Airbnb Lesson for the week: If you lie about reading the house rules, show up and violate them, then your stay with me will come to an end.

Just in case you haven’t noticed by now, when I want to share a lesson based on real life experiences with people, I name the guests  “John” for the sake of anonymity.

So, I had a guest named “John” this week that was to stay for 2 nights. He used Instant book to make his reservation on 3.25.18 to arrive 4.23.18 When you get a new reservation, you get a message from the guest saying whatever they decide to say. I have 3 specific questions that I hope the answers will be included in their message.  Some people see them and include the answers, most people don’t.

Johns message didn’t contain any information except that he was traveling alone for two days. I responded within a couple of minutes, asking for the information I needed – check in time and confirmation the house rules have been read. I sent three messages asking. Airbnb: These are my House Rules. Do you think they are reasonable?

I didn’t get a response until 9:30p.m. the day before his trip. He didn’t answer any of the questions in my emails and argued language used instead of providing information. He clearly didn’t read the details of the listing and did not know about the check in time. 5 Top Things Airbnb Guests Should Do

We finally make arrangements for him to Self Check In since I will be at work when he arrives.  I ask all guests to send a message letting me know they have made it in okay. 3 Top Things Airbnb Hosts Should Do

He made it.

and now the chaos will begin………..

Thank goodness my other guests were home.  They had been staying with me for the last five nights with no problems.  I had prepared them for the new guest coming since there were so many red flags.

When I arrived home in the evening, I found my biggest pet peeve happening in the bathroom.

Then I went upstairs to check in with the other guests who mentioned he was stomping all over the place. Loud when home, went into his room, watched TV at a loud volume for a while and then took off.  When he left the house, he slammed the door so many times, they wondered what was going on down there.  When it became apparent he left, they went downstairs to find the front door not shut or locked.

I immediately sent him a message letting him know that I can’t express enough how unsettling it is to be at work where I can’t do anything about the fact that my property has been left unsecured giving anyone the ability to walk in. I mentioned I sent a request for money and he needed to take care of the penalty fee right away or stay somewhere else.  I also mentioned the above bathroom situation .

I was met with ……..

Before he came home to talk about it, he sent a message saying – I could not unlock the door, can you check it for me? No, clearly it works since you let yourself in with it. 

He came home wearing shoes and only took them off when I prompted it. This is breaking house rules and probably the reason the stomping around was so loud earlier but I can’t prove it to fine him. 

He asked me to show him where the rules were. Then you lied when you said you read them in the confirmation message I pushed for. 

He never once was apologetic and tried to switch the conversation to why there wasn’t a lock on the bedroom door. Nothing to do with the issue at hand. 

He had only used Airbnb 4 times and this was his 2nd review.  I wish I would have seen it before his trip.  I would not have let him come.

Since he wasn’t giving me anything to work with, made no reference to adjusting his behavior. He didn’t acknowledge the bathroom situation nor did he seem to care. I took the key back, informed him he couldn’t stay and called Airbnb in front of him to document the situation.  He gathered his things and made his way out.