Three nice guests in a row so you know its time for drama

[Laura2592]

This was my request to book this morning. 20 nights-- that is our max. No one ever books 20 nights lol. Zero reviews, initials as a name, location given as New York City.

"Hi Laura. I am interested in staying at your cottage for an extended period. I don't intend to share the details of my trip as I have a right to privacy in my leisure time. Suffice it to say I will be very respectful of your space. I would actually like to know if I can stay for 3 months, but for whatever reason I can't send in those dates. I would appreciate information on how often you visit the property, who takes care of the lawn, and how often other maintenance people are on site. Thank you for approving my request. Cordially, (XX)."

I was laughing as I hit "reject."

I just said:

"Thanks for your interest! We don't allow long term stays at this time. I wish you the best in finding a great place on Airbnb to spend your leisure time."

Are people getting more insane?

[Caroline1936]

Wow, in my 'other life' I am a Data Protection Officer so this made me belly laugh!

[Kathy842]

A similar situation happened to me 2 nights ago. The young man (about 18 years old) instant booked for 14 nights (my max). I'm afraid these type of rentals could result in a guest complaint at the end of the reservation and ABNB giving the guest a Full Refund without our consent. Then they open a new account with a different phone number and email, going from place to place, getting free stays. I posted about it a couple days ago. I got them to cancel.

[Caroline1936]

Problem is, some people have all the time in the world to find loopholes and take advantage.  There should be a flag system so that if individuals (bookers) get enough negative flag from hosts, they can be blocked from using the site entirely.

[Elaine701]

@Caroline1936 

Yes, well, they do exactly that with hosts!

...and when a host is really a bad host, it's a good thing.

But sometimes they suspend or delist highly credible, well performing hosts for inexplicable reasons. And that's NOT a good thing. 

[Sarah977]

@Caroline1936  There is a flagging system. There are reporting flags on guest's profiles and next to your message stream with them. I don't know how many flaggings it takes for Airbnb to boot a guest off, but I imagine that a guest with quite a few might get banned. Or maybe that's why when a guest lies to Airbnb about something to get a refund, some guests are refunded, and some aren't- if a guest has a bunch of flags, the host has a better chance of Airbnb taking the host's side?