It appears you are not alone, this is my story>
On 1/21/2019 I received a reservation request saying "Hey Theresa, my family would like to rent your place for a quick get away. One couple and 3 additional friends. We will be attending an event at the Friendship Center on Saturday night. We wanted to come in on Friday and do some catching up. We do plan on cooking while there since one friend is a great cook. We will bring a small speaker so we may listen to music when enjoying each others company. Everyone coming is in their 40's so we are not loud individuals." After the reservation was made she requested if she could arrive early which I agreed for her to come in at 12:00 instear of 3:00, but she actually came with her friends at 11:00 and let herself and her friends in. The reservation was for February 1-3, 2019. During the day, I get a message from her asking if she could use the fireplace, I say no it is not operational and hasn't been used in years, which will be important later in this post. I have security cameras on the outside of our house, ring doorbell is one of them. At 10:30 pm, the 1st night of the reservation, someone rings our Ring doorbell which sends an alert to my cell phone, which wakes me up. It has snowed all day, which will also be important later in this post. When I answer the Ring doorbell, I see a whole lot of people at the house. My husband and I contact Airbnb. The person answering the phone, Michael, acts as if I am fabricating this. He says it does not constitute a party unless there are atleast 15 people and I would need to document that there are before action would be taken. I told him I needed help now, and I would need to review all our videos to be able to document this. I asked him to please contact Rani and ask her what is going on. Because there were so many people there I felt there was a safety issue for my husband and I to go over there and break up the party. I had to choose between our safety and our house. I get an email from Michael the next day saying he did contact Rani, verifying she had 7 additional people at the house.
After reviewing the videos, I have screenprints of 58 additional people at the house, not including the 5 original guests.
The reservation was over on Sunday. They did not vacate for an hour beyond check out at 11:00. They packed up a lot of cooking things from their party and put it out on our driveway for someone else to pick it up. We were afraid to enter the house to see what we would find. We found the house had a very stong smell of a fire. They actually did use the fireplace and didn't open the damper. There is $12,000. smoke damage estimate and a $7500.00 damage to our Pergo flooring from spills and tracking snow in and leting the melting snow remain on the floor. This has been escalated to their Trust and Safety division. They said I needed to get all my estimates into them for repairs by Feb. 9, which I did. I also have sent them screenprints of all the additional guests, 58 of them. In my listing I state for each additional guests there will be a $29. additional charge per person per night which can be charged against the deposit. Airbnb actually blocked off my listing for the next week, as well as the following weekend. I had to take off work for the entire week as well getting estimates.
It is now Feb. 18th and I cannot get the Trust and Safety division to respond. I have called them over 10 times and emailed them every other day to get an update. They don't even respond. They are silent, nothing. Has anyone else had this experience. You cannot contact them by phone, only email. I have called Airbnb's customer service and they say the same thing each time. The case is still open, they will update my case and they will see I have contacted them. The last time, I asked for a supervisor, the person on the phone with me strongly discouraged me speaking with a supervisor, she said none were available. I told her I would like to hold for one. I finally did speak to one and he said he would escalate my case, which I was told the last 5 times it was. I feel as if my calls are falling on deaf ears. Any suggestions?
