Hosting a Fellow AirBNB Host - What have your experiences been?

[Stephanie365]

I am just wrapping up a guest at my AirBNB who is a Superhost of her own AIrBNB.  In communicating with her she seemed very nice, coming up for her nieces wedding. She assured me as a host herself, she would be a fabulous guest.

It turns out the part about the wedding is the only true thing she told me.  In fact, she used her inside knowledge as a host to circumvent rules she didn't want to abide.

In her initial communication, she mentioned her mom would be coming with her and that she had a Service Dog. Not an Emotional Support Dog, but an actual Service Dog.  She passively-aggressively mentioned that she knew I had to accept their reservation WITH the dog even though my policy is "No Pets".

My cat is a better trained service animal than this dog, which was old, blind and deaf and anything BUT a serice animal. At least my cat can open doors. But he was sporting his fictitious "Service Dog" vest that you can get online.

She then cancelled her reservation with less than 18 hours before her trip was to start. She gives me a sob story about her mom being "deathly ill" and due to these extenuating circumstances, would I refund her whole trip?  As I had already declined another guest, I told her that if I was able to rebook the suite, I would refund her money.  She responded that she would come after all (I guess she saw that I had dropped my price to lure in a new booking) and rebooked at the lower rate. Cute tactic.

When she and her mom arrived, Mom was fit and healthy and chipper. Not a sniffle, sneeze or cough to indicate she'd been "deathly ill" less than 24 hours prior. 

The straw that broke the camel's back was her violation of my #1 House Rule. No smoking on the property. I am severely allergic to smoke. This is stated in my house rules as well. At first she tried to conceal it, but both my fiancee and I kept catching whiffs of smoke and my throat kept tightening up. But I didn't actually SEE her smoking as she was careful to conceal it. At least not until 10:45 pm when she didn't think anyone was around or awake, and she lit up right under my bedroom window. Made for a very uncomfortable night for me. I contacted AirBNB at 6:30 in the morning to document. They suggested I send her a nice message reminding her not to smoke, which I did when I saw her smoking again.  Her response was to light up AGAIN and waltz around outside of my house blatantly smoking, and well past check out time of 10:00 am.

I reminded her AGAIN of the smoking policy and also that she was now past check out time and she needed to leave. 

She finally texted me saying she thought it was No Smoking inside. For someone who is a host, and considering her pushing the envelope on everything else, I call BS on her excuse.

Pretty clear policy
Has anyone else had a Hostzilla as a guest?

[Robin4]

@Stephanie365

Thanks for starting this thread Stephanie, there has been a lot of useful information here. I have had one Airbnb Superhost book and stay here, and she was absolutely lovely to host and I would love to see her here again.

I am not so interested in their Airbnb background, I do rely more on my psychological word sniffing skills when it comes to bookings. I analyse every word of that first guest statement.....is it passive or is it aggresive!  When someone starts asking me questions as to what is available and what is not, particularly if it is in the listing description, I decline the booking. I do it tactfully and have done it on 3 occasions in the last year.

I would not for a second entertain a request for a discount....I do not discount and I do not deal with hagglers, simple as that!

People who ask a perfect stranger to give money away to them are never going to make acceptable guests.

But I like to read others experiences and I do learn from them so thanks Stephanie, great post!

Cheers......Rob

[Louise231]

Yeah like some others on here i've had a superhost stay, and give a 4 star review... I think because I would't let him bring his lady friend in so they could pray.

He knew my house rules are very strict on the no guest rule, we even had a convo about it as it's such an awkward situation every time someone tries to bring a person in, and he still had the cheek to ask. (plus he's married?, which he talked about?, so bringing another woman into a shared apartment airbnb is a little odd in my opinion...)

Had ANOTHER superhost, who didn't book on his own profile, he had his 'PA' book a room (not a linked account). So as far as I knew it was a girl arriving, she didn't reply to my messages before arrival, no communication at all, then there's a knock on my door and this guy is stood there. He's already in my building, and I'm saying no, thats totally not ok, and he's just like, "meh i'm a superhost, see here's my profile, it's not a problem when other guests stay at my listing so it shouldn't be at yours". (**bleep**test rational ever).

Yeah, most of the time hosts are great, they understand all listings are different and are just happy to be a guest for a stay not hosting it. But there's also some that seam to think you should give a discount/ingnore your rules even tho they're complete strangers and you set them for a reason.

I must be doing somthing wrong, eveytime i've stayed somewhere since hosting I've given 5 star reviews, before hosting I gave a 3 star review because there were ants walking though the apartment from the ouside, next to the bed, through to the kitchen. and i still feel guitly about leaving a non 5star review. Even sleeping next to an bunch of ants for 5 days, and i still feel guilty about not giving a nice review!

[Kelly149]

yep, a fellow host is not a guarantee of good guest. My latest 4* review was from a host who thought:

- I should have stored her luggage for her

- I shouldn't have charged her for an 8 hour late checkout (she wanted to stay past even the middle of my checkin window)

- She didn't want to sign a rental contract

So, essentially rather than booking a place & times that worked for her or being happy that the listing was exactly what I said it was, she wanted to downrate me bc it wasn't what she wanted it to be. I even offered to let her cancel when she started complaining about the contract, but 'no, it's fine, I want to come...'  

I've had a couple of guest stays with SH listings and actually neither one did I like at all, for sure wouldn't want to ever stay there again, but I wouldn't ever tank a person's listing on purpose

[Stephanie365]

So, my guest sent me a PM suggesting I clarify my rules and mention my allergies.

Ok, it's the first ABB standard rule mentioned under House Rules: "No Smoking"

It's mentioned AGAIN as the first "custom" House Rule, "No Smoking anywhere on the property due to my allergies". <-- Oh hey, I DID mention my allergies, imagine that!

It's the first rule on the first page in my Guest Welcome Book, "No Smoking on the property due to my allergies".  <-- Oh wow, I mentioned it AGAIN.

But apparently, I wasn't clear.   And quite frankly, my allergies are irrelevent. If I say "No Smoking on the Property", it's my house, my rules. I don't need a reason.

I am really easy going about everything except this one thing, for obvious reasons.

To me, if someone's House Rules state "No Smoking" and you're a smoker, you book someplace that doesn't have that rule. Because people who post "No Smoking" don't want to smell you. How hard is that?