How to handle this situation

[Jen94]

Hello, 

I have a bit of a tricky situation regarding a host and I'm not sure who is in the right or wrong and how to go about this. 

Long story short ish- I am 18 years old and travel with my best friend to do events doing fave glitter at festivals, I am tying to establish a business for myself. 

I always book 'entire homes' when using air bnb but in this instance accidentally booked a private room this time. To save cancelling, I thought I could ask the host if he had any other visitors booked in while we were there as it would make me much more comfortable knowing we were staying on our own rather than with strangers. 

The host replied yes you are alone but no parties please, to which I insured him we are there for work and no partying. 

When we arrived, two doors were closed upstairs and one was open, the open door was a room with three beds in (I had booked a bedroom with a bunk bed in) so I presumed as he said we were staying alone he had given us a bigger room- what a nice guy. 

So we were living there and due to leave tomorrow morning, however when we arrived home from work this evening a man was sat in the living room. This alone was enough to shock me as I had been told we were alone and there was a man in the house, I contacted the host and asked if there had been a mix up to which he very aggressively shouted at me down the phone saying I was stupid and he had done nothing wrong and I had to give him the room. Obviously I was shocked again at this point of the aggression I was being shown and the whole situation began to feel very dark so I c Allred my mum and they told me to grab my belongings and leave . However, with us planning to stay the third night we had not yet hoovered up the glitter around the house, washed 4 pots that we had eaten pizza off in the sink and taken out 4 cardboard boxes and a bag to the trash. 

The guy guy who had booked the room we accidentally stayed in was very confused at this point too and he didn't like the atmosphere either, we evacuated as soon as we could and unfortunately had to leave the small mess behind us. The guest also cancelled his reservation, and blamed it on the house being dirty, when it wasn't dirty it just needed some rubbish taking out and a hoover, he just didn't like the atmosphere and heard how the man was speaking to me on the phone and didn't like it. 

The host is extrneely aggresiveky textibg me every every few minutes now threatening to take me to 'civil law court or further' to which I'm trying to reply professionally to but I'm 18 and new to air bnb and trying my best to resolve a very trickery situation. He is demanding that I pay £189 for the other guests cancellation or he will take me to court saying that I planned the whole thing, which I would never dream of doing. 

I really dont don't know what to do here so any help is appreciated! 

I also offered him £50 for his troubles of having to take the trash out Hoover and clean the 4 pots as we genuinely would have tidied the place up before we left.

obviousky

[Alice-and-Jeff0]

Definitely a situation that needs to be handled carefully.  First, stop talking to him anywhere but on the Airbnb platform.  No text, no calls.  Use the email service they provide to reiterate all the off-book coversations.  He cannot take you to court.  He can ask for funds for your stay if you didn't follow the rules (like taking out the garbage).  You cannot make any assumptions about the third person or their motivations, so you shouldn't bring these up again - you are only responsible for your own actions and you've already stated that you didn't clean up properly.  Part of the Airbnb experience is sharing space with other people and if you book a "private room" in a place that has several to offer, you cannot expect to have the place to yourself and cancelling for this reason will not result in you being refunded for your stay.  At this point, wait for the host to request funds from you via the resolution center.  If you want to be proactive, go ahead and send him the $50 you offered for the lack of cleaning and make sure you document the conversations describing what this should cover.  Since you walked out on your reservation, you need to cancel it immediately and should use the Help Center if you don't know how to cancel.  Good luck. 

[Lyndsey2]

I disagree. I think that if the host promised you (hopefully on the Airbnb messaging) that you would be the only guest and then changed the agreed upon terms without telling you, that is completely unacceptable. You have gone out of your way to be accomodating in spite of this. And it sounds like there was a total lack of appropriate communication from the host.

If the conversations were not on the Airbnb messaging app, send a message immeidately re-iterating what was said on both ends. If you can, include photos of your conversation outside of the app if anything was by email or text. Then call Airbnb customer service. 

[Lyndsey2]

In addition, please make sure Airbnb is aware that the other guest was witness to the inappropriate behavior of the host.

[Kate157]

@Lyndsey2 It does not sound as if the host promised they would be alone, just that there were no other bookings. I would assume that meant no other bookings at this time. As a host, I would be aware of the possibility of this changing, but I'm not sure a guest would. I don't think Airbnb would side with the guest for this, but certainly for being rude and aggressive they would.

[Lyndsey2]

@Kate157 Ah, that could be true. I suppose it depends on the wording.

[Andrea9]

@Jen94

These are all great suggestions. Could you please let us know how it all ended? That helps us hosts answering  on the forum a lot for the future.

Best is if you address us by typing an @ and then clicking on the  name(s) in the pop-up box, so that the hosts get a message notification about your new comment.

Thanks and good luck getting this sorted!

[Cormac0]

@Jen

Let me get this straight, you booked a room by mistake and then you requested the Host to keep the whole house free for you, while you stayed, it’s not clear if you paid any additional fee for this facility.

On discovering an additional guest was staying you were so frightened of this guest, a guest whom surprisingly you had no problem conversing with, both you and the additional guest decided to leave in such a hurry who did not clean up after you, 'Umm...

I must say I have some sympathy for your Host, I would like to hear His/her side of the story.

I don't think starting a business is a good idea for you, if this phases you, as you seem to have unrealistic notions about the world of commerce and who writes the cheques.

I'm offering an alternative view.