Anyone else having a problem with smoking

[Katie193]

I am looking for other people who might be interested in class action suit against Airbnb for allowing guests to break our rules and not support us in upholding agreements that were made on their site. Myself and a few other hosts I know have had people smoke in our Airbnb rooms and have gotten no support from the resolution centre.

We have it very clearly written in our rules that there is no smoking and there will be a fine if there is, yet the guest has broken the house rules and smoked anyway. I had a guest upstairs that texted me she smelled smoke and my cleaners texted me the room wreaked, and when I got home 4 hours later after the room had been cleaned and aired out, it still wreaked. I sent all documentation to the resolution centre, but Airbnb sided with the guest who lied about smoking.

Please let me know if you might be interested in a class action suit or media story. It is a dangerous precedent for Airbnb to set to allow guests to get away with breaking house rules. It is very disrespectful of Airbnb to disregard the house rules we set up as hosts to keep our homes safe and be able to keep offering our spaces.

[Marzena4]

It's true that the way guests behave is being ignored by Airbnb, @Katie193. 

In my opinion, anything that has something to do with breaking local laws or rules should be the subject of the host's actions, including calling police in the case of drug usage or theft. It's not Airbnb that has any legal power over their guests. There have been cases here in the forum of disappeared posts by infuriated hosts left with no help or even with their accounts removed once they started a battle.

[Robin4]

@Katie193

Katie, I understand your pain, I have just had to deal with the same thing, but your fight with Airbnb will be useless!! Airbnb is a booking agency, they put A in Touch with B and handle the money exchange!

They do not vouch for the guest, they are not the guests keeper....they can set rules but they can't enforce them, they can only suggest them, and if you read their terms of service they do not accept any responsibility for a guests actions. They will at times offer an adjudicated settlement to certain events but that settlement will be at the discretion of the individual case manager! Airbnb do not offer a defined set of compensation definitions. My feeling is your challenge would be doomed to failure. 

Airbnb have a full time legal department who's job it is to protect Airbnb from legal conflict. All you will achieve by trying to front a class action is to shoot yourself in the foot.

I look at things like this realistically and figure there is going to be one guest in ten, or fifteen who will probably break my house rule and smoke whilst in the cottage space.

I have a prominent sign on the wall......

That is a laminated A4 sign that you could not possibly miss but every now and then I will find cigarette butts in the sink trap or in the garbage waste. I wash what I can and I have a ducted ironised air filtration system that cleans the air up within an hour or so.

I am running a business Katie for which I am receiving money and it is up to me to be responsible for what happens in my listing, not someone elses.

I wish Airbnb would dump this silly host protection scheme BS! It lulls hosts into a false sense of security and possibly influences them to forgo the normally accepted standard procedure when you involve the public with your property. When you let your property to strangers you have an insurer to cover your investment and your risk, don't expect Airbnb to pick up the tab!

Cheers.....Rob

[Katie193]

Thanks Rob, 

I see what you are saying however Airbnb is holder of my security deposit. If it were just up to me, I would have taken the money from the guest’s security deposit, but Airbnb is not allowing me to do that. That is why I hold them responsible, they made the decision what I can collect for and what I can’t even though my rules are clearly posted. I am, unfortunately, not in control. 

[Valerie177]

its happen to me one time to have problem with that.  When one of my réservation quit and i go do the cleaning i smell a small smoke odor (not to much) so i open window and putt deodorise push.  The night after i receive a family with no complain.  The day after i was receiving 1 guy for i thing 3 days.  When i book the reservation he tell me its was important that the house was not a smoking place and since its was not its was not a problem.  When he came to the house,  he mention me the smoke odor and tell me he think its will be ok for him (he seem very sensible with odor) The day after he want to cancell the reservation cause of that.  I accept to accomode him because not his fautlt and dont want to have a good name from him.  After i talk to airbnb and i ask my visitor who have smoke to paid for the day i lost from my guest how quit before.  Since i have a reservation between the guy who smoke and the guy want to quit with no complain they dont want to paid for the lost day.  I never get money from the visitor who smoke.  The only thing they accept to paid and have to send them the bill, its product to refresh the air.  i send the facture and get a 10$ back.

[Fred13]

 @Katie193  Your ire should be addressed to the true culprit  - your 'fellow man'; who happens to be the one who is not following your rules. You are there, and still some guests have the audacity to still ignore the 'conditions' set forth by you (up front via your house rules), before staying in your nice place. 

    Airbnb can only 'guarantee' whomever they reffer to be no more than a registered member of society, and in the most lunatic of situations try to compensate for the extreme cases. What they do well is expose your offering to millions of people at large for a small 'fee', which won't be so low IF they truly are forced to guarantee us nothing but 'angels'.

    The day they loose a class action case, is the day they will drop many benefits they are offering today that some hosts do take for granted. Or raise the host fees to compensate for hosts not doing their part by taking more personal responsibility over their own place.

[Barry-and-Lera0]

You could always add a standalone cigarette smoke alarm to any rooms you rent. They even have cigarette smoke detectors that are hidden to look like air vents and wall deodorizers.

[Katie193]

Thanks, I’ll check into it. 

[Robin4]

@Barry & Lera  That is a good call, I did seriously consider putting a cigarette smoke detector/alarm in but, I decided against it because I thought what it might do is antagonise guests to the point where it would bounce back on me in the review process.

Cigarette smokers are not doing anything illegal, just undesirable to some, so they don't consider it a huge issue....at least the scale of the issue is less than their desire for a smoke.

I can imagine the husband gets up at 2.51 am for a pee and decides while he is in the bathroom to have a quick puff and the next second all hell breaks loose, the wife and the kids are awake, the peacefull night is shattered! How do you think that guest is going to feel when it comes to review time? He is going to feel you are a heavy-handed, **bleep**!

I have decided to shame them, make them feel guilty rather than browbeat them. I mention in my private feedback that I am a little disappointed the very prominent house rule was broken subjecting us to considerable extra cleaning costs, but I don't downrate them in the star process!

Cheers.....Rob

[David126]

If I catch somebody smoking inside that would be a big thumbs down.

[Marko17]

That's not AirBnB's fault.. As said it is also quite difficult to proove. For example if the room has a balcony/porch/terrace and they leave the window or. balcony door open, the smoke can get inside.. That is why I was not able to accuse the guest of smoking in the room.. 

Only our Attic double rooms (under the roof that has only small triangle window) I can be confident enough to confront the guest about smoking. 

Our property accepts aprox 60 guests, and I get aprox 2 - 3 situations per year regarding the cigarette smoke. 

As suggested:
- take a damage deposit before check-in
- put visible signs
- smoking is strictly forbidden, penalty charge 150eur

[Katie193]

I did all that, but Airbnb holds my deposit and is not allowing me to take the penalty from it. 

[David126]

If you are going to take legal action why not take it against the person who broke your rules?

[Fred13]

@Barry-and-Lera0I was wondering about smoke detectors; is there one that would work with cigarrete smoke? Grand idea btw.

[Ben205]

@Barry-and-Lera0@Fred13Seems to me that the only point of a detector that was triggered by cigarette smoke would be if it messaged you at the time to warn you. Any guest who ignores your rules and lies about breaking them, would easily disable an alarm or switch it off should it come on.

I find people are brazen about it. They leave cigarette butts around the courtyard (my whole property is non-smoking). Why, I ask? Because you didn't give us ashtrays. Yes, because the property is non-smoking...

It's almost like there's a constitutional right to light up!