I have made a few posts about me "catching" guests and narrowly escaping parties but one finally outsmarted me. I attribute the wave to cold weather in Chicago combined with a very slow streak that left a couple of weekends open, something I do not usually have.
There were no red flags. He booked in advance for a sleepover for a 14 year old son, 5 friends and 2 chaperones. Not a last minute booking (flag one scratched off the list). He was from Illinois but far out for a trip to Chicago for a teen's birthday to make sence. I told him about no extra guests at least three times and that I have a counter installed (Party Squasher) and he acknowledged it. I almost felt embarrassed to keep saying it because he had such well put together responses. He produced a list of minors prior to check in. I checked ID when he arrived. The second chaperone was not there so and was not lazy came back at 9 pm to check the second ID (even though my daughter JUST got home after three months away and this was the last activity I wanted to be engaged in). I could not possibly be more thorough. When I came at 9, there were happy kids running around, there were cupcakes on the table. No alcohol, no cars lining the street, no trays of food. No signs of trouble.
Party squasher counts devices. By 10 PM it was showing 40. I came up with an excuse- may be each kid has a cell phone, an ipad and a gaming device and maybe the tenant downstairs has a couple of people over. By 11pm it was showing 50.
When I called the guest, his response was: What did you think was going to happen? Of course I am having a party! I was floored.
I called Airbnb. I was suspecting for a while that there is no Santa, starting to doubt existence of unicorns, at least fully pink ones. But finding out that there is no SWAT team (Stop Wild party Airbnb Team) and the picture was a product of @Cathie19 imagination was the biggest blow of the night. That handsome guy was not coming to save me after all. Those of you not familiar, this is a reference to another thread here. I talked to regular rep, then got transferred to the special party department. 15 min on hold and I am told that the guidelines have not fully come out so they do not know how to help me. But he will talk to the guest and let him know that if extra people do not leave now, they will be evicted with no refund. The only thing I could think of asking in the moment was: are you saying he is eligible for a refund if he does leave right away?? It is a one night reservation!
I am now stuck with a one star review, smoking remediation bill and trying to figure out what I did wrong. By the way, if the guest were to be removed from the platform immediately following the incident, he would not have been able to leave me a review.
