Service animals

[Janice677]

Hello everyone, 

I know we can’t charge for service animals but is there anything that can be done when the guests don’t follow the rules regarding their pet. Specifically allowing animals in the beds and bot cleaving up dog poop all over the yard? 

[Guy991]

Hello @Janice677 ,

I have had service dogs here, as well as unregistered dogs and dogs that were claimed to be service dogs but were not.

Generally speaking, in my experience owners of genuine service dogs pick up after their animals without being asked.

The problem is with the people who lie, either bringing an unregistered dog or falsely claiming it is a service dog to avoid the pet fee and fool both Airbnb and the host.

In practice your options are limited. You can document everything with photos and try to charge through the resolution center, but be prepared for a retaliatory review and very little support from Airbnb.

And if you ask them to pay for not cleaning up after their dog, you will almost certainly get a bad review. Which Airbnb will not remove.

So basically Airbnb is telling you: pick up the dog poop and stop complaining.

And this is also the reason I stopped writing bad reviews for guests. If Airbnb does not care about guests who lie, neither do I.

[Janice677]

Totally makes sense.  I am pretty sure they weren’t service dogs.  It is very frustrating.  I appreciate your feedback.  Thanks for your input! 

[Guy991]

Hello @Janice677 ,

It is all a question of ratio. I have roughly one really difficult guest for every 100, so I accept these situations as part of hosting. But the more guests like this feel free to disrespect hosts, Airbnb, and in my opinion basic human decency, the more this platform becomes impossible to host on.

Some hosts do extraordinary things just to protect their reviews. I even know of one who drove four hours round trip to retrieve a forgotten item for a guest, not out of generosity, but because he knew exactly what would happen to his rating if he didn’t.