What to do when guest holds a party?

[Nancy268]

On my listing it clearly shows that our home is not suitable for parties.

We have 4 women staying here, for a graduation celebration. They asked if they could "come back here" after the ceremony, and I said they were welcome to use our deck - assuming it was the people who are staying here. I just looked in the fridge, and they have food for an army - they have not asked if they could invite other people. I work out of my home, and a large party was not in my plans. If it's raining out, which it may well be, can I ask them to leave? I really don't want a bunch of wet strangers wandering around my house.

I looked at all my correspondence with the woman who booked, and not once was a "party" mentioned. It was her mother, not her, who asked about coming back here after the ceremony - and again, no mention has been made of other people. I am not happy. 

[Linda108]

Have you communicated with the booking guest about after graduation plans, @Nancy268?  You should be communicating with the booking guest about expectations, i.e., no parties.  It is not unusual for guests to think that a few extra people are automatically okay since they would interpret no party to mean no PARTYING.  It is up to you to communicate your expectations since people might have different perceptions.  Please make sure you communicate through Air BNB messaging in case there is a need for Air BNB to intervene.

[Nancy268]

I didn't want to text the guest when they were at the graduation, and when I came home from running errands there were 8 people sitting in my livingroom eating. I had said that the people who were staying here (4) were welcome to come for lunch as long as they ate on the deck (I work out of my house) and they aparently took that to mean they could invite other people and eat wherever. When I asked the guest who booked why she thought this was OK, even though my listing clearly says no parties, she said that whenever she stays at an Airbnb, the hosts never care if she goes wherever, and did I want her to "check in" with me on their every movement. She was incredibly nasty. Her son, who heard me say it was OK to use the deck, said they didn't understand that that meant they couldn't use the rest of the house. After the Chinese family who just left (they took over my kitchen and made the entire house smell like a Chinese restaurant, even though I told them they could only cook breakfast) I'm really wishing I didn't have to do Airbnb any more. There are many nice people who have stayed with us, but it's the awful ones that stick with you the longest. 

[Andrea9]

@Nancy268

She's walking over you. She may have bullied her other hosts or is lying about it, but every host has different parameters and rules. You'll need to stand up for yourself and tell her that she is misusing the conditions of the accommodation and the house rules she accepted on booking. 

Your house, your rules.

A trick that often helps, esp. if she starts conveying to you what's normal in Airbnb to say that since your conditions don't seem to please and make her happy, that you are willing to re-locate her to somewhere that does and you'd be happy to call Airbnb right away about it.

I can imagine that you don't have the # yet?

Contact nos. Airbnb

Save them for future use!

Good luck.

[Nancy268]

Thank you so much Andrea - the phone numbers are a great help. I tried to see if the guest had any reviews that I could read, but there was nothing there - so have no way of knowing if she actually has stayed at other Airbnbs. Question: this woman is obviously going to give me a terrible review, and I would do the same for her - is it better to just not do a review? Thaks again for your help. Nancy 

[Andrea9]

@Nancy268

As the website says reviews are posted either when both sides have completed one or if only one side has left a review, then it is published at the end of 14 days. 

So if you write her one and she doesn't or vice-versa, that will be public. A trick is: wait to see if she writes you one first, prepare one from your side, and then wait till the end to write it. The tricky thing though, is knowing when exactly and according to which time zone ABB cuts off the 14 days, so don't wait till the last minutes according to your calculation!

Please for the sake of other hosts don't let her get off the hook (although she'll probably just close her account and open a new one to book with another unsuspecting host).

Tell the truth, but keep it unemotional, professional, and factual. You can list the house rule(s) she broke without going into the minutia. That she felt entitled to have and entertain x extra guests in your home without prior explicit permission (the wording obviously still needs massaging) and that you would not host her again. Give her a thumbs down so she can't Instant Book. And at the end of the review there's always also a box in which you can leave a more detailled report for Airbnb in case of later dispute from her side.

If she leaves you a review, you can always react to that. Here too, keep it professional, unemotional, factual, and do not rant or blast and don't go into minutia. A host response says more over the host. Write it as if you are writing it for the eyes of potential guests, not to scare them off.

You won't be able to edit your response once posted, so write, edit, edit, edit off-line, and if need be as long as you have time to do so (14 days I think, but check what Airbnb says under the review)

Here's some good tips:

http://www.vacationrentalmarketingblog.com/negative-reviews/

This CC forum is also chock-full of tips and advice regarding reviews and responses.

[David126]

Funny how people respond differently, I would have been dialling 911 and advising the extra guests they could either leave or discuss the matter with the Sheriff.

[Kelly149]

@Nancy268 You may want to make your house rules more explicit that in addition to "no parties" there are also to be no additional guest beyond those accounted for in the reservation. 

In the future, keep in mind that if you have ABB rehome & cancel someone for a rules violation then one consequence of that is that they will not be allowed to write a review. 

[Margot63]

Thank you Kelly, yes we have just experienced a nightmare guest, who checked in and within a few hours was hosting a party with 70 people partying at our house, Police being called by three of the neighbours, for the excessive noise and 30 cars being parked along the street. The rules being set for a maximum of 8 guests and No Parties. We contacted airbnb and they acted promptly to notify the guest to leave! as they had broken the airbnb contract of no parties and exceeded the number of guests. Damaged the house with breakages etc. 

following this on their second day stay, after airbnb email to vacate, we demanded that they vacate, to which they refused. Emailing them our confirmation, that they were instructed to vacate. We saw that upon seeing our guest face to face was an African women with her fellow guests all who seemed to be young Africans, drinking excessive alcohol and ignorant to the respect of the house rules or neighbourhood.  We noticed that the glass windows had been broken and other damage to be fully examined, as it was hard to see, with everything upside down in the house, with so many there. 

The he police arrived for a second time and were not able to do anything, as they said it was a civil matter.

1. now we have contacted airbnb resolution  and are waiting for action. Tonight they are still partying with about 30 persons there. This is now just like a home invasion, where you are unable to stop your house and the belongings inside being violated.

we would expect to be compensated for the number of additional guests staying there being a total of 70 persons during the stay over the number of 8 guests, damage to window glass broken, significant cleaning, and further damage once they have vacated the premises. 

Anyone got got any further advice on this ?

[Kelly149]

@Margot63 I’d expect that it will be very difficult to get abb to reimburse any of this. If it were me, me & every friend I could find would be escorting this group to the curb. Nothing good can come of her continued presence. Please let us know how you get on with the claims

[Lizzie]

Hello @Nancy268,

Nice to meet you. Did you manage to sort this out with you guest in the end?

[Nancy268]

The guest was not nice about me suggesting that she should have asked me first - she insisted that she'd stayed at many Airbnbs and the owners "didn't care how she used their home." I looked at her listing and she had no reviews, so I don't know that she'd really stayed anywhere through Airbnb before. She left me a review, probably awful, which I haven't read because I haven't left her one yet - this has been all rather distressing.  I did get a list of phone numbers to call from another host if anything like this happens again, so I can offer to move them to another Airbnb. I certainly would not welcome her back here! 

[Margot63]

Margot
Margot
Level 1
in Kurrajong, Australia
12m ago
Thank you Kelly, yes we have just experienced a nightmare guest, who checked in and within a few hours was hosting a party with 70 people partying at our house, Police being called by three of the neighbours, for the excessive noise and 30 cars being parked along the street. The rules being set for a maximum of 8 guests and No Parties. We contacted airbnb and they acted promptly to notify the guest to leave! as they had broken the airbnb contract of no parties and exceeded the number of guests. Damaged the house with breakages etc.

following this on their second day stay, after airbnb email to vacate, we demanded that they vacate, to which they refused. Emailing them our confirmation, that they were instructed to vacate. We saw that upon seeing our guest face to face was an African women with her fellow guests all who seemed to be young Africans, drinking excessive alcohol and ignorant to the respect of the house rules or neighbourhood. We noticed that the glass windows had been broken and other damage to be fully examined, as it was hard to see, with everything upside down in the house, with so many there.

The he police arrived for a second time and were not able to do anything, as they said it was a civil matter.

now we have contacted airbnb resolution and are waiting for action. Tonight they are still partying with about 30 persons there. This is now just like a home invasion, where you are unable to stop your house and the belongings inside being violated.

we would expect to be compensated for the number of additional guests staying there being a total of 70 persons during the stay over the number of 8 guests, damage to window glass broken, significant cleaning, and further damage once they have vacated the premises.

Anyone got got any further advice on this ?
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