That was just one of those days

After quiet and uneventful life of Airbnb host lately i like everyone else had my “fun” day with my guests.

The guest who i described few days ago who wanted to cook meat and then found a solution to make grill in a park went completely crazy on us. The last 3 days he after his official stay of 1 week he started displaying signs of very limited finances. He paid me but i there was some chasing involved around him. The last day went like this:

  1. 11 am, Mike is still in his room. I asked him to leave. Mike agrees and says that his girlfriend will pick him in half an hour. I never saw any women here for the past 9 days, and the dude would not leave the house even for 1 one hour except for grilling.
  2. 2 hours later he asks me if he can stay in his room since girfriend is in a hospital (lie) and will pick him up in 2 hours. I said NO, and asked him to leave immediately
  3. He leaves bags in a hallway without asking and goes outside. An hour later he comes in and without a word goes to use bathroom. After he steps outside, i change code on the door, and ask him to leave again.
    Again , his girlfriend is her way. I ask him to go to Starbucks, he sayd he cant as girfriend knows this adress and his phone is disconnected.
  4. 5 pm. My next door neighbor calls and said they are freaking out of the dude sitting on a driveway and chain smoking for 4 hours now. I explain to them situation and they say i should call police because its not normal
  5. 9 pm, Mike is still there on our driveway
  6. 10 pm Another neighbour calls
  7. Midnight. I call police. Police car comes within seconds. I am surprised at such speed go outside…but… the police is here for my other guest who has couples disagreement with his visiting girlfreind and it got heated up.
  8. 1 am, i have 6 police cars blocking the street. Mike finally leaves dragging his lagguage to Sheridan street.
    Angry couple sits on a kitchen with my husband. It reminds me a divorce court TV show. My husband is playing king Solomon and those 2 love birds telling him each their own story.
  9. 2 am. I come down to the kitchen and i probably look terrifying in my rage that i cant get any sleep. I dont even have to say a word, in a few seconds kitchen goes into complete silence and i am going into deep sleep without dreams.
13 Likes

Oh my goodness, @yana–what a day you had! Tell the hosting gods that you’ve reached your nutty guest quota for the year. Here’s hoping the rest of 2017 is smooth sailing for you! :kissing_heart: As for your hanger-on guest, I believe the Thompson Twins said it best: “Lies, lies, lies, yeah…they’re gonna get you.” :wink:

4 Likes

:joy: that is crazy drama you’re having there - from 2 different sets of guests concurrently and police involved in both situations!
Woah!

Thats not the end of the story.
MIKE CAME BACK TODYA AT 7 AM !!
He was standing in front of the house trying to charge his phone off the outlet in a wall outside. The guest who argued yesterday called UBER to go to work. Mike was trying to get into his UBER by saying his name was Weston.

So Weston called me laughing and said; Yana, this is so funny, your nut case was trying toget into my uber i called to go to work, where did he think UBER would take him, to my office?? Because thats the only place he could take him.
SO, Weston leaves for work, and MIke just stands there on my drivweay again. My husband asks him to leave and he would not. Again , the same story.
So, i called police again. Now, the police guy starts lecturing me on how i should EXPECT to have these kind of problems because i do Airbnb. Now i am getting pissed at police officer, and tell him, No, you are wrong, i actually never happened here. He gives the BS about me running a hotel out of my house. I said, its not a hotel first… and second are you going to take care of my safety or go into the area that is totally not your area of authority???

He goes: i bet you dont even have a license to run this business. I said: actually, i do have a lisence but it totally non of your business. He said: let see that license. I said: again, you are not an authority to see my lisence. You are police officer, not a county clerk.
He said;I will write you a ticket. I said: ok, i am just currious what kind of ticket you will write me.
So, he goes talks to his partner, and says, the wife, that would me, told me its non of my business to see her rental license. At this moment the girlfriend of the guest comes out and it happens that she works for city of Hollywood in that exact department , lol, and she knows all the rules. So, she says to police officer: actually you dont have to have a license for a roommate situation, and noone here is short term, we are staying here for 5 months, and the crazy short term guest is a rare occasion, and by law if the short term happens no more than 3 times a year you dont need a license.

Than the police officer goes on and on about Airbnb, and how they are called all the time about these rentals, and the girlfriend says: i dont even know what this Airbnb is , i found this room from Craigslist, and it has nothing to do with Airbnb.
So, finally the partner tells the officer to go already as he is not willing to spend on this matter more time than they already spent. I say: so what about the crazy dude? They said, that he is standing on a city board walk and he has all the right to do it. Then he turns to me: you know he could be a double murderer, and you let him in your house, i dont how you guys are dong it. You dont know anything about him.
I said: well, i dont know anything about you either, you as well could be a double murderer, and you are in my house right now, and supposed to protect me.
Now all of us are laughing, and they finally left.

A minute later i come out of the house and see Mike standing a bit farther on a side walk.
Did i mention that Mike is a hotty. I mean , he is really handsome black guy and looks a bit like a chip and dale.
SO, when you talk to someone as beautiful as he is its very hard to get really mad at him:joy::joy:
I tell him: MiIke, what happened to you? Are you homeless? He goes on again about his girlfriend and about UBER. I stoped him, and said Mike, you have to go somewhere but not here for your own sake. All neighbors on this street are started to freak out. Do you understand that they will be calling police non stop and finally you will end up somewhere in a mental ward because you do act crazy.
When i said 'mental ward" something suddenly happened, he started walking very fast dragging his luggage behind him. AT that moment i became sure that he does have some mental issues.

And when it comes, it comes in 3, few minutes later the washer broke and flooded one of the bedrooms. Guests left all their electronic on a floor charging and of course it got damaged. Now, i am not sure what to do,should i claim my insurance??

1 Like

@Yana, my sympathies go out to you. As I’ve come to expect from reading your stories, you’ve handled the situations like a pro. Regarding the damaged electronics, I would do a tally of the replacement costs and decide whether to pay out of pocket or make an insurance claim.

3 Likes

No, out of the pocket would be like 3K

Sorry for your troubles Yana! Quick unofficial survey: How often do AirBnB hosts get VERY difficult customers like this?

Yikes. Well, that’s exactly what insurance is for.

Oh, and the nerve of that cop! I would be tempted to make a complaint to the police department. He was overstepping his professional boundaries for his personal agenda.

2 Likes

@Yana, I promise you that if you wrote a book it would be a bestseller!

4 Likes

Ho-lee-cow! You are definitely having quite a going on two days now. First, I hope Mike is gone for good. Second I bet cops do get a lot of calls about Airbnb, especially in tourist town and probably feel like it is causing them extra work. Third, yes 3k sounds like that’s why you have insurance. But be careful. Once you make a claim your rates will go up and they might even cancel on you. It might be better to pay it out of your pocket.

1 Like

With me it was never . I mean I had my share of issues but not as crazy as this one.
I drove by few minutes ago and saw Mike standing half a mile down the road from us with his luggage . I don’t know I feel bad for him . He is obviously mental case but in quiet way.
And the amount of hours he spent on his feet …! It just tells me that if he was normal he would get exhausted by now but he just keeps standing. There is also a park right where he stands and he would not go there. He just stands there in a middle of road.

I am sure in a few hours someone will call police again

Hehehehe… what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger

4 Likes

I’ve been doing Air 3 years and I’ve hosted over 230 guests. I’ve never had a very difficult guest. I had a handful that weren’t perfect but nothing close to what I read about on this forum.

3 Likes

I’ve been hosting (in one form or another) since the 1980s so I’ve lost count of the number of guests.

It depends on what you mean by difficult guests. (Some hosts would say that all guests are difficult!) It’s not really the difficulty of the guests that count but how the hosts deal with it. I’ve had so many less-than-wonderful guests but none stand out as being impossible to deal with.

Hosts differ. For example, some hosts mark down guests who don’t take the trash out, who mark the linens or towels, who leave dirty dishes … other hosts aren’t bothered in the slightest by those things. Misdemeanors that bother me wouldn’t bother other hosts and vice versa.

However, I feel that Airbnb’s suggestion that ‘almost anyone can be a host’ is misleading. Not everyone can deal with guests well.

@Yana oh no this has to be the worst. The cop seemed confused as to the reason why he was there. I would have been pulling my hair out I hope your stress levels aren’t too high. What a joke.

My worst in order:

  1. Smoking in the flat
  2. The guests who booked, checked in and never came back but did leave 1 star reviews across the board
  3. The guests over Christmas who didn’t understand what no kitchen use meant (I will never take a Christmas booking again it’s just too much hassle.)
  4. The guests from Italy who didn’t read the listing at all and were therefore unhappy.

Only one instance of rule breaking in two years. All the rest were guests who couldn’t be bothered with reading the listing. And no crazies.

@Yana has totally helped me put my relatively small
issues into perspective.

2 Likes

Oh Yana, you poor thing.l. My blood is boiling in your behalf. Poor Mike… maybe he should get a job as an exotic dancer??? :laughing::laughing::laughing::clap::rofl::joy:

2 Likes

I’m speechless… If it’s any consolation, @Yana, you’ve snapped me out of my week of pouting over the guest who knocked three holes in three walls (with three paint colors) last Saturday. See, even in moments of struggle, you are helping others! :kissing_heart:

3 Likes

Hehehe if that helped I am glad. But I thought it would be fun read .Though I do feel really bad for Mike. I just drove to my appointment and saw him standing there checking something in his phone
By the way this I forgot to tell.: 3 days ago I was trying to send him text and I saw a message that I was blocked. I know sometimes it happens when the service is disconnected . But then my husband asked
Me , why do you think his service is disconnected.i saw him on a phone several times . So he did blocked me !!!:joy:

1 Like

What are these 3 holes from?