Neighbor Harassing Guests

[Alex-and-Christy0]

Good day everyone!

We have a situation where we are legally renting out our home through AirBNB and have a neighbor who is not happy about the situation. On many occasions she has voiced her concerns to our guests as they are either in the driveway or on a walk. The neighbor has even gone as far as to tell our guests to take the trash up, not park in the street, etc. Thus far we have been able to smooth things over for the most part with the guests and prevent any negative reviews. We have been back and forth with the neighbor on several situations and have decided to cut off communication with them to avoid further conflict as they are quite tenacious and borderline harassing.

We are curious if anyone has had a similar situations of neighbors repetitively bothering guests or sharing their opinions of the Airbnb/STR situation and their level of dislike.

We have contemplated seeking legal advice and potentially a cease and desist or even a civil defamation suit, however, we are not sure if this situation would be considered defamation in the eyes of the law, and also don't want to poke the hornets nest more than necessary.

[Kimberly1245]

I did it was a waste of my time. Said I was uncomfortable because I was threatened with a lawsuit!  By the host! 
They close the case in 24 hours for reservation problem. Useless. And no way to contact their legal department other by snail mail

[Kimberly1245]

This. Exactly what you said we bought our property saved our whole lives for a nice quiet neighborhood. People who do not live there come and forget that they are visitors.

[D-J-22]

Have you tried talking to your neighbor to see what her beef is? Maybe she's just a busy body that doesn't like new people coming through. In which case there's not much you can do other than assure her guest will be respectful and treat the neighborhood as their own. Unfortunately that's not always the case . If she's had legitimate problems with some of you guest then she might be feeling unheard, and telling anyone she can to validate her frustrations. 

[Shaw807]

Even if your guests are horrible, what are YOU going to do about it? You forced this on them.

[Kimberly1245]

My experience in dealing with my neighbor, was that my noise complaints were never validated. Ever. “Just let us know if it happens after 9”…

All these house really need to read the neighborhood section contained on this site

[Alec152]

I just launched my first AirBnb last week. The neighbors across the street are not happy about it either. They started playing loud music that is audible from the house and, when asked to turn it off (by us, other neighbors and eventually the police), resorted to verbally harassing my guests. The second guests to ever stay at my place were genuinely scared and called to tell me that they unfortunately couldn't remain at the property. Apparently the neighbors had told them to "fu** off, they are in a residential neighborhood" and to "go leave a bad review because [they] don't want others staying here". 

It sounds like my case may be a bit more extreme however we may still share the same solution. Essentially I was told to go and get an anti-harassment from the local court with some sort of criminal clause stating that the neighbors may not speak to anyone on my property for any reason. I'm hoping this does the trick but will add to the post later with an update. 

Also, if anyone has had interactions closely related to mine and has any info regarding how to deal with any aspect of the issue, guests, airbnb, etc. please reply with any input! 

[Ania1999]

I have a similar situation, my neighbor complained to Airbnb bc of a “party”. But it was just a family with some loud kids during the day. And yesterday he texted me a whole rant about “drug parties and screaming babies” and when I checked my cameras it was literally my guest in the backyard holding his crying infant. Do these people not get that the house next door could have been sold to a whole family with kids and they would have had that every single day? What am I supposed to tell my guests, don’t let your baby cry in the day? Don’t park 3 cars in MY driveway that allows for it? 

[Carol8098]

I feel your pain! I’m in similar situation with older neighbors who don’t like kids playing in the pool.

[Kimberly1245]

Here’s why, I’m a neighbor in my pool is not even 100 yards from the Next pool. All our other neighbors have pools it’s like being on a body of water. It helps sound to travel!

maybe I just wanna lay by my pool and listen to quiet and the birds?

Why do you automatically think we don’t like kids or something?

Kids swim in my pool, they live here. It’s not a novelty every week. 

Please be more understanding of your neighbors and how loud it must be for them!!

[Andrea7409]

Maybe you should hear to non-stop screaming kids the whole summer in your previous peaceful home for the whole summer and then we talk again.

[Shaw807]

Kids grow up. The ones at your hotel are there every weekend for the rest of their lives.

[Max2382]

Exactly the misunderstanding of Airbnb landlords that torture regular homeowners with constant screaming kids like groundhog Day and don't understand why it's an issue.

It should be against the law to let out entire properties on Airbnb in residential neighborhoods.

[Kimberly1245]

This!! 

[Kimberly1245]

Don’t you get it? The people didn’t buy their house to have a baby screaming one day, a barking dog the next day, beep beep, slam slam radio all the time a vehicles they don’t recognize in a residential neighborhood.???

Try to see it from somebody else’s side! 

And where I live three bedroom two bath home equals eight people allowed. That means that if not a short term rental, each of the houses surrounding me would have eight residents!! Which would never happen! 

Yeah, noise is noise. 

[Andrea7409]

Sure, everyone wants to hear loud screaming kids the whole time. And other than neighbours kids, they never grow out of the screaming phase. Stop imposing these noisy people on your poor neighbours.