Our first Escort! How to handle?

Our first Escort! How to handle?

We very  recently we had a man bring what I thought was a prostitue into our home. I'm still in disbelief that someone would do this in someone's private home. I can't prove it and I am still debating on how to write the review or contact Airbnb. 

There were red flags from the start and I should have gone with my initual intuition that something was off when he messaged for the room. I've now realized always go with your gut. His first message asked for a discount on the room. It is $39 and $10 for every extra person. I politley responded that we don't do that. He said he was coming to town and had an interview with one of the hospitals. Cool no biggy. We didnt hear back for weeks, thenn he booked the 1 night instead of 2. The reservation was made for one. No mention of a wife or any other guest.

The day of....

We had messaged the day before with instructions on our home, checkin time and how to enter our home. The day of I recieved a mesage that stated we will be arriving at what time. "WE?" I responded again politely that the reservation was for 1. He of course asked will that be more money when it is clear as day that it would be. He said his wife was coming. Ok no biggy. I was irriated since this guy was clearly looking for a discount over and over. I was nice and let is slide. I unfortunatley was not there for checkin. He showed up with a woman that had no luggage and was dressed to go out to a club in almost nothing where he was dressed in everyday wear. My wife checked them in and was uncomfortable and didn't know what to say. This was at 3pm. They didn't come out until she left early the next morning without her "husband".

He than messaged asking if he could stay in the room until his flight left at 5 since we didnt have anyone else. I still at this point did not know his "wife" had left. My wife being the amazing human she is let hime stay. I would have asked him to leave. I noticed him leave alone in the afternoon and asked my wife where his was. She let me know what was going on, knowing I would be upset.  Yes he was nice and clean. Don't care. No one should ever direspect someones home by bringing a call girl into it.

I have children at my home as well as other guests and I am debating wheather or not this is all really worth it. Yes we have met some amazing people and also made some money. But at what cost to my home?  How can I address this to Airbnb this is an issue? I have seen other posts on here about this topic. Never though it would happen to us. 

 

10 Replies 10
David126
Level 10
Como, CO

Remember AirBnB is basically a booking system, you manage your business.

 

Not sure what you would expect a booking service to do, you may well be correct but I see no evidence.

 

I could also see any action you could have taken might have you open to a Discrimination charge.

 

I find it odd that someone would take a Escort to a shared house, I know there are issues with seperate listings that have been turned into pop up brothels.

David

Very odd. We just thought somebody would use better judgement pertaining to that. Some people just don't care. We left a fair review. There was no proof. We were honest and just said we would prefer not to host again and privatley let Airbnb know what we thought in the private section so atleast if this guests does this with another house it will be on record. We also triple cleaned the bedroom. I guess there is not much one can do in a situation like this. 

Gerry-And-Rashid0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Cam-And-Shannon0

 

Difficult one - on the one hand he was upfront(ish), brought the woman along at check in, agreed to pay for the additional person, you allowed him to check out later - and doesn't sound like he caused damage or left the place in a mess. Also, your children probably didn;t notice a thing - I would be more concerned if they were calling women 'escorts' without any proof.

 

You do have to be careful in a public review that you don;t accuse him of using escorts, or accusing the woman of being an escort. That could backfire spetacularly as you have no proof what so ever, except your suspicions.

 

Personally I would chalk it up as follows: never take one night bookings at short notice, never take people who want to negotiate on a rate, trust your instincts on every booking and follow them...

 

Then, in your feedback to AirBnB you  can mention it to them that you have suspicions, so that if they receieve the same comments from other hosts at least they can decide whether or not to ask.

 

Finally...I am not sure what I would write as a public review......just wondering what you can actually say....don;t know....

 

Good luck and hope it's a rare occurrence!

I think we were fair in our review minus what we thought. Straight to the point. We would prefer not to host again but he was clean and polite. very simple. He did not pay for the extra person. His communication was manipulative. Unfortunatley we do mostly one night booking which we prefer. We are very close to the airport and people like to shower and clean up if they get stuck or have an early flight. Seems to be our niche. We have only had this guest and  one other family  of hosting over 50 people that I would not welcome back. Thanks for all the imput.

I would believe the following would be an appropriate review "The guest stayed in my appartment, however i feel they would have been better suited to a hotel"  is polite review but gets people thinking.

 

Dede0
Level 10
Austin, TX

@Cam-And-Shannon0 Ick! Fortunately, we've never had that situation occur and I hope it never does.

My first suggestion would be about the review you leave for the guest. I personally wouldn't go into ANY details at all, but would just flatly state that the guest's behavior (w/o describing what) made you feel very uncomfortable and that you would not recommend them to other hosts under any circumstances. That will do the trick as far as what other hosts need to know. Of course, also give him the big Thumbs-Down, which should knock him out of contention for most Instant Book listings as well.

My other suggestion, which might (if only slightly) help prevent such bookings in the future, is to consider raising your rate a little bit. You currently ask $39/night plus an overall $5 cleaning fee (plus the add'l $10 per person after first guest). Your calendar seems to be well-filled, so perhaps raise your nightly charge to $45 or even $49, and maybe make your cleaning fee $10. Yes, the higher prices might cost you a couple of bookings a month, but you'd still come out ahead money-wise. (And as a bonus, you'd have to clean a couple fewer times per month.)

Our own listing charges rates that I consider to be almost too high. However, possibly because of that, we have never had a single problematic guest. The higher rate sort of filters out those kinds of guests. Slobs or party animals who just want a cheap place to crash tend to pass us by. Instead, we get friendly, respectful guests.

ps: Did you wash those sheets on HOT? Twice?   🙂

We have been very lucky and have been pretty good with screening people. You just never know. Everything was trippled washed and the room has been cleaned from top to bottom lol

We upped our prices a little and will hopefully have this be the only time this happens. We hope he doesn't fire back anything since this was the first non positive review we left. We just want to be fair and if that was the case hopefully not have that happen to someone else. Thanks for the suggestions.

@Cam-And-Shannon0 I doubt if the guest will even make a review and, if he does, he'll probably not get into details (if he's smart) because YOU are given a chance to respond to his comments. He'll be aware that you didn't go into details, and he probably won't want to get you po'd enough to add those details.

Of course, maybe he doesn't realize that you'll have an opportunity to add more... (And yet, I still wouldn't add anything specific, to avoid a potential legal mess. I only mention the possible followup because of how knowing it was a possibility might influence the guest to keep his comments in check.)

Same thing happened to me during the summer.Last thing I expected to deal with in a small tourist town. The woman booked a room in my house,they arrive right on check in and precede to scream the house down,slapping and hitting with the door open! We had private guests staying in the room next door. I had enough after a couple of hours and asked them to leave. Please trust your gut-the signs were there at the beginning-too many questions on my address,hedging for reduction,stories not matching up, and most alarming was that she made up some dietary requirement for breakfast that she was asking me to go out and buy at last minute.She thought the house was going to be empty except for me. That is why I am converting to self catering and the end of me having guests in the house!

Stephen1435
Level 2
New Orleans, LA

Complicated visit