Hi Airbnb Host Family,
In my 3 years of hosting last night I experienced my first experience where I felt uncomfortable and unsafe in my own home and Airbnb have provided zero support or consolation.
A new guest (let's call him Ben) had arrived on the weekend and had checked himself in. I kept missing him and so had not had the opportunity to meet him but kept coming home to the evaporative cooling (Aircon) turned on even after long bedtime. I can understand it as it has been hot but I have ceiling fans in each room and as the evaporative cooler is extremely and windy I like to turn it off to sleep (and I get cold much easier than the average man).
On the Sunday night it was a scorcher I had asked Ben to turn the cooler off but he kept messaging me to keep it on (still hadn't met face to face). I obliged being that it was very hot. The next night the cool change came through but upon returning home to a less than 20 degree house still from the AC on even though it was no longer hot. I turned it off and went to shower & get ready for bed. When I came out and I found it on again. I turned it off and messaged Ben to say that unfortunately I find it difficult to sleep with the cooler on as it is loud and very windy. That he can turn on the fan as much as he liked in his room but when the AC effects the whole house and shared spaces and it was no longer hot myself and the second guest preferred it off for sleep. It escalated very quickly from here and it was only afterwards that I found out he was drinking sake alone in his room. He wrote back that he did not wish to meet me and that he could leave. I said of course if that is what he would prefer but that he did not have to do it until tomorrow because obviously it was late at night and I would ask airbnb to find him a new place to stay. He then started abusing me verbally using f-bombs - completely unnecessarily so. I came to heads when he called me the four letter C*** word on the airbnb app - I couldn't believe it being disrespected and abused in my own home by a stranger. So I told him I was going to ask Airbnb to relocate him tonight.
He then came out of his room and stood outside my door and said he was too drunk to drive and would not be leaving tonight. I came out and gave him a piece of my mind but found myself facing a obese man at least 3 if not 4 times my weight. If he had decided to pin me down (or really do anything to me) I would have been powerless to stop him (my second guest was already asleep so I was by myself with him). I said I did not appreciate being disrespected and abused in my own home instead of apologising he then said do you work for MacDonalds? Because if you do I would like to order a small size. At this point I said to him I was going to call the police and he said go ahead just you try and remove me. So I went back to my room to grab my phone. At this point he finally came to some sense and must have realised the severity of the situation and apologised then asked me to allow him to stay and he would leave in the morning.
I conceded and called Airbnb they said if I did not wish to cancel his booking tonight they would call back in the morning to move him - I asked for a call back at 8am. Ben kept messaging me on the app after a change of heart asking me to stay - completely absurd and ridiculous that he would think I would let him stay after what had happened.
This morning he did leave and I think he realised how badly he behaved the night before. I did not get a call from Airbnb until 10am and I did not receive any support on how to deal with Ben if he had refused to leave (he had left by the time they called). I asked them to disallow reviews on both sides since we had both had a negative experience leading to him leaving early so it didn't make sense for either party to do so. To this they said they the invitations to review is automatic and they were powerless to prevent Ben from reviewing if he so choose to but if he posted anything that broke Airbnb guidelines they would then remove the post.
I found it outrageous that not only did they not support me through this entire experience but that they would allow a guest such as this one to review me and potentially negatively impact my ratings not to mention that he had zero repercussions for displaying such bad behaviour given they could see our conversation on the app. I just couldn't believe it - is Airbnb only on guest sides?
Has any one else experienced this sort of bad behaviour and also this poor host support from Airbnb?
What can I do from here?
