Guest with mental issues

[Maria1765]

My parents are in their 60s and rent a room in their house in Orlando, Florida. I help them manage because they don’t speak English.

We recently had a guest that was very pleasant and was dropped off by a nice lady. The very next morning she started screaming, cursing, yelling profanities and obscenities inside the room and we were so scared to knock on the door that I had my parents leave the house for safety.

I called Airbnb to cancel her reservation since I couldn’t get ahold of the girl over the phone and ask if she had an emergency contact and they told me that if I wanted to cancel I would have to pay a cancellation fee which seems ridiculous given that this person probably was having an mental breakdown that needed evaluation.

To make a long story short, we were able to get ahold of the guest and asked her politely to leave after we offered to take her to the hospital for psych evaluation. She apologized but at any point she disclosed her mental issues prior to checking in. We are now deeply disturbed and I’m not sure if we want to rent again. Airbnb did not help at any point and we felt helpless.

Do you have any tips for dealing with this kind of situation or for avoiding them altogether?

Thanks! 

[Christine615]

Airbnb has outsourced customer service as far as I know. Don't take that for the final answer. Escalate and say you have a safety issue and need the guest rehomed. You do owe a refund for any unused days, but should not have a penalty. Airbnb doesn't do a good job of vetting. And they need to make the guest identities known BEFORE we approve so we can strike up conversations and get to know the people who are planning to stay with us.

Escalate, but tell the guest she has to leave. Explain that the loud swearing and screaming are against house rules make sure the listing has something in it about loud noises and being considerate of residents while on the property. And put it in the house rules so the guest is agreeing to them before booking.

[Maria1765]

Hello Christina, thank you for your reply. Fortunately, the guest decided to leave voluntarily. She probably suffers from schizophrenia and was having in mental breakdown. I still feel that should be something that you disclose to your hosts specially if you are not stable at the moment and you are renting a shared space. Airbnb does not do a good job filtering potential bad guests and during this whole episode where my family had to leave the house, they were unresponsive for a few hours, I called and asked them if the guest had an emergency contact but they were unable to answer. Is there an option where I can request photo IDs an emergency contact for all our guests? Thanks! 

[Sarah977]

At some point I started asking all my guests for an emergency contact number shortly after they arrive,  after a young female guest went to town one night and didn't come back that night. It turned out that all was okay- she had friends staying in town and they went out for drinks, had a few too many, and she ended up staying at their place for the night. (I'm a home-share host and as a mom who raised 3 daughters, yes, I would worry if a guest simply didn't come home all night or disappeared for a day or two).

But that got me thinking, what if a guest had a serious accident while on holiday, or got quite ill to the point they had to go to the hospital? It would be good to have the number of a friend or family member who could be notified. Or even in the case of a guest who simply disappeared for a couple of days, maybe if you had a number to phone, their brother would say," Oh, he does that sort of thing all the time. Never tells anyone where he's going or when he expects to be back. Good of you to be concerned, but don't bother worrying about him- he'll show back up at some point".

I did ask that guest who didn't come home that first night of her booking if Airbnb asks guests for emergency contact info. She couldn't remember, but checked, and said there was a place to enter it, but she never had. As I imagine most guests don't.

I can understand why a guest wouldn't disclose a mental illness- most hosts would probably decline their booking if they were aware of it.

It's very important when dealing with Airbnb to know the words that they relate to. As Christine pointed out, in a case like this, you need to stress "safety"- that you don't feel safe with this guest in your home- that they are frightening you and you don't know if they pose a danger to you, nor can you wait to find out. That's a much better approach to take with them than suggesting that the guest is mentally disturbed. The latter would tend to make them jump to the guest's defense or at least not be very supportive of you, as when they said you'd be penalized for a cancellation. And instead of postulating that the guest is mentally ill, or schizophrenic, just stick to facts- "The guest is screaming and yelling obscenities in her room".

And when you get a Airbnb rep who isn't handling a case in a way you feel is right, try again in hopes you get a better rep, or ask that it be escalated to a supervisor. Many of the reps are clueless robots and it seems to be getting more so.

@Maria1765

[Jessica-and-Henry0 · Accepted solution]

@Maria1765 

IMO, especially for solo guests..... getting emergency contact info is an absolute must. Henry and I used to host a lot of international exchange students in our private room listing (before covid) and we have a 1-page form that we ask all guests to read, fill out, and sign - we mention it during check in, leave it on the desk in the guest bedroom, and ask them to leave it on the kitchen table later. 

 

[Maria1765]

Thanks for your amazing reply @Sarah977 ! I did tell Airbnb that my parents did not feel safe there as the guest was screaming at the top of her lungs “satan get out of me” and other things too obscene to mention here, I heard it myself over the phone and my heart was racing so fast I felt bad my family had to go through that. I wished we had asked for the phone number of the person that dropped her off (looks like she might be related to her). I am just grateful she understood her screaming was very disturbing and decided to leave. From now on I’ll have my parents ask for an emergency contact during check-in. 

[Anonymous]

@Maria1765  I can only assume that your parents have factored their risk of Covid-19 exposure into their decision to have a succession of total strangers inside their home in their decision to be homestay hosts in a pandemic. I'll tell you as an enthusiastic traveler, there is no chance in hell that under the current circumstances I would book a room in the home of two old people knowing that their proximity to me might ultimately kill them. And I'm not the nicest guy in the world. So you can logically presume that whoever books a room in your parents' home is either a Corona denialist or a sociopath, and there's not a lot of clearance between the two. Getting these people out of the home was the right decision, but can you honestly say that the next batch of strangers coming their way is also likely to care about their well-being?

[Helen350]

"Corona denialist or a sociopath"?  @Anonymous 

- Reminds me of a recent conversation with a pharmacist guest, staying 1 night for work. I told him a doctor & her partner had just left after a 3-day Christmas jolly, (during which she went to a cafe & attended a Catholic mass) & NEVER wore a mask, not even on arrival! "Either she knows something about the virus we ordinary people don't, or she has a complete disregard for my welfare" said I. "Probably a little bit of both!" said the pharmacist!  

[Maria1765]

@Anonymous You are absolutely right but all my attempts to convince them to stop renting have been unsuccessful. After this scare I think they are taking a break though

[Anonymous]

@Maria1765  Maybe it would help if you pointed your parents to this forum, so they could read up on the kind of things their peers are experiencing. I don't know if it would convince them not to host (which I truly doubt they should be doing now), but at least it could help them prepare for all the other dramas that might be heading their way.

[Sarah977]

There is a translate function on this forum, but there is also a Spanish language forum, if that is your parents' native tongue, and other Airbnb community forums in other languages, etc.

@Maria1765

[Fred13]

@Maria1765 I grant you predicting how a 'very pleasant woman who was dropped off  by a nice lady' turned into Linda Blair of the Exorcist is tricky business.

But why was she dropped off by a friend, versus having her own car (in sprawling Orlando mind you) and thus not able to drive on her own; or she couldn't afford to take a taxi?  Who was her friend, her guardian or maybe her psychologist? The point is - if your parents want to continue hosting, the best course of action is to exercise extreme caution who you rent to in the first place. If the slightest signal arises - bail. 

P.S. My sisters and mom live in Orlando, she is now 98 years old, insisted on driving till 95 years old; that is until we (not the state) pulled her license when she drove through an Interstate Rest Area at 65 miles an hour and thought it was still in the main highway.