Post Covid Guest Behavior Changing

[Marie585]

I've been hosting since 2007, when VRBO was the only game in town. The last 6 months of hosting on Airbnb have been worse than ALL the previous years combined. I'm not sure if guest behavior is changing, but it appears that way. Entitlement and breaking basic rules are the norm. I've incrementally had to increase rules and be very specific, which was never needed before...people were respectful for the most part.

I'm not sure what to do other than sell all four of my properties and quit hosting. If things don't change soon, I can't imagine anyone will be hosting. I don't need this mess, but maybe you guys will have some ideas. For example, my last guest registered two people and showed up with a dog, who they claimed was a service animal, once Airbnb questioned them about another issue (Although it was left alone during the day in the home and not kept with its owner for the majority of the time) so suspicious, but whatever, I have no choice but to let it slide. 

At 1:30 am on the first night on a weeknight, I'm woken up to a demand for my amazon purchase pin and to turn the AC WAY down (in the desert with 95+ temps outside, it's customary in the desert to keep the thermostat at 80 to avoid overloading the energy circuits preventing brown-outs). I was thinking, "Geez, this is going to be a great experience." Then the same guest brought over an unregistered guest AND another dog, an aggressive dog, to stay...and when the dog bit my husband and had to go to the hospital, we asked them to remove the extra guest with the extra dog, and were told flatly no by the guest.

When I reported this to Airbnb, along with the refusal to remove the aggressive dog, Airbnb canceled the original guest's reservation for breaking the rules (which was probably the right thing to do)...but the guest then harassed my husband and me to the point where we had to threaten to call the police to get them to go. The guest RIGHT before this one BROKE IN after checkout and tried to throw a party with 100 people.

Luckily my neighbours called us immediately, and the police were called. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?! I manage one home myself, but the other three are managed by regional vacation rental companies who are having the same kinds of issues.

What to do? We've always considered ourselves reasonable people and have made some great friends using Airbnb...but that seems to be the exception, not the rule. Is Airbnb over?

[Annie1372]

@Marie585 

On the French portion of the CC, someone posted last weekend, exactly the same point of view related with the attitude of some of the guest lately, such as being entitled and rude or braking many rules in front of the host.

and many times, from what I read in the stories shared here, it seams that AirBNB does not support the host in these situations.

I’m glad you had AirBNB support in your case.

and I hope your husband will heal quickly.

[Sammy-L-0]

Holy crap! That is terrible. I guess I've been lucky. I have had to add a couple of rules (no candles or incense) but so far no problems anywhere near this. It might be because our BnB is in a small town and many of our guests are people who have moved away and are coming to visit family. The aggressive dog would have been an immediate call to the police.

[Anonymous]

@Marie585   People in every corner of the hospitality trade have had the same observation - from airlines to restaurants to resorts, this may be a good year for profits but a horrible year for the people who have to face the customers.

To be fair, though, I can hardly image a bigger magnet for crass people with entitled attitudes than a listing title that says "LUXURY" in all caps and "million-dollar neighborhood" in the description. The kind of guests you'd probably rather attract don't need those things spelled out for them and cringe at the mention.

[Summer64]

Agreed. Definitely probably attracting the wrong crowd with that wording. Let your pics show how nice it is. As an experiment, reword it for a month, see what happens with the guests that book.

[Summer64]

Wow. Someones dog bites me, I'm threatening to sue them. This sounds like a horrible experience. I use Airbnb's when I travel so I hope they aren't over, but I do think that as hosts we've got to leave real reviews to warn each other of these problems so that those that act like this can't get a booking and go away.

[Normen0]

@Marie585 We had a bad three weeks or so in May but things have been great since then.  The issues were unregistered guests, parties, smoking, potential drug dealing and on and on.  

Not sure why the three weeks was horrible at all the listings at the same time but fingers crossed that has passed.  

[Richard531]

The Sharing Economy, and by extension, Airbnb are going exactly nowhere.

You are correct: general entitlement is on an uptick globally.  People got a massive hall-pass because the pandemic was “nobody’s fault.”  And so they are carrying this attitude forward and kinda/sorta think that perhaps nothing is their fault.  And worse, many think that they should keep getting free stuff. 

We must obliterate this attitude out to the core.  BE VIGALENT. Be crystal clear in your listing and expectations.  Ask your guests questions before they ultimately book.  Get comfortable with them LONG before they arrive at your home.  If you don’t like them or they don’t respond to you like they should?  Don’t host them.

If your guest sucks, it’s YOUR fault/problem.  The police/Airbnb can help you evict a guest that is doing something wrong with/to your house.  But those guests/bad people are going to get on a plane and go home.  YOU are the one that has to deal with your community and the downstream affects of a bad guest.

As for your husband being hospitalized?  You have massive recourse with that guest/dog.  If you let that crappy guest/dog out of your site, that’s another miss on YOUR part.

Please don’t take this the wrong way, and I mean it with the best intentions:  but YOU, right now, are being entitled. 

Hosting is not easy.  It’s fricken hard!  But it has the potential to pay a TRUCK LOAD.  The rub?  You have to do it right, take it seriously, and you need to market your property properly and manage your guests accordingly.  And take the great advice above to heart, especially from @Anonymous related to how you're marketing your listing.

Good luck to you!  Vegas is a phenomenal market I wish I was working in! 

p.s. The A/C needs to be set to 72 (absolutely MAX 74,  no matter how "customary" it is in your mind).  Seriously?  80 degrees is not livable. 

[Kitty-and-Creek0]

@Richard531  wrote "Ask your guests questions before they ultimately book." I've a question about that. With an inquiry that conversation is possible. With a request to book I only have the option to accept or decline. That means that with minimal profile information and minimal introduction with the request, it is a guessing game. This has happened to me, where I had to accept the booking in order to have that discussion. When the reservation was not going to be in the guest's best interest, I then had to ask them to cancel, which they did. They were new to the platform, and really needed coaching on how to read a listing. It was pleasant and the guest went away with huge thanks and will likely stay with us with a different intention in future. They will also have a positive attitude towards the platform from our interaction. We are a fairly remote destination, not a roadside stopover to sleep when passing through. This guest was passing through, and did not read that we are on top of a mountain 12 miles from groceries. After we had that conversation I referred them to a place that would be perfect for them late night arrival, quick sleep and move on down the road well fed. This was fruitful for her, but cumbersome for me and for her. Is there a way to converse with a guest before accept/decline, in those cases where it would save us all an hour and many steps including the platform accounting/refund? This is obviously another reason why we don't use IB. I understand that this is part of the anti discrimination thing, but there are cases where being able to communicate would serve everyone.

@Emilie 

[Emilia42]

Is there a way to converse with a guest before accept/decline...?

@Kitty-and-Creek0 Yes, you can go to your inbox and message the guest.

[Kitty-and-Creek0]

@Emilia42 

I've figured out how to do that, it is cumbersome, even on my desktop. Perhaps the system could place a "message" link on the request message. It sure would make it easier & quicker to communicate. 

[Huma0]

@Kitty-and-Creek0 

I might have misunderstood what you've said, but I'm not sure why you are having problems doing this. It is possible from the App, on a phone, tablet, laptop etc. as well as a desktop.

In the example below (this was an enquiry, but it's absolutely the same for a booking request):

As you can see, underneath the most recent message, there is a box that says "Type a message". All you have to do is click in that box and start typing, then press send.

[Emilia42]

@Kitty-and-Creek0 It used to be that way, but Airbnb recently made a change to remove the "message" link in the request e-mail/notification. For some reason, they want the host to click a few more buttons in order to communicate beforehand with guests. I would love to know the programmer's reasoning/benefit behind that one.

[Anonymous]

@Kitty-and-Creek0   You don't have to accept or decline a Request straight away; you have 24 hours from the time it was sent to ask follow-up questions. Usually, that's enough, but there have been times when the guest was taking too long to respond and I had to make a blind decision ( I learned the hard way: when in doubt, decline).

A "reset the clock" feature would fix that problem easily, but Airbnb would rather push through unsuccessful bookings than promote tools that would make hosts and guests happier with the results. So anything that doesn't funnel you into Instant Book is a no-go.

[Huma0]

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@Anonymous wrote:

 ( I learned the hard way: when in doubt, decline).

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Ditto.

I haven't experienced the truly horrible and dangerous type of guests that @Marie585  had to deal with, but certainly I've noticed more entitlement and unrealistic expectations amongst some guests, which results in poor ratings/reviews. I've had those kinds of guests on occasion since I started hosting, but it was on occasion, not frequently and with long term guests, it was always extremely rare.

It seems to me that more and more people have more flexible working arrangements/are digital nomads, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are all suited to a shared home environment, or at least not mine. 

The problematic guests I've experienced in the past few months have all been ones where I ignored my gut instinct and should never have hosted them in the first place.

There was the discount hunter who left me 3* because, she said, "the price was over my original budget." She instant booked without responding to an important question which I had told her she needed to answer BEFORE booking. Then there was the super picky guest who had lots of questions for me and went ahead and IBed without answering any of the questions I had for her. There was stuff that I had asked her to confirm she was okay with BEFORE booking, which she didn't do, and then marked me down for it later.

I had a sinking feeling when these two booked. In both cases, I also lost out on bookings (and no doubt 5* reviews) from very lovely repeat guests who wanted those dates, so I sorely regret not cancelling those IBs, but you only get three penalty-free cancellations a year and I had already used up mine on other, clueless guests who hadn't read the listing properly. I have since turned off IB. It worked fine for me in the past, but in the last year, almost everyone who has IBed my listings has been a really poor fit.

Then there was the guest who request booked but didn't respond to anything in the 24 hour window, so I declined. He then got back to me apologising and I accepted a second request. Error. This guest was an extremely poor communicator and I felt really uncomfortable around him but tried my best to be polite and friendly. He left me 3*, again for things mentioned on the listing and the exact same things I had asked if he was okay with BEFORE accepting the booking.

It has gotten to the point where I feel that if there is even the slightest unease, I need to turn the guest away.