Hi Samantha!
Yes, it’s always hard to deal with people who violate rules, especially the noise rules. A couple of suggestions come to mind to help you, and keep peace with the neighbors.
During the last Superbowl, Airbnb made available, to hosts in our area, the ability to buy a Minut noise detection system. ( https://www.minut.com/ ) It doesn’t record voices. It monitors ambient noise. And now, it also looks for a lot of devices logging into your wifi network. If the noise goes up, you get a text and/or email notification that you have a problem, hopefully before it gets loud enough to bother your neighbors. It also gives you documentation of your guests noise issues.
In your property description, for the booking area, DO include that you have a Noise/Noise Cancellation policy, a written No Party policy, and that you use a Minut detector to document. State that you reserve the right to cancel a booking for cause if the guests trip off the meter (x) times. All of that policy and documentation provides Airbnb with some ammunition if they have to speak to the guest, on your behalf, about noise/party issues.
Airbnb’s review system is well intentioned, but it does leave you vulnerable to getting bad reviews for giving them. Putting stuff out there that makes you look difficult, or disagreeable, doesn’t really help you with bookings. The only people reading reviews are other hosts. We all know the drill. What you say that we can read between the lines.
“Joe and Kim were incredibly kind guests. They made sure that everything was clean and tidy. Kim even helped us by bagging up the colored sheets separate from the whites. I’d happily welcome her back, any time!”
“Joe and Kim took full advantage of all that we have to offer. We hope that they, and their friends visiting, enjoyed their stay.”
As a host, reading that, the “friends” coding tells me what I want to know. You didn’t dive into something negative, and the rest of us are given enough heads-up.
I agree with Andrew that using the “NO” on the “Would you host them again?” prompt, in the reviews, is your best bet not to see them back.
When someone books, we’ve found it’s always good to kind of see what their public social media presence looks like. Do they have a positive, or negative voice in their media posts? Photos of the kids? Photos of heavy partying? It’s not that any of that is 100% certain of how they’ll be at your property, but, if you see someone who is a flame-throwing troll, or who is at some airbnb partying, you at least have some fair warning.
One other thing to think about: Space, and price and fees. If you have a big space to party, and the cost to rent is low, that’s going to look like a win-win to people who want to use the space. I noticed that when we built up our reputation, and were able to increase our prices, especially at peak break/holidays, it slowed down people who want to party in the space.
Hope that helps!
Brian Ross