Last minute cancellation of a suspicious guest - is it wise?

[Harry165]

This just happened today and I have to ask how other hosts would handle it. I meet my guests, a couple of 21-year-old from the same town I live. I went over the house rules and ask what brings them here. They told me they are just here to meet with some friends. Then I ask, "But you all live here, why would you pay $200+ to rent my house?" Their answers were evasive, "Well, we want to meet with friends and play board games." I gave them a doubtful look, "But you all live here." I restated all of my house rules,  then took their IDs and stored on my phone. I started doing that after one time 80 kids partied at my house unannounced. What a nightmare that was. So I was very serious when I repeated my house rules a few times - No Parties, No drugs, No excessive drinking, No loud noises after 8pm ...

So as I drove away, my guts were turning upside down. I had such an uneasy feeling about these kids. Sometimes it takes you to meet a person and see their facial expressions and hear their answers. Something isn't right, their story does not check out. I called my wife and both of us are worried sick. I had to call them back and ask again why they want to rent my house while living in the same area. This time, their answers alarmed me even more, "Oh, don't worry, we are here just for a couple of hours. We are not even sleeping here. We will leave at 10 pm tonight." What in the world is going on? I would not want anything to go down in my house for the next few hours. Apparently, they have something planned for the next few hours, but surely not playing boardgame as they claimed.

I am worried sick. luckily, the guest called me back, "I don't feel comfortable staying here. Can you come back and pick up the key." I must have annoyed them enough with my questions on their intent. "Yes, I will come back now and issue a full refund right away."

As I picked up the key from my young guest, they walked away unhappily. However, I felt as if a mountain lifted from my chest. I called Airbnb and they issued the refund, logged my concern and without penalty to me.

I think I have made the right choice. What do you think? What would you have done?

[Kelly149]

congrats to you, maybe move the "questions" stage of the booking up to right after the booking is made rather than after the guest has appeared on your door step??

keep in mind that this guest now will have the opportunity to review your place.

[Jess78]

harry, I can’t tag, but OF COURSE you made the right decision.

Thank god you were able to meet them and look them in the eye. These guests obviously did not have good intentions for your place. Way to follow your brain and gut. You may want to plaster your reply in bold caps about your very strict no drugs/parties policy under penalty of law to guests right after they book and give them a chance to back out. 

Back in May I had some guests who lied and shot up at my house, using it as a party pad for a small group of unregistered guests to get very high. The guest who booked was from out of town but I found out that he had local contacts who met him there. I started doing background checks on all my guests after that. He had a record, turns out. 

I hope you flag these guests so we don’t have to host them. No that flagging gets them kicked off Airbnb, but if you have any way to warn others so we don’t host them as well, that’d be great. 

[Sam397]

@Jess0, Flag them for what. You are saying that because these people lived in the same town and didn't want to tell him why they rented his place they shouldn't be allowed to use AirBnB and to have every host think they shouldn't host them. What if these guys were just needing a place to plan a family vacation without their family knowing. I am sorry but some of you host need to take a look at yourselves. Your paranoia,  the assuming that people are going to screw you, and the willingness to punish people for things that you don't even know they did is really sad.  Some guy tells you he ran off a guest for no other reason then a gut feeling and you go right out and join the lynch mob out to tar and feather them.  

[Jess78]

No problem Sam. I can see your point but totally disagree with you. 

‘If they had just needed a place to plan a family vacation they would have told their host that and not lied and looked shifty. It’s not paranoia, it’s called using information to make a good decision about a big investment and the safety of your neighborhood. 

Not a lynch mob out to tar and feather anyone — these Guests had some kind of bad intentions, all but admitted it, left without a fight, and good riddance.

If that’s who you want renting your space, you can have them. I don’t think guests who rent spaces to carry out illegal activities on our properties at our expense should be tolerated. 

[Tamara294]

Sorry Sam but I have to agree Harry made the right decision. I wish I would have chosen paranoia a few weeks ago. I got this weird message in my inbox with the prospective guest saying "thanks for having us". Now my account is set up to have guests give me a two day notice but no such thing happened. The guests were on island and desperate to get to my place the same day they booked. My first instinct was to ignore this booking as it was a breach in my arrangement for bookings. Airbnb contacted me  with an apology for the glitch....so I accepted and gave it a shot.

It all  still seemed pretty weird though, even the photo of the guest seemed shady but I decided not to be judgemental and contacted my co-host who manage my property to please go ahead and help this coup!e out. On seeing them my co-host immediately contacted me and said this couple looks really weird and he has a bad feeling in his gut about this one. But what is a silly gut feeling you would say.

Long story short the couple was my worst hosting nightmare. Weeks later we are still finding damage done to my belongings hidden in the craziest places. Neighbors for the first time ever complained about the disruption of peace from my guests. I would never recommend them.

Conclusion...always follow your gut instinct. Better be a paranoid anxiety free host then a naive, super trusting host left counting losses.

[Sam397]

@Jess0you do a background check on all your guest. Dont them things cost like $50-100  each. That's gotta be expensive.

[Letti0]

@Sam397  I pay about $125-$250 for background checks on my employee's which are needed for them to get into certain client's buildings. A few of my guys came back with a DUI in the last 10 years and cannot be sent to certain jobs sites because of it. Believe or not 1 cannot go to some sites due to his debit to income ratio. The type of background checks I believe @Jess78 is doing are only for public information like arrest records, jail time, etc. and can be purchased for $10 or so. 

[Alex893]

 Of course you made the right decision except for one small detail- why would you refund? The only part that was due to be refunded who the cleaning fee if you charged any. Not only because they knew at the time of rental they would be breaking your house rules so no reason you would suffer loss of income, but also because hopefully that would teach them a lesson they would understand. They do this again – they will be caught again, and they will lose their money again

[Sarah977]

@Harry165 Of course you did the right thing by agreeing to their leaving, but I agree with Alex that you should not have offered a refund. You spent time, $ and energy on this booking, why should you do that for free? They probably would have asked Airbnb for a refund anyway, but you didn't have to offer or agree to it.

Always go with your gut reaction to a guest- you don't look like a kid- I'm sure you and your wife have plenty of life experience in getting a sense of whether something feels right or not.

If you are using Instant Book, I would suggest you turn it off for awhile, so that guests have to send you Inquiries or Booking Requests, which will give you an opportunity to message them and ask some pertinent questions before approving their booking. Way better than waiting until you've cleaned the place for them, and they're standing on the doorstep. I think you need some more experience in vetting guests before using IB, as you've just had 2 bookings from quite young guests whose intentions were far from honorable. Maybe this recent group was even part of the previous party crowd of 80?

[Abeyrathne0]

hey i'm new to airbnb hosting but have plenty of experiance about hosing guests. yes, i think you was right to be cautious. in my establishment i only let people book if they are staying a full night because many who stays during day or doesn't spend the night means trouble or sketchy in my experiance, and i highly agree with others who commented here on refund, for that booking you have missed a chance to let someone else book your property and if they used the establishment you'll have work to do to make it ready again so souldn't have offered a refund.

[Harry165]

I think I had a close call today. Now I think back on the situation. These kids showed up at 6 pm and will leave at 10 pm tonight. They obviously did not want the public eye for whatever they are planning. So it was worth it for them to pay $50+ per hour for 3 to 4 hours. Is it a drug trade, an illegal operation, or someone getting mugged? All of these scenarios have come into my mind. So no, I do not want to teach them a lesson, I'm very afraid of what might happen to piss them off. I am happy to pay more for them to just leave.

What I think I did right:
1. Took photo ID of the first 2 guys.
2. Insisted to ask for IDs from others who would be coming. And I called them back to ask if any additional guest had arrived. when I asked them to send me ID from additional guests, they did not want to provide that.
3. Told them my neighbor can see what's going on in the house easily.
4. Told them I am very uneasy about their reason for the stay. I asked repeated the reason for their stay since they live locally. Of course, I was polite, sincere and appealed to their senses.
5. Spoke with a neighbor to look for suspicious activities, and when one guy came out of the house, he saw me talking with my neighbor.
6. The most important thing is I called them back. While asking for additional guest info, I politely stated again I don't feel good about the whole thing and asked for their reason for the stay. They must feel too many eyes watching and abandoned their plan.

[Andreas-and-Anna0]

I dont know.... this should have happened before they booked. And after you didn't do anything except to agree to a cancellation. . I dont mean to be an ass but what did you learn the first time and what did you really do differently now? I dont see it. Your harassment of them should have been done before you drove away, before you gave a key.  Anna

[Katherine333]

Airbnb allows you no info on anyone until after you accept. Then you can check them out, but if you find something "off" you are penalized for cancelling. I rented to a guy who Airbnb said was fine. It turned out it was his brother who stayed there and they smoked constantly in my house ( a high end 4/4) . The deposit was not nearly enough to clean the carpets, drapes, quilts, mattresses etc. After 10 months I still smell the stink every time I walk in. I can imagine trying to wrangle the " million dollrs of coverage" out fo Airbnb to get the house sanitized. 

They also ding you for not enough acceptances. That takes away our ability to turn down parties we don't want to rent to. Very infair.

[Rachel0]

@Harry165 I think it would have been wiser to ask them the reason for their stay at the time of booking rather then when they were standing on your doorstep - it's a bit late by then, especially as you are not hosting in your own home.  There is the option to ask that question in your booking requirements.  

I would not have offered them a refund either.