Hi @Linda108 , Thank you, I have worked very hard to give my guests a great experience when they stay in my units. One is mine and one I manage in the next building. Yes - I have alarms systems on the units that send me push notificaitons when any door is opened including the private closets I keep in the units. I also have building camera systems that cover the completely outside of the buildings. I spend 1/2 my month in brazil so I want to make sure I can keep an eye on things when I am gone.
When I got the request from the guest to stay it was last minute on a Friday night. Last minute stays have always been a red flag so I insisted on checking the guest in personally. In hind sight he did everything possible to avoid checking in with me by making his arrival time later and later (checked in at 9:30 PM), but I live on the top floor so I was here and made sure I checked him in personally. I had a conversation with him and explained the rules he had agreed to - and specifically covered smoking and parties. He said it was only him and a friend. If I remember correctly he had 4+ positive reviews and a government verified ID (don't let them stay unless they do that). Unfortunately I can't see his profile any more so I can't tell you for sure. He also did a 2 day rental since I require that.
After all is said and done my main issue is the way AirBnB handled this problem. They knew early on this was a bad guy - maybe even using a stolen profile or stolen credit card (I don't know they won't tell me). All this puts me and the other residents of this building in danger from criminals staying in that unit. For everyones protection they should have assisted me early on with this problem.
The police were helpful but worried at first, there are very strict renter laws in chicago and you can't just evict certain types of tenants - the short term AirBnB has them confused. But once they saw the drug use and heard the other issues they went in with GUNS DRAWN. This is a very nice neighborhood and very quiet. It was something out of a white trash cops episode. Once comment the police did make was they are seeing more and more AirBnB rentals being rented for this type of thing and getting huge damages for the owners.
I will get through this and I will know that AirBnB Trust and Safety is not to be relied upon. The insurance claim is not my issue. My issue is they should have provided me with the information I needed to protect my unit in a timely manner. When they knew there was a problem I should have been their first call. Second - Pay me my D@#N money - you collected it up front from the criminals you let stay there and it has been 10 days - long enough to fix an "IT Glitch". I have all the repairs out of pocket which are more than $1000 not including the furniture repairs (not sure what will happen there) - so at least let me recover some of that with the rental money you collected (this unit has been rented every weekend since we put it up) . Mostly through VRBO - but we get about 25% AirBnb.