All my listings have been removed from airbnb...please help!!

[Alissa53]

Hi hosts!

I need help/advice! I have been a host for a few months now and excitedly became a super host in October. Everything was going great until I had one guest that broke all of my house rules. She checked in way later than we allow and disrespected our quiet hours. She stayed in a very specific space, an open loft, not a private room. Because it's an open area, we request noise is down as not to disturb my other guests that are staying in my private rooms. She had a rather LOUD alarm go off for overn hour waking my kids and waking all my Airbnb guests.

I messaged her multiple times through the airbnb platform to ask her to turn her alarm off and she did not comply. I then went to the foot of my stairs and loudly whispered "turn off your alarm please"....she did nothing.

About an hour later she stomped down the stairs and out the door. I can see the front door from my kitchen (as I was in my kitchen during this) and I friendly said good morning, but she ignored me. 

The same day I get a request from her for a full refund so I call airbnb and have them review my conversations with her and discuss how she broke my house rules and disrespected and woke up my other airbnb guests. They informed me to not give her a refund as she was the one in the wrong for breaking house rules.

Two days pass and I am made aware that Airbnb is shutting me down!!!!! With NO EXPLANATION! I can't get anything from them to why! All I know it's because of this guest! I in fact never had any interaction with this guest except when I said good bye, but she never looked at me but continued out the door. All interaction was done on the airbnb messenger.

My question...has this happened to anyone? What are my chances to getting all my listings back on the platform? I mean, I'm a super host with 5 star reviews, there is not one negative review on my profile. Why would they just shut me down with NO explanation. I have spent hours on the phone with support and all I get is "We can not discuss this with you." Really? You can't discuss my listing and my home with me? I don't even know what I have done?

I can only assume this guest has lied about something but airbnb will not give me any information. Please help me if this has happened to you.  Did your listings ever get put back on the platform? Side note is they will ONLY communicate with me via email at this point and they will not give me any information. They will not let me talk to anyone or any supervisors.

I had one current guest left (as they have canceled all my upcoming reservations) and they made him leave my house today by cancelling his reservation. This guest has been with me for 2 weeks and did not want to leave and in fact wanted to book more weeks with me but airbnb is forcing him to leave. He asked them why and the only response they gave him was "it's not safe there." He laughed at the people on the phone and said, " are you kidding me? this is the safest airbnb I've ever stayed at..." He went to defend me as a host but they would not hear him out and told him he had to leave today. I am at a loss and I'm seeking help. I am a hard working mom and this is my livelihood and I just don't know why they would do this to me.

Thank you for any advice, encouragement, or input. 

[Sarah977]

@Alissa53  Horrible treatment you're experiencing. But a well-known Airbnb attitude. Not had this happen to me, but plenty of hosts have.

The guest obviously reported some lie to Airbnb. Most likely that you have hidden, undisclosed cameras, that she experienced some form of sexual harrassment, that you had guns laying around, that you're dealing drugs, that it's infested with bed bugs, something of that nature if they told your other guest that it wasn't safe.

And this is how Airbnb handles those cases- they suspend your listings immediately, acting like judge, jury and executioner, while they "investigate" instead of dialoguing with you first to try to determine if there is any truth to the allegations.

If you don't mind, I'm going to tag @Laura_C here, who is a host rep with Airbnb. Perhaps she can look into this for you.

[Alissa53]

@Sarah977  Thanks for the reply, you have described exactly what they are doing and have done to many others. Its irrational and unproductive to say the least. How can you possibly conduct an investigation from one side of any issue? I am all for punishing/fining inappropriate actions by a host or a guest but this idea that we side with the guest under any circumstance with no due process does not sound sustainable to me long term.  Its a very sad injustice that is not going to help the sharepace/shared economy in the long term either. Hopefully enough non effected hosts will also see this behavior and stand up Before they get hit with it as well. 

From the very beginning of this venture we called CSR for everything before we did it, we had every motivation to follow the rules and do things correctly and were lead to believe that we did. Punishing well intended behavior is what we feel victim to . I am very confident this lady knew in advance how to work the system and did exactly that, lied about something to shut us down.

Thanks for tagging Laura, hopefully she can provide some guidance to this nightmare.

[Mark116]

@Alissa53   Okay, I don't think you should be renting a loft space like that as a 'room' because it lacks sufficient privacy, but that said, I would suspect the guest has accused you of invading her privacy and spying on her.  People in the past have used Twitter and FB to reach out, but it is really just a matter of airbnb's random decision making process.  They might reinstate you, they might ban you, having truth on your side as far as I have seen is not a defense.  

[Alissa53]

Why do you say that? There are people renting couches to multiple guests in a shared space. My ad is very detailed and clearly states exactly what they are renting, there is no mystery or misrepresentation. I make sure upon booking they have read, agree, and understand what they are renting. This space is designed for a quick over night sleep only, often for people just passing through travel, etc. It actually serves as a great value to many of our guests. We set the hours from 8pm check in to 8 am check out. It is only to sleep. It is pictured and advertised as an open space; however,  I actually go above and beyond with my loft. When they arrive it is set up with room dividers that surround the bed and give additional privacy from what they are expecting. Almost all of my guests have mentioned how I have gone above expectations and I have many guests who are repeat customers. 

[Mark116]

@Alissa53  Because it isn't a room, the person is out in the open in a loft space, they don't have any meaningful privacy as you just found out when an alarm disturbed the entire household.  If your guest had been in an actual room with a door, then not only would the alarm not  have been such a disturbance, but there would have been no way to claim privacy was breached because she would be behind a locked door.  If airbnb does reinstate your listings, my advice is to stop renting out the loft space.  It only takes one person to complain as you just found out. 

[Sarah977]

@Mark116  I usually agree with your take on things, but not in this case. If @Alissa53 has been renting out the loft space successfully, with satisfied guests except for this one, there's no reason for her not to. Obviously a guest who wants more privacy than the loft sleeping space offers shouldn't be booking it. This guest she had sounds like the type to complain and try to get a refund whether she had a private room or not. If she just let her alarm go off endlessly, even if she did it in a private room, it would likely have woken up a significant part of the household, and Alissa would still have had to knock on the door asking her to please turn it off. A guest who is oblivious of others and then contacts Airbnb to report some lie (none of us, including the host have any idea whether the complaint was regarding a lack of privacy or something else) simply because she was asked to shut off her alarm isn't someone I'd change my hosting strategy over going forward.

[Mark116]

@Sarah977   I see what you are saying, but I think such a set up, especially with multiple other guests and children in the home is a problem waiting to happen.  Certainly, the person who has got the listing shut down is a jerk and probably a liar as well;  but that's the trick of airbnb, is to close as many potential avenues of fraud/lies as possible, and to me, having an open air loft space, along with other guests and family is asking for trouble.

[Sarah977]

@Mark116 I might not be inclined to rent out a space like that myself, but different things work for different hosts. There's plenty of hosts with entire house lisitngs who say they could never rent a private room in their own home, they wouldn't be able to stand having some stranger there, but it works fine for those of us who choose to home-share. Different strokes...

If Alissa had had multiple issues with privacy with other guests, then indeed it would be wise not to rent the loft area, but she indicates that it's never been a problem and that she gets lots of guests who are just looking for a place to lay their head for the night and are fine with it.

To me, its kind of like thinking you need to go out and buy a new mattress, just because one guest out of 50 said they didn't find it comfortable.

And honestly, the report this guest made may have been unrelated to privacy- maybe she said another guest in the house was sexually abusive to her. Hard to guess what someone who storms out because their alarm clock was disturbing others might come up with.

[Alissa53]

Yes agree, its troubling that AitBnB does not really care to correct issues, heck they would be better served making "examples" of these hosts that have violated terms etc but they dont even make them aware of said violation to make that example.  So its a strange policy and practice that seemingly serves no real purpose except they simply dont know how to do it any better with the current resources they have and rate of growth. still not an excuse imo.