I had guests stay at our house one night and agreed to our house rules with check out at 10 am. They also agreed to a late check out fee of $75 (I know it’s not enforceable) in our house rules as we have tight turn around times. My cleaner got there right at 10 am and waited until 10:22 to knock on the door. The guest’s husband told her he thought the check out was 11 am, and she informed him it was 10 and she needed to get started because we have guests coming. He proceeded to tell her to “give them a few more minutes.” And she reported this to me as she went back to her car to wait for them. so I messaged them at 10:22 and reminded them that check out was at 10 am and my cleaner is reporting they are still in the house. My message went unanswered. At 10:57 I arrived and snapped a few pictures through my windshield of them still in my driveway. Mind you, this guest told me that they thought the house was beautiful when they arrived and we didn’t hear a peep from them during their stay about any issues. Then after they left, an hour past check out time, she finally responded to my message with a big long list of complaints which were obviously provably false and was said in anger because they got caught breaking my house rules substantially. I started an air cover for the $75 for the late check out fee with my evidence that they checked out an hour late and she denied it so I involved Airbnb and prepared for the inevitable retaliatory review coming. I assumed I would be protected by Airbnb from a guest who checked out an hour late and got charged a fee for breaching my house rules. I assumed wrong. Despite all of the evidence of the late check out and clearly not true and defamatory 1 star retaliatory review left, Airbnb refused to remove the review despite it stating clearly in their review policy, “overstaying their reservation” with a corresponding damaging review is protected under their retaliation policy.
the fact that a guest can come to my house, disregard my house rules entirely, send my cleaner back to her car, while they took their time checking out, be completely rude and disrespectful after being confronted about their late check out and corresponding late check out fee that they agreed to prior to booking in our house rules, and then because of their bad behavior leave a 1 star retaliatory review for their own bad behavior and Airbnb won’t even uphold their own review policies by removing it and protecting their hosts against this kind of malicious, ridiculous, inappropriate behavior is mind boggling. Shameful on all levels.
