Briefly: I am neither a host nor guest. I am the owner of a property in Virgina that is being rented out without my permission, and in violation of the long-term lease, HOA guidelines, and County ordinance. This is a clear violation of the lease our 12-month tenant signed with our property management company. Adding to the confusion/complexity, the “superhosts” listing the property are *not* our tenant. I have no idea who these people are, nor does the property manager. In the meantime, the HOA and neighbors are angry, strangers are in my house, and I’m potentially liable for $500/day in fees from the County (in addition to the liability risks).
Contacting AirBnB was useless. They would only tell us to contact the “hosts.” I managed to message the listed “superhosts” via AirBnB - and they did not respond, but the listing was removed. (Their other listings are still up on the site.) However, neither they nor AirBnB will confirm that future reservations already made have been cancelled. (The “hosts” have never responded, period.) Our tenant has also been unresponsive - I don’t even know if he is still living locally.
My concern is that we will continue to have AirBnB “guests” showing up for the next few months. The house is one of a series of townhouses in a small cul-de-sac with very nosy neighbors and extremely limited parking. There is no way these people will go unnoticed. I (along with the property manager) have already had one stressful encounter with AirBnB renters, who truly believed they had been renting from the owners and were understandably very upset to find out their presence there was illegal. I would like to spare future “guests,” as well as myself, a repeat of this experience.
Legal action is being taken against the tenant, who must immediately stop or face eviction within 30 days. However, that does not guarantee that the people listing (again, not my tenant - although I assume they are acting with his knowledge) will cancel reservations which have already been made. It’s bad anough that AirBnB doesn’t verify that the people listing actually have a legal right to do so, but it also horrible for their “guests” to show up to a place only to be informed the place they are renting cannot legally be used as an AirBnB.
Does anyone have any advice or experience with this sort of situation? Is there any legal means to get AirBnB to confirm future listings are removed? We are willing to take legal action outside of the standard civil eviction process, if it guarantees that the people doing this stop.
Thank you.
