I have had nothing but trouble since I start hosting with Airbnb and I will be having my final guests stay next month and then I will no longer be hosting. I just wanted to share my experiences with other hosts or any other future potential hosts to say why I didn't think it was worth my time and effort.
The first few times of hosting went pretty smoothly - I had good reviews and small suggestions from guests which I then implementing for future guests. I have (or rather had) a lock box in a secure place so guests could check themselves in and I have a co-host (who is a superhost herself) who helps me if I am away for long periods of time and I need helping preparing for the next guest.
I then had two lots of bookings over the Christmas/New Year period back-to-back. The first couple were great - my co-host went to my place after they checked-out to make sure everything was in order for the next guest and that the couple had left everything in an okay state. She said there were no problems and prepared the place for the next guests.
I come home from my trip after New Years to find that these guests had left the place in such a disgusting, filthy state. Food had been left out on the kitchen side, they had knocked over and moved my Christmas tree, they had moved things around like my fridge, dirty wet towels were left on the bed, there was a **bleep** stain on the sofa, they had spilt red wine on my rug and up the wall and I found an empty lube bottle under the sofa when cleaning up.
I contacted airbnb immediately and sent them evidence - they took several days to even get back to me and this was after sending them several messages to check they that were even receiving them - some acknowledgement would have been nice. I finally receive a message back saying I have a case manager and they are dealing with it so I leave it for a few days. After a week or so I still haven't heard anything so I contact them again - it's funny how they suddenly reply when you nag them. The only positive is that ultimately they did reimburse me the money for the red wine stained rug but I did not appreciate the anxiety of not hearing from them or having to continuously chase them up.
I left an honest negative review of these guests and they messaged me after the resolution centre must have contacted them saying it wasn't them that left the apartment like that - well if it wasn't them then who was it?! They then proceed to leave me a negative review saying that the whole place was dirty (despite my superhost co-host cleaning everything before). I then report this negative review as I believe it is not representative and it is unfair, of course airbnb do nothing about this and now sits negatively on my profile.
Because of this experience I decided not to take on anymore guests for a few months. I had only one guest booked over Easter which I didn't want to cancel and I thought that would be my opportunity to get back into it again after taking a break. I arrive back after these guests and they seemed fine and had left in a perfectly fine state but they had given me a review of 3 stars for cleaniness?! I cleaned that apartment myself and all of my other previous guests (with the exception of Mr. Disrespectful at New Years) have rated me 5 stars and with outstanding sparkling clean apartment. I don't understand it at all and all I can think is that they were new to airbnb and have the expection of a hotel which is just not the case. If they had stated 4 stars then okay maybe that would have been reasonable but 3 stars suggests that I left it in a state.
At this point I take on a new guest a couple of weeks later. Again, everything seemed fine, they have good previous reviews and I come back to a clean place with no problems. The trouble I've had now (and I can't necessarily blame them or even airbnb) is someone last night tried to enter my apartment and when I checked the lockbox this morning, it has been stolen! Now of course this could have been anyone - but I live in a safe neighbourhood and the lockbox is hidden within my parcel delivery box and has a code (that I have only ever told airbnb guests about) but someone has gotten hold of my key. The whole thing of risking leaving keys where they can be accessed and disrespect from guests with what feels like little to no protection or care from airbnb is enough for me to leave. It is not worth the time, energy, anxiety or effort to continue doing this.
I hope in the future that airbnb can start to address some of these issues as I read more and more on the community site about similar cases.
