Privacy issues with stay and problems with air BnB customer service team

[Andrew3859]

Hi don’t know where to start with this but I recently went away for 3 nights at a private house however during our stay the host was coming into the property each time we had gone out everyday. We had asked him if he needed to come to please let us know so we could be there as we had our dog with us. However he would visit each day going into the property and then text afterwards saying he had been. Then only the last day he said he would be coming an hour or so before we are to check out to start cleaning and emptying the hot tub. I then rang air BnB and they advised he shouldn’t be doing that if we ask him not to come and to wait till we check out. He then refused my message and said he would still be coming. I had my family including my 15 year old sister staying with us which him coming to the property even outside in the hot tub he would be walking back and forth passing all bedrooms on the decking. Whilst people could be getting changed. 

All these issues occurred during our stay and I raised them as they happened with air bnb. 

Moving to after our stay I had contacted air bnb to come to a resolution of this clear breach of our privacy from my point of view and I’m sure anyone else staying experiencing that would agree? However I have now had 6 phone calls all ranging from 45minutes to 1 hour 45 and have not come to a response on this case we can agree on. I have just come off the phone with a escalation team specialist who told me there is nothing he can do at this point and he is the highest point of contact for Airbnb and he couldn’t transfer me to a single person even a colleague and was very rude putting me on mute for upto 10 minutes at a time asking me to end the call and I would be contacted my another team immediately and they can’t contact whilst I’m still on the phone. I have not heard anything and it has been 2 hours since. 

my contact with air BnB has been over 6 hours of calls and 2 weeks since raising. how can I move this forward?

Plenty more to add about my experience but this is a shortened version!

[Helen3]

Hosts are not allowed to enter a property in a whole listing while you are staying there. Nor are they allowed to come in and start cleaning an hour before your checkout.

Personally I would have contacted Airbnb the first time it happened and if the host wouldn't commit to not coming into the property I would have asked airbnb to cancel .

can I ask what sort of support you are asking Airbnb for now your booking is over? '

do leave an honest review to help warn future guests considering this property 

I am so sorry you had such an awful host.

[Andrew3859]

Hi Helen, 

I have been put through to multiple senior case specialist who say the case is over now with no compensation. 

They have said there is no higher contact than themselves. Is there any contact I would be able to speak to that would help with the case as I have got nowhere. 

We did raise the issue during the stay with air BnB as it happened each time but they had not done anything 

[Ionut50]

The question from @Helen3 - as well as from me, is: what are you looking for as an outcome from this? Does it worth to stay on the phone for 6+ hours and much more time thinking of it? Let us know!

I totally agree with @Helen3 that the host's actions are at minimum a 'no go' (they might even be illegal but I don't know the local regulations).

Nevertheless, in such cases, you must directly ask the Host during the staying - mainly in writing, to stop with the visits. If this is not respected, then calling directly the support and asking for moving out and finding an alternative.

From your post, to me it looks that you were ok/somehow flexible with the visits - if announced. As an analogy (if I may): you're at a restaurant, you don't necessarily like the dish, you casually inform the waiter, but still finished eating, paid and left. - Then, you ask for a solution.

Just think on how much you invest vs what are you expecting from the case.

As @Helen3 suggested, leaving an honest review will warn the next guests and potentially make the Host to change his behaviour.

[Helen3]

Ah you were contacting Airbnb because you wanted monetary compensation because your host stopped by during your stay @Andrew3859 

[Frances3408]

@Andrew3859 . I'm so sorry to hear this as you sound like great guests who tried to be flexible. Was there anything in the House Rules about allowing daily host visits for maintenance or cleaning?  

Otherwise if this was a whole of house listing (as opposed to rooms) you had a right to full privacy your entire stay AND to ask Airbnb to cancel the booking on personal security grounds. If you had done this, you would have received a full refund but needed to find somewhere else to stay. 

You have 14 days from end of stay to post a review. Please leave an honest one to warn future guests.