Dangerous psycho violent guest in Encino, Los Angeles, CA and NO AIRBNB SUPPORT

[Meredith161]

This service....wow... I wish we had support from Air BnB right now.  
How can anybody trust AIR BNB? 
We had a psychopathic, hallucinating, alcoholic, drug abusing, violent, raging man in our house who we booked to stay a month.  We were gone for the month but came back for the last few days to transition him out, because our neighbors had complained that he talks to himself 24/7, and that nobody on our street was able to sleep for a week, and he yelled and chased an old lady around.  He drank every bottle in our nice wine collection, along with anything containing alcohol, in the entire house.  He spat everywhere, including on the inside of the front door.  He smoked in the house, against our rules.  Mostly he yelled like a madman, and laughed, and talked to himself, for 27 days on end, drinking himself to death to pass out from exhaustion.  Yesterday this man pounded on our door, asking if we had any drugs.  We said no.  He started pacing more between his room and the backyard, and when my partner and I walked outside our room to check on him, he exploded with rage and threatened violence and he chased us into our bedroom and we had to phone the police to convince him to leave a day early.  The police couldn't arrest him or take him to the mental hospital.  They left him on the same street, and when we exited the house an hour later to go out, he confronted us, "hey, can I leave my stuff here overnight on this curb?" 
When we tried to call AirBnB to file our claim for the deposit, or to complain about this guest, the phone line rang for 2 hours with no answer - this was mid day! 
Where is the support network for this company? 
We've had zero assistance.  
Want to know the real messed up part of this whole thing?
This guest has a FIVE STAR RATING on BnB . 
HOW CAN THIS BE?!
My partner and I are suffering from panic attacks right now, we are still in so much shock.  
It might take a few hundred bucks to repair the damages to the house.  
But the psychological damage will never leave.  

[Sarah977]

@Meredith161  What a nightmare scenario for you. It's awful to read stories like this and I'm so sorry this happened.

What I am going to tell you, please don't misinterpret as victim blaming. I see you are a new host and almost all of us, when we started hosting, were starry-eyed innocents, assuming we'd all get nice guests who were appreciative of having a nice home to stay in and behaving respectfully. We assumed that Airbnb vets all its guests, that they would have our back if something went awry, that all reviews can be taken at face value.

The reality is quite far from that. To think you could rent your house out for a month to a complete stranger, and leave town, without having a co-host nearby who would keep an eye on the place for you, was extremely naive. You simply can't do that with an entire home listing. You need security cameras, a co-host, an arrangement with neighbors to call your co-host or you immediately if anything seems amiss. 

Airbnb laid off 1900 employees a couple months ago and their customer service dept is virtually non-existent. If you spend 5 minutes reading through pòsts on this hosting forum, you will see that no one is getting responses, phone waits are hours long, with calls dropped. Messages to them go unanswered, or hosts are told someone will get back to them, in a few days, and no response ever comes. 

It wasn't always like this, but it is right now. So hosts are pretty much on their own. That's not to say you shouldn't keep trying, but don't hold out high hopes that your issue will be dealt with anytime soon.

I'm sorry I don't have more helpful feedback for you, but it's a situation almost all hosts are facing at the moment. BTW. mid-day is the worst time to try to get ahold of anyone. One host said she calls at 4 or 5 AM and usually gets an answer. You might try that.

As far as this particular guest, the 5 star reviews could be a matter of him actually having been a good guest in the past (or the reviews simply weren't honest- that is also sometimes possible- some hosts don't leave honest reviews). He may have had some mental breakdown recently, or has gone off his medication. That happened to me with a housesitter once. She wasn't someone I knew, but I talked to her extensively, and she seemed fine. Then I left for 5 weeks, and unbeknowst to me, she was bipolar(which she hadn't disclosed) and decided to go off her medication shortly after I left. She started sending me off-the -wall emails, daily, my neighbors contacted me saying she was nuts, but I was out of the country and couldn't get back right away. She didn't actually disturb the neighbors, other than to go over and try to hang out with them, which they told her wasn't welcomed, so she quit, but I came home to quite a disaster, as far as how she treated my place.

[Meredith161]

I understand completely what you're saying here...however, 
I wasn't talking about MY BnB.  I posted that it was my boyfriend's BnB in Los Angeles (not Fort Collins where I host mine), and that he is already a long time SuperHost.  He's had 30+ guests and has earned a top rating.  He's no novice.  
He's had some guests stay a few years, even.  He's been able to leave the house alone with guests because they've ALL been safe.  Except for this exact one.  
He's got special locks for all of the individual rooms.  

This wild guest didn't steal or break... but he drank the wine, which wasn't his.  ALL of the wine.  ALL of the vodka, tequila, anything around.  
And he was schizophrenic.  Not a measly Bipolar, (diagnosed Bipolars aren't a danger usually to anyone other than themselves).  He yelled at neighbors as they walked by.  In fact, he walked and ran a path in and out of the house to the front and backyard, and slept in a car he might've stolen.  He didn't sleep much however, he was awake night and day.  Talking, laughing, yelling.  
Sounds frightening about your housekeeper.  I think this guy was already off meds when he showed up...but he must have been medicated with previous stays/other hosts.  

The good thing was, we had security cameras all over the property and could monitor him.  And our neighbor nextdoor stayed in contact with us about him.  He did give her a fright.  Luckily she was a psychiatrist before retirement.  

Thanks for the tip on the mid-day calling to BnB... I'll try the 4am slot next time I want to get ahold of them.  Still can't believe its so difficult to collect a deposit... Do you have any information I can pass on to my boyfriend, so he can collect the deposit from his guest?

Also... do you know of a good site to find roommates that are vetted and reviewed?

[丽萍0 · Accepted solution]

@Meredith161 Hey there! My daughter host since 2013. She had problems like this, drunk and passing out guest who she had to personally pick up from police at 3AM on a SUNDAY. She had to clean after guests fight with blood. Airbnb didn't do anything to support.

[Helen3]

Hello @Meredith161 

Your partner Scott, has already posted about this situation and I replied to him about the horrible situation you have found yourselves in as a result of this dangerous guest.

As @Sarah977  says although it is unusual to have problem guests, you do need to set your listing up so if you are going to be away, you have a local co-host on hand to manage issues on the ground. I would suggest if you are going to be away, you shouldn't leave alcohol in communal areas that your guests can access.

Sadly it is difficult to access help via airbnb customer services via the phone at the moment, but hopefully you have contacted the guest via Airbnb messaging to raise a claim for damages/stolen alcohol and also contacted Airbnb to open the claim.

https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/264/what-do-i-do-if-my-guest-breaks-something-in-my-place

[Sarah977]

@Meredith161  You didn't say in your original post here that it was your boyfriend's place, not yours (you actually said "we" and "our house" a number of times) and I didn't look that carefully to see where your listing is located, just saw that it was a new listing, sorry.

Personally, I can't imagine renting out my own entire house, where I normally lived, with all my personal stuff in it, to someone who I didn't know, who booked online. I know some hosts do it successfully, but I've also read other horror stories that happened in those situations. I think your boyfriend has been lucky that he hasn't had any issues before.

I certainly wouldn't leave alcohol, drugs (legal, prescription, or otherwise), money, sensitive personal documents, or anything that was really precious to me in a house rented out to strangers. An alcoholic doesn't think about whether that alcohol he found belongs to him when he goes to drink it anymore than a 4 year old left alone with a table full of candy and cookies is not going to eat it simply because he's been told he can't have sweets before dinner. 

As far as a site to find roommates, as opposed to short term renters, I don't know of any myself- I would put up notices on bulletin boards in coffee shops or other places in the community where like-minded people to you would hang out. Or spread the word among family and friends in case they know anyone who is looking for a place. Then I would do the vetting myself, just like any regular landlord does- an in-person interview, references, work history, current employment, criminal record check, etc. I'd take a real security deposit, and first and last month's rent and if they can't afford that, too bad.

[Vanesa111]

I recently had a drunk violent guest stay. I had security footage of him throwing rocks at his girlfriend (and vice versa). Super scary. I live on site. Police were called. Airbnb reinstated his account. No evidence of violating community standards, they said.