More Guests than stated - Airbnb MUST DO MORE!

[Tammi50]

Hello Airbnb Hosts! -

I have been an Airbnb Superhost for years and try hard to maintain Airbnb's minimum Superhost standards. But Airbnb does not do enough in return.

Lately, I have had SEVERAL reservations where more guests arrived than stated on the reservation.  I went into my condo one time to fix an immediate problem and found out there were so many "extra" guests, that people were sleeping on the couch and floor!! My neighbors have complained about noise and too many cars and it's up to me to deal with it. 

But first, I live a few hours away from my vacation rental so a face-to-face meeting with the guests is not always possible. 

And second, I am a single female and do not feel comfortable confronting people who are breaking the rules, especially men.

People can get very nasty!!

I see several posts on Airbnb from hosts with the SAME problem. Guests routinely disregard the max occupancy rule and this is an ongoing issue. Hosts have little recourse.  And if you ask a guest to leave, you risk a bad review in retaliation which Airbnb does not always remove.  

AIRBNB MUST DO MORE TO PROTECT HOSTS FROM TOO MANY GUESTS!!!!!!!  Here are some suggestions...

     1.   Add a checkbox to the reservation process for the guest to verify the number of guests. 

     2.  Add some type of warning message during the reservation process stating that too many guests over the max occupancy is a violation of the house rules and the guests could be asked to leave.

     3.  For properties that require a charge for extra guests, Airbnb must add some type of warning message during the reservation process stating that a guest's Airbnb account will be charged an extra guest fee if they go over the original amount of guests on the reservation. 

     3.  If a guest gets "caught" with more guests than on the reservation, their Airbnb account will be suspended for 3 months.

     4.  If a guest gets "caught" with more guests than on the reservation and the host advises Airbnb of the issue, the guest should not be allowed to leave a review. 

These are just a few simple changes that Airbnb can make to better protect hosts from guest who take advantage!! If Airbnb cared about their hosts, they should and could do more.

Hosts...PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE chime in and comment below.  Demand that Airbnb make these changes!!!  Let Airbnb know that this is not acceptable and we need them to do more!!!

#TooManyGuests #MoreGuestsThanStated 

[Sarah977]

@Tammi50  Your suggestions are good. But if you live several hours from your listing and have had multiple bookings that were over capacity, it seems pretty obvious to me that you need a boots-on- the-ground co-host who can deal with these scenarios in real time. And meet and greet the guests if possible, which would catch some of these before they even get in the door. And guests tend to not try to get away with stuff when they know there is someone very close by who is paying attention.

You do mention, buried deep in your house rules, an "on-site manager". So I don't understand how when you arrived, you found extra people sleeping all over the floor.

[Tammi50]

@Sarah977   The in-site manager only handles issues on the grounds, not inside the condo. I happened to be up there when I had to fix an issue. The guests obviously didn’t care about being caught because they agreed to let me in!! They know there are no consequences. Greeting them doesn’t always work either. My neighbor greets all her guests and when she leaves, others arrive. 

This was never a problem until the last couple of years. People are trying not to spend a lot of money so they cram too many people into one place.

And you are completely missing my point…Airbnb should be doing more. If Airbnb did more to deter people who lie on their reservation, I would not have to hire extra help to “police”. 

[Sarah977]

@Tammi50  Sorry if you thought I missed your point. I didn't. Airbnb could do all kinds of things to deter guests from not only this, but many other things. Like not letting guests who've been called out for rule breaking, or causing damages leave a review. Like not lowering a host's Acceptance rate nor sending threatenings of suspension for "too many declines" when the reason for the decline is that the guests have indicated or demanded things outside your rules. Like putting our house rules section back up near the beginning of our descriptions, like it used to be years ago, instead of buried way down at the bottom and requiring a click through.

I was just suggesting what might help kibosh this sort of extra guest scenario in the absence of Airbnb seemingly not giving a hoot about the hassles hosts have to deal with. 

I realize you're an experienced host, but since guests are reportedly getting more entitled  and scammy, some of the ways hosts have been dealing with things that have always worked fine for them in the past might need to be reconsidered and somehow altered.

[Tammi50]

@Sarah977I am considering more changes on my side.  Including a camera outside of my front door so I can see who comes and goes.  But Airbnb needs to be doing more on their end so guests won't even consider "scamming" the host in the first place.  Right now, there are ZERO consequences for guests defrauding Hosts.  Just search for this topic on in the Community and you will see it is a serious and widespread problem and hosts can only do so much. Airbnb needs to meet us half-way. 

[Sarah977]

@Tammi50  I don't need to search the forum for that- I read here daily- am well aware of the huge rise in scamming guests and Airbnb's host-unfriendly attitudes and policies. 

There are zero consequences for guests defrauding hosts because that is what Airbnb wants. As long as they collect their service fees, they don't care what hosts  have to deal with. They've made that pretty obvious. Sad but true.

[Tammi50]

@Sarah977Agreed.  Airbnb does what it wants because they are basically unrivaled.  Someday a better app will come along who will treat hosts with more respect. When that day comes, I will leave Airbnb and not look back.   

[Sarah977]

@Tammi50  Me, too. I can't even use the other existing ones, like VRBO, as my listing is a home-share and they only list entire homes.

I've actually never had issues with guests, but I detest the company and the way they treat hosts. And their customer serrvice dept. is a bad joke.

[Mary478]

Definitely and their new insurance aimed at protecting host is a scam. I recently had a family of 5 staying 10 weeks and did no cleaning at all even though I supplied vacuum, mop and cleaning supplies. My place was left in a mess and damage to furniture and extra money paid to cleaning staff for additional laundry caused by kids eating suckers and using play dough in my beds. I went through all the documentation and sent pictures. In the end basically my furniture damage was due to wear and tear. Seriously they ripped the entire front off exposing the stuffing. According to them 3 hours of cleaning is enough time to launder 5 comforters, additional  blankets and bedding plus 10 weeks of filth. then they have the nerve the allow the renter to file a complaint against me asking for 1000 as my place wasn't warm enough. Funny it was warm enough to request an extra month. There is absolutely no protection for the host but you are left trying to defend yourself. I am so fed up that after 3 years of being very productive am considering delisting my property. I use to rent for  on my own  for years but worried about being sued if there was any injuries. I think if more people threatened to leave or at least delist for a short time they might start to realize who they need to stand behind. Your right that as long as they are getting their money, they don't care.

[Helen744]

@Mary478, Hi Mary, I am sorry this has happened to you . Just a few ideas that maybe could have alerted you earlier . With a long term stay such as this it is always important to do a weekly clean. Remember the house is full of your personal belongings and these need maintenance. Airbnb should be able to institute a weekly cleaning fee for such stays . This way you can do linen service weekly and give the house a once over kitchen bathroom and vacumn etcetera .If an issue arises then also you can be aware of it .Not to do so risks disaster Even still bad things can happen with long stays but at least you can be aware of them . H

[Daniel9196]

I just de-listed and am considering other options after the treatment I received from the resolution center trying to get money for the repair of Guest damages.

Aircover is complete fraud from Airbnb. And it's become clear that their promise of "covering you if your place or belongings ever get damaged by a guest during an Airbnb stay" is a complete lie just to convince hosts to sign up. If they can't hold guests accountable for damages and Aircover doesn't cover damages, what am I using your service for? All of these promises (and fluff) were the reason I was comfortable with letting strangers into my home in the first place.

And I agree with you. Hosts who are tired of this treatment from Airbnb should unite and de-list for a set period of time. Maybe not having any listings to rent out for 7 days would make someone take notice of how Hosts feel they are being treated.

[Mary478]

I am thinking of delisting as well. I truly believe if we banned together and decided to delist as a group together it would definitely hurt Airbnb where it matters most. No properties means no income. I honestly thought this air cover protection was going to be something in favour of the host. As long as it’s controlled by people who have no clue about what it takes to offer your home or the amount of time it takes to thoroughly clean your place as promised in their rules that it will always be a losing battle. 

[Tammi50]

In California if you rent over 30 days, the guests could refuse to leave and your only recourse is to evict them through the courts which takes months! If you rent under 30-days, you can call the police and they will kick them out.  So, I only allow up to 29-day rentals and my rules now are that my cleaning service MUST come in every 2 weeks to clean.  So, for longer stays, my cleaning fee is double because they clean twice - once at the 2-week mark and once at the end.  My service will call me if there is any rule breaking going on or if the people are slobs so I can try to take care of the situation immediately.  If my guests want to stay longer, they have to check out for 24 hours. I just don't want to risk having a squatter situation.  

[Robin488]

Here is the issue… 

Airbnb is a booking site, and they are responsible for bookings, not managing you property.  We had a large log cabin 1300 miles away, and although we had excellent help to clean and take care of maintenance, I eventually found that it was difficult to manage that property in the manner it needed to be managed.   We sold it and purchased a beach condo, closer to our home.  

not to sound harsh, but you cannot be afraid of your guests, if you are going to self manage a property, I am a female as well, and my husband is a truck driver, so I am alone a lot, I address issues with guest all of the time, and I refuse to allow reviews hold me hostage. You can work with people in a firm yet respectful way, but always document conversations in a follow up message to the guests.  

in this instance I would either call them or send them a message:

Hey guests, 

I’m not sure if you are aware that our property is not a pet friendly home.  I have been made aware that you have a dog on the property. The issue with this is that, as we advertise our property as NO PETS, future guests are expecting this to be the case, should they have allergies, this can cause an issue for them.   

because you have had an animal in the property we will need to charge additional cleaning fees to mitigate the pet dander associated with the dog.   The fee for this is $xx, I will send you a request for this via the Airbnb app, and will need you to accept this fee before you check out tomorrow.  I appreciate your understanding in this matter, and hope that your stay has bred exceptional!  

as far as additional guests go, I verify at initial reservation, I verify again about a week before, they are given 2 opportunities to provide guest count, if I find out that they have more, I charge them the per guest fee for over 2, if they are over my allowed number, which is 4 at both of my properties, I give them the option to have the guests over my allowed number leave, or the entire group must leave.  I document this by sending a message on the app, I don’t tell them they have to leave I give them an option, and on the ONE occasion that this has happened the whole party left, and I was still paid for the stay.  They did leave a poor review, that stated I kicked them out for a stupid reason. I called Airbnb and had the review removed. 1) I never kicked them out, I gave them options, 2) they broke house rules that they received messages on at least twice.  

don’t be a hostage to your guests or reviews, and run your property like a business, keep emotions out of it and be factual and kind.  And for god sake don’t expect Airbnb to run your business, they have all they can handle trying to run Airbnb, it isn’t there job to make sure all of your rules are followed, that’s on you. 

[Tammi50]

Well I am so happy for you that you have all the answers!  I have managed my property for 15 years on my own, thank you. You are completely, 100% missing my point! Airbnb needs to be doing more up front, like a simple check box confirming the number of guests and a warning if they show up with more than stated they will have their account suspended!   I am not letting my reviews to hold me hostage, Airbnb is!! They are holding ALL HOSTS hostage if they desire the Superhost status.  If guests break the rules, they should not be allowed to leave a review PERIOD!!!!!!!!!  I am now also having my guests sign a separate rental contract so that I have more power in the event I have to file some sort of legal action.  Again, my point is that Airbnb needs to be doing more. I never expected Airbnb to manage my place. (I do that very well on my own as I have been a Superhost for more than 5 years straight!) However, as a reservation company (which is what they really are) then they need to do a better job upfront.