@Kelly149 - Thank you for the compliment. When I reached out to the host directly - which I did first before getting Airbnb involved - he also said "it's not like my listing even compares to yours".
While I can appreciate that my attention to detail is better than his (yup, I saw those "blackout" curtains in the bedroom LOL), what bothers me most is that he's essentially "stealing" my personality from the words in my listing. It sounds like me - not exactly me but pretty close to me - and that's where the rub really is because I have worked, and do work, so hard to cultivate and achieve the 5-star overall and Superhost status that pretending to be "me" is not flattery but impersonation, which is why it bothers me so much.
If this listing were in another state, maybe even a city far enough away from me, I wouldn't care, but he's a few blocks from me, in my same neighborhood - my competition. So he's using my words, impersonating me, and our listings come up near one another in the search results. A user might come to the conclusion that we're the same host - because you don't get to see host pictures until after the booking is made! When he painted his front door the same as mine, I went through the roof (its completely irrational - I'm not ashamed to say I overreacted but luckily only my husband was here to see me! The house when he bought the house on 8/3/17, it had a red door in case you want to see: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1307-Hill-St-Durham-NC-27707/98185200_zpid/?fullpage=true).
It just feels bad to me. It makes me upset to have to even have this conversation about it. It angers me that he told me he'd make changes, took it down, and then didn't. Overall, rant, rant, rant, rant, rant, rant, rant........
BTW, I sent them a detailed email on 8/29 and haven't heard anything yet. With all the other things going on, this is hardly a priority so I'm not surprised that I haven't heard back from them. Will post something when I know something.