A first: a guest who wasn't mine showed up

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My guests checked in last night and got settled. About an hour later, a guy rang my doorbell and said he was my AirBnB guest. I said he must have the wrong house and pointed out the other AirBnB on my block. He said he’d stayed here before and his girlfriend, who hadn’t arrived yet, booked with me directly or on another platform. I said nope, I only book through AirBnB. He said his girlfriend must have miscommunicated and then he left.

This is a good reason to change your door codes if you have them. I give guests a key, but if I’d had a door code this guy could have walked in on my current guests.

If this guy ever stayed with me. He told me his and his girlfriend’s names. I scrolled back through the entirety of my message history and couldn’t find anyone with their names who’d stayed previously.

I’m thankful he arrived second or I might have mistakenly let him in!

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I use erentallock.com. There are others, but the code is not operational until check-in, and expires at their check out. So nobody can wander in without a code and being an active guest.

The guest house next door had a woman show up who thought she had a booking, and he said she was not on his list. I’m guessing she got scammed via Craigslist

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I was wondering if someone had cloned my listing and scammed these guests. The whole thing was odd.

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I think that most hosts who have keypads change it with every guest - just before the new guest arrives - and it takes only a few seconds.

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10 digit code seems like a lot for a guest to punch in. Do guests ever complain?

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That is just what is generated. They can get instructions to change it to one they want. Such as last 4 of their phone number.

Point is, always a new number, you can restrict it between check in and check out so they cannot get in until you want them in and it is not dependent on wifi, like some locks are.

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I’ve seen some reviews where guests complain that another random person entered the apartment because the host either didn’t change the keypads or used the same codes for all their units.

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You can duplicate a key for around $2 in a couple minutes at any hardware store and you’ve probably never re-keyed or changed your locks. Don’t kid yourself that keys are more secure than a code that never gets changed.

BTW, I would be worried that this was simply a local thief that knows you run an Airbnb and was trying to gain access to your home.

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Guests enter through my garage and then a locked door. I suppose they could bring a screwdriver, open the garage door, look at the 10-digit pin, and buy another garage door opener, and copy my pin. But if they are that determined to break in later and steal my $100 tv, so be it. I’m not going to lose sleep over it.

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