I've read everyone's horror stories, and even though I've had one or two messy or annoying guests, I've counted myself lucky. I've turned off same-day booking after yesterday. Someone booked us while my husband and I were out playing Santa and Mrs. Claus at an elder care center, so I didn't get the message for an hour. They booked at 3pm and were standing on my lawn at 3:15. They called Airbnb claiming they'd been "standing out in the cold for three hours," even though all the booking information is right there. My husband hurried to let them in, and after looking at them, it seemed pretty clear they were homeless. They said they were from Florida, listed California as home and had a SLC area code. They contacted me at 11:30pm, wanting rubbing alcohol? They did laundry all night, waking up my daughter at 4am shouting and laughing. At checkout time - 11am - they contacted us at 11:20 wanting to stay an extra day. My family - including a newborn - were flying in, in less than an hour and I explained this, asking them to please leave within half an hour. When we went down then, they hadn't moved from the couch where they were watching tv. My husband explained the next step was calling the police, and they were out in another 30 minutes.
They trashed my home. She'd used purple hair dye and must have flipped her hair repeatedly. The permanent hair dye covered the shower, the surround, the paint, the floor, the ceiling, the sink, and all of the towels I had in the apartment. There was trash and filth in every room, food smeared into the carpet and furniture and more dye staining the kitchen carpet. They walked out leaving every window and door open - presumably to mask the fact they'd been smoking in our home. They'd been there 20 hours and caused $1,800 in damages. Our cleaner started crying with me. I found an Airbnb gift card, so someone must have given it to them to get them out of THEIR house. I filed a claim on Christmas Eve with Airbnb when I should have been wrapping my children's gifts. My family is staying in our bedroom while we try to clean the guest apartment and my husband and I are on the couch.
Here's the fun part: they actually had the gall to leave a review and give me 1 star. I checked, and sure enough, it knocked down our 5 star rating that we've had on every review since we began. Please tell me Airbnb takes that off? I know these scumbags won't pay anything and I'm just hoping to get the $100 damage deposit. What should I expect from Airbnb support at this point? Thank you for any advice or insight. I've definitely learned my lesson about same day booking. They were relying on being able to slide in within minutes and before I could check them.
