Abuser Guest can bring their animals to your "No Pet" Listing and Airbnb won't support you in anyway for damages!

[Bob129]

All hosts with "No Pet" listings , be careful specially if your listing is "self check-in". Abuser guests can bring their animals along to your listing and if you get any damage because of that you are on your own. Airbnb "Host Guaranty" terms and conditions says if any damages happened directly or indirectly by animals you are not covered even if your listing is "No Pet". Funnier than that you are not even covered by your "Security Deposit" because security deposit has the same terms and conditions of "Host Guaranty". So you are on your own and Airbnb doesn't give a **bleep** to the damages abuser guests made by bringing animals to your "No Pet" listing. In another guest can abuse you by bringing animal and damage your property or even yourself and Airbnb let them do it and go free of charge.

If you have patient you can read this Incident happened to me recently as a long term host. I had a 3 guests booking to my "No Pet" listing. I found after first night by another resident in the building that there are big dogs in above floor barking, I contacted the guest who booked upstairs and she said it was a visitor with dog and he already left (not to mansion Visitor were not allowed too). she promised me dog has been removed already, but only the next day I found out they kept dogs for second night too. After they left I found the apartment in a very bad shape. Scratches on newer hardwood floor everywhere. Dog poo on the deck and front yard. I had to vacuumed the apartment 3 times and after collecting about one pound of hair still hair you could see around. Unfortunately they took dogs to bed with them, so bed sheets and quilt were full of hair inside and need to be trashed. Worse than all I had to de-allergenize the whole apartment from top to bottom paying from my pocket for solution and by my labor ( I couldn't risk it because I had previous experience a year earlier that a guest with sever allergy to pets had to left for the hospital and after the cancellation of that booking I was grateful he didn't go further).

Anyway after requesting money  just for the stuff needed to be replaced and what I paid for de-allergenize solution (not even for my labor) which they didn't accept to pay, I escalated to Airbnb and after several communication with different agents and case manager I find out I'm alone and not covered by "Host Guaranty" and/or "Security Deposit" due to "terms and condition".

Take care everyone and watch for yourself

Bob

[Helen3]

Sorry to hear this happened. @Bob129 

However it wasn't Airbnb that let extra guests and pets use your place. That was you.

. It would have been better once you found there were guests who hadn't booked and animalsl to have had Airbnb cancel the booking and have the guests leave, rather than letting them stay and upset your neighbours and damage your property.

One of the best measures you can use to protect yourself is to install CCTV outside so you can monitor those using your listing. In this way you could have called out your guest when they arrived with extra guests and animals and dealt with it straight away.

Have you checked on your home insurance for STRs to see if you can claim for damages.

And of course do leave an honest review of your guests to warn future hosts.

[Bob129]

Thanks for reply Helen3

What's you idea regarding "Host Guaranty" and "security deposit" coverage in such a animal damage case?

You haven't say a word regarding Airbnb responsibilities / outcome, just some advise for me?

for me it's like talking to Airbnb agent rather than a fellow host. It's more obvious when you have a luxury to come back and modify you reply as it shows different in the email I got.

Of course if I lived in the building or maybe if the listing wasn't self check-in, I could prevent the problem and many more if's. but many hosts don't have these kind of luxuries.

I have a CCTV installed already but when I'm at work and guest have a wide check-in window to enter a self check-in listing I won't be able to monitor them on time.

you can't bother to go to your home insurance either for smaller amount such my claim around $200, It's even less than insurance deductible amount.It's far more better if you were really covered by security deposit for smaller amount.

The resident in another level who warn me was an Airbnb guest herself and inform me through Airbnb platform so Airbnb knows for sure.

When I called the guest and she ensured me that dog already removed, what can I do? do you call Aribnb or ...?

Regarding review you are correct, but does it covered the damage for me? anyway when you have claim on going you can not just write a review and make things more complicated.

[Mark116]

@Helen3  You make it sound so easy, LOL.  But you know that if @Bob129 had contacted airbnb, they would have contacted the guests, who would have said, oh it was our visitors who  had the dogs and they're gone now.  Airbnb would have chosen to believe the lying guest, as they always do,  and would have pressured Bob to let them stay, and said that if Bob cancels, it becomes a host cancellation, which harms his listing, and lastly all this would most likely have triggered a one star revenge review.   

I agree about the cameras though, because that would have alerted him immediately about the dogs within a few hours, given proof to airbnb and enabled him to get them out before they spent the night there, but none of that would have prevented a revenge review.

[Bob129]

Thank you Mark116 for taking a look into this.

My main objective here is "Security Deposit" terms and Conditions, what do you think about it?

regarding cameras I already have them installed, but these kind of guest can do much better than us, even with cameras.

Other than I can not monitor the CCTV from remote place constantly to catch these. they may check in without animals and visitors and after finding the blind spots on the cameras bring animals and guests there. There may be interruption on the internet connection that prevent remote monitoring and happens sometimes.

[Helen3]

I guess because for me it is easy @Mark116  @Bob129 🙂

I co-host a whole listing and always ask guests to give me an indicative time on arrival and departure (part of our house rules), so we can run through the CCTV to check arrivals and departures. I also vet ALL guests before arrival including getting them to confirm numbers and no animals.

What checks do you carry out in advance of your guests arrival to vet them @Bob129 ?

For me work/time you spend in advance means you are much, much more unlikely to have problem guests.

I have at least 10 times asked Airbnb to cancel bookings where guests brought additional guests/animals. In all cases they have agreed.

I agree revenge reviews are a complete pain and I am not sure what the solution is.

I just know I will not be held to blackmail over them. If guests behave badly I will call them out on it. Fortunately I have only had one negative review - my first in nearly five years of hosting and hundreds of guests.

[Mark116]

@Helen3  That's impressive, to be 10/10 w/airbnb you must have an impressive phone manner.  

[Helen3]

Nope not really @Mark116 🙂

I just put in the leg work in advance and get them to confirm guest numbers and no pets and it's in my co-host house rules that I can cancel if they bring in more than on the booking, so when they break the rules it's easy to get them out as we can show video content to show they have broken the rules.

[Bob129]

Yes you are good and you go for the best.

but things happens,

so question is

is "Security Deposit" terms and Conditions logical, what do you think about it?

and  should you count on Airbnb's support when such a thing happened already?

Please focus.

[Sarah977]

@Bob129  Helen is focusing. The security deposit and the host guarantee are nothing a host can rely on. Tons of hosts have sustained major damages from guests or their pets much, much worse than what you experienced  and received not a penny of compensation. We can discuss whether Airbnb is fair in the way they apply the deposit and the guarantee until the cows come home, but that doesn't change the reality. Experienced hosts are aware of all this, thus we realize that we have to do our own vetting of guests and take action when guests are ignoring house rules, lying to us, bringing in more people than they booked for, etc. 

[Bob129]

Thanks Sarah977 for strait answer.

I Just tried to warn other fellow hosts that Security Deposit worth nothing when it comes to animal damages (or maybe other things which I'm not aware).

I'm an experienced host and already checked with these guest in advance regarding No Visitor, No Party, No Pet and check-in time and relieved "deceitful" promises then I accepted them.

But as I said things like this happens. Unlike some Trumpish others (who nobody can do better than them) I'm not free to seat and monitor CCTV to catch people. I have to run around a big area to do different tasks including Airbnb's, I'm just shocked with non-sense "Terms and Conditions" and support Airbnb gives to these abusers to run away with no consequences after damaging us. so tried to bring it up with the others.

Now question is:

When you cancelled these guests and had them out of property, what will happen to their payments?

even you catch them on the camera and you go and have them out, damage may be done already, what to do? suck it up?

Regards