Guest incommunicado, possible government agents taking photos, I'm very concerned

[Heather207]

I had an Airbnb guest check into my Florida house 21 days ago, and have not heard from her since.  Her stay is 30 days long.  I am not in Florida this month.  I have been sending messages through Airbnb, text, and phone messages.  Despite my gently escalating inquiries, from "welcome, do you need anything" type messages to "please contact me as soon as you can" type messages I have heard nothing.  I did not feel comfortable with this guest when we were initially exchanging messages, but as we were messaging the review from their last Airbnb stay came through which qualified them for instant booking. 

These were the red flags:

-Guest is moving here with no job and no housing, not on vacation

-Guest is bringing adult daughter and her young son, daughter also has no job or housing

-They were booking for the next day, as their current Airbnb stay had run out

-Their payment was declined but Airbnb gave them 24 hours to pay and they somehow did

-Daughter sent me a booking request for a different date but instead of wanting to book it was a strange passive aggressive complaint about their payment being declined

-There are signs that they are heavy smokers and I do not allow smoking

So today my elderly and slightly nutty neighbor called and said he has not seen them the last few days and that today an SUV with government plates pulled up out front of the house and someone got out and took pictures of the house.  Now my first inclination is that it sounds like city code enforcement but I have the yard professionally maintained twice per month and have not had a problem in 20 years and can't imagine any code enforcement issue.  So now I am very worried about what is going on.  Will Airbnb do anything about guests not responding?  Do I just need to wait it out and hope for the best?  Any ideas?

[David126]

Could you expand on what you expect AirBnb to do?

Do you have somebody to manage the property when you are not around?

[Heather207]

That is my concern, that the guests will not leave when their stay is up, or trash the place, and Airbnb cannot do anything.  They can try to charge them the deposit, but obviously the card will be declined.  There will be no recourse through Airbnb.  Yes I have a property manager.  They have not been home or come to the door when the manager comes by.  Just looking for advice and stories from anyone else who has had dodgy people staying who will not respond. 

[David126]

The only thing I cn think of is to ask AirBnB to cancel the booking mid term and find them alternate accomodation as you are uncomfortable with them.

[Annette33]

@Heather207, I would worry too....seems like your best bet is to  find someone reliable to go over there and check on things. Can you talk to that nutty neighbour and through him/her  get an idea of  a more suitable contact for you and get that person involved?

Since you have a direct phone number for the guest, did you call them, what did they say? Being far away makes you particularly vulnerable. You say you have a manager for the property, pay them extra to find out what is going on.. Just raise your price to pay for that, you are pretty "cheap" and raising your base price would be perfectly okay.

Did you talk to Airbnb about this? It couldn't hurt to try.

So sorry for all the worries, hope it all works out okay. Good luck! Let us know what happens....