We have been hosting with Airbnb for 6 months and until this weekend we have only had good experiences. This weekend we had a booking from Jenny N. (not giving out full name) from Anaheim, California. Our rental property is in our basement. It is a fully equiped property with 3 bedrooms, and 2 bathrooms. We can sleep up to 8. The property has a spearate entrance that is coded to each individual guest. We are 5 star hosts and very close to achieving super host status. Jenny and her party arrived at midnight on Thursday. The entrance to the apartment is just below our bedroom. In our standard message that we send out a week prior to check-in we make a point of asking guest that arrive late to be quiet, not least because we have a dog who will start barking if their is a lot of noise. As you can imagine the arrival was noisy with lots of voices. My husband and I both realized that there were more than 4 people checking in to our apartment. Soon we get a message from Jenny asking us why the door to the upstairs was locked. We told her that that is where we live and that this space is private to us. Clearly she was expecting to have access to the whole house.
By now it is about 1 a.m. Deep fried cooking smells start to waft up from downstairs. These smells were awful. It was like my home had been turned into a fast food restaurant. We tried to get to sleep! Then, the noise started. At 3 p.m we messaged Jenny and ask her if they could keep the noise down. No response... At 3:30 a.m. my husband went down and banged several times on the connecting door between upstairs and downstairs. He shouted through the door that we were trying to sleep and that they need to be quiet. Finally, at 4 a.m. I stamped on the floor and told them to be quiet.
In the morning we planned to ask Jenny and her party to leave, as they had been dishonest in the number of people they said would be coming to stay and they were not respectful of the house rules. We live in a quiet neighborhood, not a party zone. Mid morning Jenny messaged us and said that she was cancelling because we had not told her that we would be present on the property. So here is were I think the scam is. She books an entire house and then brings more guests than she declares (this way she does not have to pay extra for the guests.) She thought that we were off site and therefore would not discover the scam.
We have asked for extra money to cover the expense for the extra guests. She has declined, and so this has gone to Airbnb to reconcile. We also have missing towels, and have asked for reimbursement for that. We have been airing the house since they left yesterday (which is not much fun in near zero temperatures) and today I have spent all day at the local laundry washing all the comforters, blankets, and linens that we have downstairs because with 12 guests they literally used everything we had down there, and everything stinks of the fried cooking smell. They also slept on both our sofas so I will need to get the covers cleaned. By the way, instead of sleeping between the sheets they slept between the blankets and the comforters. What was that about! My sheets are good quality and extremely clean.
My reason for posting this rather long message is to alert those of you who rent out entire properties to this scam. Jenny clearly thought that they were getting all of the house, despite the fact that it is clearly listed as a basement apartment. I managed to catch them before they left and counted 12 getting into a large van. I asked to speak with Jenny she would not get out of the van. Two of the men in the party told me that they can invite whoever they like. They told me that they would be reporting us to Airbnb. I told them that I would be reporting them. They were argumentative and boarderline agressive. I was close to phoning the police!
I don't think for one minute that we will get any more money out of them. We have had to block the basment from bookings for a few days because It will take us that long to get the smell out and get the basement clean again. It is my hope that Airbnb will block Jenny. At least this will stop her from pulling a trick like this again.
It has left me feeling uncertain about whether I want to proceed with short term rentals. I have read some of the conversations on this forum and I am worried that Airbnb will not help us. It seems from the things that I have read that Airbnb are more supportive of guests rather than hosts. We plan to be honest in our review of Jenny. But as she has been deceitful in her dealings then we are expecting a bad review. Which is a shame when we have 5 star reviews from everyone else that has stayed with us. We will of course challenge any lies that she tells.
So Airbnb family, be on the watch for these kind of scams. Please report when it happens, and hopefully if the Airbnb people don't want to lose great properties to other space booking sites maybe they will help block the people who do this.
