Booking violation regardless of house rules.

[Deborah82]

I'm new to Airbnb, and in fact new to hosting.

We opened our cottage up on the first of this month. Thanks to Airbnb we've had some fantastic guests so far.

However, I've had to cancel one booking already, and tonight have requested someone that has booked, to withdraw their booking.

We can only accomodate three people - both of these bookings (so they informed me) were for four people - even though they only officially booked two. 

The first set of people also told me that they have a wee dog that only comes inside if there is a storm (at least I believe that was what they inferred), yet we clearly state in No Pets.

Both parties informed me that they had small children - you guessed it, we also clearly state No Children.

Our property has a creek running through it - as it's midwinter here it's in full flow - NOT a safe place for a child. We also have an uncapped well on the property - another safety concern for us. Sure it's contained, but children like to explore!

Also, our cottage is raised - a pole home - and although it has verandahs with railings and balustrades on the staircases, I have no child proofing on those stairs or verandahs. 

I don't want a child to be injured or worse on my property - yet people with children keep trying to book.

Without offending anyone, how do I stop these people from applying?

The first one that booked, I replied to their message, stating that we coud not accept children or pets on the property (I won't bore you with the details, but I was kind but assertive) as stipulated on the advertisement - and then I cancelled their booking.  This affected our 'accuracy' rating. Probably because on the surface their booking was for two people, when in reality it was actually for four.

I'm stressing about this, because I don't like turning people away. I don't want to have to continually do this.

I believed, that because we stipulated no pet, no children, three people only, on our booking sheet, that I wouldn't have to go through this.

Please, any sensible suggestions will be listened too. Can anyone please advise me?

[Allison2]

@Deborah82, you should be able to get those cancellations cleared by contacting Airbnb customer service. It might take some time, but it would be well worth it - many guests get nervous about booking with a host who has cancelled on other guests. Explain that you're a new host & cancelled people for violating your rules at the time of booking. In the future you can ask guests to cancel from their end, but Airbnb customer service should also be able to do that if the guest is being slow about it.

I've had similar issues - turning off IB helps a lot!

I also added my main deal-breakers to the end of the short description: (Age 5+/No pets/No smoking inside)

[Deborah82]

@Allison2. Thank you so much, I will try that in future.

[Sara2]

@Stephen66hi nice to see another Londoner apparantly too many declines push you further down the search Sara

[Stephen66]

Hi Sarah

Thanks for that, we have quite a balancing act to master really. At the end of the day nobody can please all the people all the time and some I guess are just difficult. I don't think, for the sake of ratings I'd accept someone if my gut feeling directed me otherwise. None of us need to put ourselves through this. Having said this I'm a newbie, who know what's instore?

Best

Steve