Friday February 7, 2020 at approximately 5:00 pm I made a complaint with Airbnb that my guest who rented my 3 bedroom apartment for 5 nights with a total of 5 guests was observed by my video doorbell bringing over 9 guests into my apartment, smoking hookah sticks, and playing loud music past 4am all in violation of my house rules. I communicated with Airbnb for over 2 hours trying to get connected to the proper department that could help me remove the guests from my apartment. I was on hold for 20 minutes when the lower level representative told me that it seemed that the department that handles such complaints didn’t have enough staff at that time to speak to me but that they would call me back as soon as someone became free. At approximately 11:00 pm I called Airbnb to tell them that no one contacted me. They told me that they are confident that a case manager would call me in the morning. The next morning I checked my Airbnb app, email, and cellphone for any messages or missed calls; there were none. So I called about noon and I still couldn’t get in touch with anyone. I left several messages with the lower level reps that couldn’t help me and sent many emails to the proper department. No one ever contacted me. My guest checked out Monday February 10, 2020 and left my apartment a mess. Every towel, sheet, bed, sofa, apparently the floor was used to sleep the couple of hours a day that they slept.
I finally got thru to someone at that department and they said that they can’t force the guest to pay for the extra unauthorized people that partied in my apartment. The guest admitted to having a total of 8 guests that stood the whole five days and that other guests stayed for a day or two. He offered to pay $250 for the extra guests and Airbnb stated that I should take his offer even though it was less than half of the amount owed for the extra guests.
My bottom line is that I didn’t want money. I wanted these people out of my apartment and I am disgusted that Airbnb did not respond to me in an appropriate amount of time. We are supposed to be a community that respects our neighbors, guests, and hosts. This guest’s breaking of the house rules necessitated immediate attention by Airbnb. My condo just voted by a very narrow margin to allow short term rentals in my complex of over 550 apartments. I gave this information to Airbnb. I begged them to help me remove the guest that could destroy what my fellow property owners and myself who rent short term fought so hard to attain. Unfortunately, they didn’t care.
I would love to know if anyone else had such a horrible experience. Below is the last message I sent to the representative that sent me the money
Your company grades me on multiple categories and even suspended one of my properties when a disgruntled guest gave me a 3 rating. Those metrics are used to create a profile of who I am even though the guests’ opinions are totally subjective. Often their ratings are based on how far the hosts can be manipulated by the guests on early check-ins, late check outs and other items or services that are outside of our responsibility. I want to know where I can record my rating of Airbnb. It’s only fair if you guys are going to judge me then I should be able to judge you. This situation goes beyond I’m missing a towel or that they broke a glass. This was a situation where a group of people were disrespectful to me, my neighbors, and my property. This situation could have gotten a lot worse. I told the first and second Airbnb representative that I can get fined $100 by my condo association for every violation (ex loud music) perpetrated by my guests and their unauthorized people. I won’t know this till the end of March if I got any. I begged your representatives to call me back and help me get these people out. I really need to know why this happened. I speak English and Spanish. You guys had twice the opportunity to put someone on the phone with me. If as you say that there was a high call volume then Airbnb needs to hire more staff. Approximately 72 hours passed since I finally spoke to someone from your department. That span of time is ridiculous given the urgent nature of my complaint. I want your supervisor to call me and tell me what happened and to explain to me what they are doing to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Is Airbnb going to remove the guest Michael Acosta from the platform? He doesn’t deserve to be part of our community. It seems to me that Airbnb is ill equipped to deal with horrible guests like him.
Can you please send me the link that explains exactly what options Airbnb has to deal with guests that don’t follow the house rules or are creating a dangerous condition in one of my properties. I need to know that if something happens and I need a guest to be removed from my property you guys have the legal standing to get them removed.
