Nightmare before check-in

[Danny233]

Future guests showed up on property disturbing current guests…… This is a first time for us.    If you are an experienced host you have learned to identify difficult guests and they usually identify themselves early in the process.   We have been hosts on a couple of properties now for 5 yrs and we have mostly enjoyed it.    I haven’t tracked this, but I would estimate that about 1 out of 10 guests are a “difficult”guest.   The majority are respectful, honest, treat our property with respect, follow the rules, communicate their exact reservation intentions.   The 1 out of 10 that I refer to I sometimes believe we are just not able to please the guest.   They have expectations that are unrealistic or they lie about their reservation or the amount of guests, or they are very destructive to the property and contents and try to hide it.  Unfortunately, this does not exclude your friends and family(we used to have a friends and family discount….No longer).  There also seems to be a “secret” community of guest that have colluded to learn how to complain enough to hosts and work the Airbnb system to get their stays refunded.   I admit that we make mistakes and there are things that happen that are inconvenient that disrupt a guests stay and I hope to think that we take responsibility for those times.   Through all of this we have felt held hostage by guest reviews.   We have started to be able to identify the difficult guests early on in the process.   They appear to be “high maintenance”, “High Demand” before they even arrive…. Well it continues and doesn’t get any better.   We had a guest that showed up early on our property with a group of 10-15 people approach the current guest making them feel unsafe and disrupted their stay.   They had kids urinate publicly on the grounds and when they finally left, they left fast food wrappers and garbage on the property that spilled out of their caravan.  They wondered if the cabin was available early?  So knowing that this doesn’t end well with this guest can we cut our losses with this guest without penalty to us.   The answer is???? Because we have customer service  after customer service rep keep giving us the run around and not will to help us.   They have now effected the review coming from our current guests and if this reservation is followed thru we will certainly get an unwarranted bad review.   A few things we have learned.  Airbnb does NOT ultimately care about your property or the host.  They care about the paying customer of course….. the guest.   In this scenario we were unable to cancel this reservation and we are concerned that our property and neighborhood is at risk.   Has anyone had a similar experience and what would you suggest as a way to cancel on a guest ahead of time without host penalty in a scenario like this for safety and protection of our property.

[Sarah977]

@Danny233 "In this scenario we were unable to cancel this reservation and we are concerned that our property and neighborhood is at risk."

Of course you are able to cancel the reservation. If the penalties for doing so are of more weight to you than protecting your property, that is your choice.

I'm not at all excusing Airbnb's abyssmal policies, but given that we know how they operate, we just have to decide how best to protect ourselves.

[Brian2036]

@Danny233 

It’s doubtful that you will be able to cancel without a penalty.

You might be able to get the guest to cancel voluntarily if you let them know that:

1. They cannot have 10-15 people staying there or visiting 

2. Public urination is unacceptable 

3. Littering is a misdemeanor and will be reported 

4. Their early arrival constitutes trespassing 

5.  If they violate any other rules or local ordinances they will be required to leave immediately 

I would give them notice in writing via the Airbnb message system. Keep it short, concise and factual.

Good luck. . .

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Danny233  I would call Airbnb and ask them to cancel without penalties to me because this future guest already broke your house rules (arrived earlier and urinated in the yard) and you feel uncomfortable hosting them.

I would cancel even if I would be penalized. He is obviously a trouble and can make significant damage to your property, it could cost you much more than he is paying