Approving someone with no ratings to live with us for months takes more than 24 hours. We are renting out two bedrooms in our 6 bedroom cabin. Once someone sets a time to come look at it and meet us it has already been past the 24 hours to approve time limit which I think brings our ratings down each time. I respond quickly to everyone but did not approve some as when meeting them in person they were trying to squeeze multiple people in a room for one so obviously I had to say sorry that will not work. Or they only wanted to pay off the books of Airbnb so I would say no. But when not approving some of the applicants within 24 hours, my rating and ranking goes down. It seems not fair to give me 24 hours to approve someone that would be living in my home (with kids) for 3-6 months without meeting them, esp. when they have no reviews. So recently to get some reviews and up my rank, (I'm new) I just clicked approve over someone for one night, it turns out they live a few miles away... Why do they want to rent our room for one night? I sent a warm welcoming message but they don't respond. I am not going to lie, I am a bit nervous about them showing up as they have no bio and do not respond to my friendly inquiry about check-in time and they live 20 min. away, it's odd for 1 night stay yes? So here is my question, to approve right away or to not approve until verbal written contact to know who they are and take a hit in ranking and stars? I feel like I am getting punished for keeping my kids and family just basic level safe - it takes more than 24 hours if they don't get back to me... Usually 2-3 days. I have approved mult people after verbal, in person or written contact but they are scheduled for later dates so my ranking is -1 star 😞 I used to be a super host years ago when we hosted but we had an incident where a special needs large man (brother of renter) attacked a young woman next-door so we called the police and took a 5 year break, so obviously we are now very careful about who we allow. Do I just need to approve everyone to keep a high ranking?
