Being host as hostage of Airbnb policies

[Domenico89]

Hello,

first of all I have to say that I heavily love this community and what Airbnb does as a company, at the point this is the only platform I use to rent my 3 apartments

Ultimately quality of guests has heavily dropped: 90% of my guests are teenagers or early twenties at their first experience over Airbnb and probably with no experiences at all in running an apartment.

Few months ago, to contrast the indecent  conditions guests leave my apartment, I introduced few house rules, like a small extra fee if guests leave kitchenware unwashed or if they don't deposit their own garbage (had guests who spent even more than a week in the apartment without depositing any garbage... they literally lived in their own garbage for days!).

These rules are clearly stated and accepted at the moment of the booking, moreover I always remind of them both at their entrance and the night before their check out.

At my last request for an extra fee I was answered by Sara from Airbnb customer service that "The guest requests comprehension on your part as she had an early flight and claims having cleaned everything else and that the garbage left in the apartment was from that morning. She also feels it's not right as she already paid a cleaning fee of 25€ when booking this reservation."

Frankly I find this interference from Airbnb customer service completely inappropriate: these are my rules, and the money could come with no problem at all from the deposit the guest paid (and retained from Airbnb). Moreover the guest has explicitly admitted of having left the garbage in the apartment.

THIS CONDITION IS HIGHLY FRUSTRATING, because in first instance I feel hostage of Airbnb processes that allows guests to leave bad reviews if you ask for even a small refund for a broken glass or the (negligible) amount of money I ask for the garbage, and secondarily I feel hostage of Airbnb customer service who decides I am not entitled to get the money for something which is in my house rules and which is not argued by guests (she has admitted she broke the house rule,but she simply doesn't want to pay, and the customer service give her right!).

What about yourself in similar situation? Should I tolerate having my apartments looted by a certain type of guests and accept impassibly this completely guest oriented approach or Airbnb customer service?

[Anonymous]

@Domenico89  On a couple points, you are mistaken about how Airbnb works:

1) Airbnb does NOT collect or hold any deposits. Read carefully here: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/140/security-deposits

2) Airbnb does NOT enforce penalty fees against guests, regardless of what you put in your House Rules. The only thing you can possibly get from trying to collect a small fee after a stay is an angry review. 

On the latter point, many hosts feel held hostage by the fear of low ratings, especially as Airbnb pushes that with threats of listing suspensions and loss of the Superhost badge (a hollow distinction that some people still get insanely emotional about). No doubt about it, enforcing House Rules and seeking compensation for damage will leave guests unhappy and hurt the ratings, so you don't want to put yourself in a position where you have to do either very often. That can mean vetting guests more carefully, raising the room rates or cleaning fee by default to account for minor incidents, or choosing a booking platform that attracts a different clientele. 

But with any third-party platform, you are indeed "hostage" to their policies and whims when it comes to the handling of the money, because that's the one part of hosting that's out of your control. Rather than trying to impose petty little fines (which are never a helpful solution to anything), you're better off focusing on the things that are actually within your power.

[Fred13]

Too many rules, too many requiring your personal enforcement and you having to play the role of a traffic cop. Sounds like zero fun.