Airbnb for respite care

Caroline628
Level 2
Tasmania, Australia

Airbnb for respite care

I am raising the issue of guests using Airbnb as a respite. I think it is an interesting idea BUT the person booking the accommodation must be very clear about the situation and contact the host in advance to ensure all bases are covered. If it is respite care, I believe the carers, depending on the situation, change very often, sometimes on a daily basis. How can this be properly accommodated, especially when a linen service, cleaning etc are provided by the host? Parking, noise, cleaning, linen, length of time, number of guests, etc and the general house policy needs to be communicated to everyone who stays there. I speak from experience.  It is imperative that the guest and the host are both open and clear with eachother at all times. Most importantly, the guest needs to be upfront about why the property is being booked and whether the guest making the booking will be staying there. I would be interested to know if anyone has offered their property for respite care.

 

3 Replies 3

Hi, we have unwittingly signed into a 2 week respite care. It was booked and paid for immediately and was never explained to us what would happen. The person who booked it has never shown up, which is 3rd party letting, a strict no no for airbnb, she has just organised booking the place and sent a team of people changing on a daily basis.

The boy is allegedly on trial for murder (according to him) and is smoking on the premises, a strict no no. We have a team of carers coming and changing every 8 hours and up to 4 cars on our car park (only 2 allocated for the property) No one will explain whats going on and all very cagey. 

Beds are all stripped and the place looks like it has been ransacked. 

We had to access the property to fix an issue with the water and noticed all the beds were stripped, laundry all over the place.

We feel completely violated, and unable to do anything about it.

Airbnb seem unable to do anything too.

This is not what we signed up for and is not what our personal holiday let is about. 

Not happy!!!

Hi Ginny

When we had a similar problem (see my original post) it also felt like I was powerless. The third party who had booked abused me over the phone for asking what was going on, and for wanting to know who was actually staying at the house. In the end I contacted the Government department which had contractually engaged the company who had rented our property. It transpired that the woman was being investigated in the media and by the department. I spent quite a bit of time advising the department what had happened. It helped to think I might be ensuring other people would not be victims of similar situations, but it didn't alter the fact that they had done so much damage to our property. In addition to the physical damage to the property, they had jemmied open the linen cupboard and used large amounts of sheets and towels. To make matters worse, afterwards we had unusually excessive heating and water bills, presumably due to the fact that they were continually rotating with different carers. Basically I also felt violated and was worried about further damage to our property. I do hope this sort of thing doesn't happen this again. I had assurances from the department that it would not. Unfortunately, as a result, I am now hyper vigilant and much less trusting. This totally goes against the spirit of Airbnb, and I would strongly suggest that Airbnb find a way to help hosts deal with such issues, or better still, support hosts who wish to cancel such bookings. I should add that 99.9% of my guests have been wonderful over the 9 plus years I have been a host.

Sounds like you had it worse than us. We had to sand water marks and knife marks off surfaces and 're oil them. 

We through them out after the first week and they are asking for a refund (which they are not getting)

Airbnb should do more, you are right.

Hope you have better luck!