

My husband thinks I'm just overreacting. He travels a lot and I have to be here alone. 

I can approach the guest to discuss it with him but I want to get some ideas from the community first!!

Thank you!!

[Debbie128]

I had a young man want to rent long term. I told him up front that if he had any guests over (for any length of time) that there would be an additional per person charge for however many people came into the space. Done. No problem. No visitors. Let them visit with their "friends" elsewhere, not at my home. You booked the room for you, not for your friends to come and go off of my private property.

[Anonymous]

@Stacy43 Actually your situation is very much the opposite of unique. But I notice that your House Rules do not appear to communicate anything about unregistered guests, whereas most hosts use some verbiage stating their policy about outside visitors. Your guest was pretty presumptuous to bring a procession of strangers into your home without permission. But if you had no established rules, and you didn't say anything about the guests you've already encountered, would he be unreasonable to surmise that you were OK with it?

I disagree with your husband sonewhat; the fact is, you're liable for everyone who enters your house but you have no coverage from Airbnb if any incidents occur when unregistered guests are present. (This may even apply to the guest already booked under another person's profile, which I would not have recommended allowing).  You have a right to know who is entering your home and for what purpose, especially when you're leaving your pets and personal belongings there otherwise unattended.

I think it is perfectly fine to earnestly express to your guest that you agreed only to hosting one person as a guest, and that this agreement does not extend to additional visitors (while also admitting that you have updated your House Rules accordingly). One concession to allow for here is that since it wasn't clear at the time of booking, the guest should be allowed the chance to terminate the stay early without penalty if he doesn't find the new rule agreeable. 

[Stacy43]

I felt this was unique being that the guest is actually a guest of a guest. (So to speak) I honestly doubt he’s even looked at the house rules online. I’m adding this to my rules today & discussing with him tonight. Thank you for your response! 

[Anonymous]

@Stacy43 I hope the conversation goes well. Whatever the result, be sure to send a message via Airbnb messenger confirming the key details of the conversation, so that you have a paper trail in the event that an issue arises later.

(This message will presumably be received by the girlfriend, so if you're allergic to drama it might be wise to avoid direct mention of the overnight visitors. And if you're not....well, grab the popcorn) 

[Rowena29]

@Anonymous 

This is slightly off on a tangent and more of a hypothetical question ( I'm not suggesting this as a strategy, I'm just genuinely interested)

 say @Stacy43 unpdated her house rules right now to say something along the lines of - no extra guests/visitors. THEN rang Cs about the issue.   Does CS know - or bother to look - to see the timing of edits/additions to the house rules etc? Do they see that a change has been made to house rules retrospectively DURING a  guests stay?

I don't think they do - or if there is a way to tell, they don't know to look.

I once changed my check out time during a guests reservation  - I didn't for a moment anticipate it would affect the current guests checkout, I just changed it while I thought of it, for future guests.  But the automated airbnb email regarding checkout time that was sent to the guests was the new checkout time, not the one that was in place when they booked.   I suspect the platform is so cluncky and CS so ill trained, that they just look at whatever is currenlty showing on the listing ( although I do know they make a big deal about adding info re surveliiance devices after a booking has been made). Just wondered if you - or anyone - had experience re this?

I certainly know when things go wrong  eg dates that were blocked suddenly become unblocked and get booked, CS claim they have no way of seeing previous listing states and imply the host is at fault for not managing their calendar properly.

[Anonymous]

@Rowena29  There's no reason to think that the data concerning which dates edits were made to the listing isn't stored in the system. But I don't know whether it's readily available to the front-line CX operators who first handle a case.

Either way, though, Airbnb has not shown a tendency to treat stays where House Rules are broken all that differently from any others. What it comes down to is, when the host feels compelled to terminate the booking early, they're going to forfeit the payout for the unused nights, and both parties will be able to review each other. So there's no tactical advantage to lying about when a rule was added. 

[Rowena29]

@Anonymous so I suspect another one of those areas where no one really KNOWS.

  PS I was not for a moment suggesting @Debbie128 lie re all this - as I thought I made pretty clear in my opening statement.  However I do think  any enlightenment regarding how the "first responder"  CS's  view/use/access/enforce the detail in our listings  is handy to be aware of. 

Obviously it wouldn't affect refunds etc  if it were to come to a cancellation.   As I said, my question was on  bit of a tangent and not specific to the resolution of Debbie's issue.

[Linda108]

I agree with @Anonymous  suggestion that you have a frank discussion with the guest, provide a hard copy of the updated expectations/rules and give the guest a specified time period to accept or reject the rules.  Refund of the remaining days plus 10% would be appropriate since the guest paid a service fee to Air BNB based on the original reservation.

Perhaps you should not have long term guests even with the rules because you are not comfortable with a "guest" who is essentially a roommate.  You can limit your maximum stay to under 29 days.

[Stacy43]

Thanks. We’ve had several long term guests. None who brought visitors or overnights. This is the first time this has happened most likely because the room is In our home. Not a separate unit. If that was the case, I wouldn’t care less! I’m not kicking anyone out or asking him to leave or canceling his reservation. If he feels that he’s unhappy after our discussion, I’ll happily refund his money. If he was the main person on the booking, I would feel a bit better but it’s under his gf’s name which I had some heartburn about at the very beginning. Note to self: follow your instincts up front & stick to it! Also, he’s 21. So quite young. 

[Marcia167]

Hello, I am a super host for 5 years, in my experience you must set your house rules, or guests do whatever they want. For example, no off-site visitors are allowed on the property, that's my first rule and if they break your rules charge a penalty, but you must set your rules on your Airbnb profile. Also, leave a note on your property, stating again your rules, because guests tend to lie that they didn't check the guest info, so you must be firm and clear about your rules. Is very dangerous for the host to accept guests to bring strangers to the house, that’s why I do not accept. If any guests behave the way you dislike message them through Airbnb messager, just as a friendly reminder of your house’s rules, most of the time they comply. If you message them politely they tend to comply. I  have never approched any of my guests, I communicate with them only through Airbnb messager. Remember be nice,  but firm. Hope this helps