First let me say that I joined this forum to see if others had similar issues as my own so that I could hear their personal experiences. While I find many to be extremely helpful, there are a few who love to spout heresay and are complete naysayers. I personally don’t find that helpful in the least and I fear for people who may be in an immediate quandry and may rely on these folks’ opinions way too much.
Put si,ply, if you have so many bad things to say about airbnb, perhaps you shouldn’t be hosting with them. There are, afterall, many other platforms out there.
Regarding the matter at hand, we once had a similar yet not identical situation. A military gentleman made a booking for two people, himself and his partner, for our two bedroom unit. Since there is a big price difference between this unit and a studio apartment, I delicately inquired whether this would suit his needs. He said it would. The booking went smoothly. He mentioned their time of arrival and that they would have had a 12 hour drive.
He and his partner arrived in the evening just as my husband and I were walking out the gate for our walk. They did not have any luggage and when we asked where their car was they said they had problems finding the house so parked a few streets down and walked. We found it a bit odd but did not give it much thought.
We returned from our walk and presumed they had gone out because there were no lights on.
Next morning my husband woke me up very gently with my coffee in his hand and after I had some caffeine in me said “ You are really going to be upset. Come see.” Well, instead of the two people there were 14 adults and 4 children. They had taken the mattress apart, chairs were put together as bed, some were sleeping in lounge chairs by the pool and on the roof.White, handwoven bedspreads were laid out in pavement with undiapered babies. In short, it was disgusting and upsetting.
We immediately called airbnb. The first person we spoke to pretty well gave us a rehearsed party line. We hung up and called again. Second person was somewhat helpful but we needed immediate action since we could see people coming and going with our property in their bags. We demanded to speak with a supervisor and would not be appeased when told she would call us back.
From that point in all went well. While one of us called the police, she walked us through what we needed to tell the police, what photos we needed to take ( including the license plates of all cars parked near our home). She spent time calming us down and explaining the next steps. Later in the day she called us back and told us who would be contacting us, when and from what departments they would be from.
These “ guests” threatened us with a lawsuit for calling the police and having both airbnb and the police evict them.
It turns out there was a concert in town and the guy who had made the booking literally sold tickets to strangers to stay at our airbnb. Airbnb permanently removed him from the platform.
We were reimbursed for everything that was stolen and for the full , I think it was 4 or 5 nights booking though they had stayed only one night.
Every single person at airbnb who we had to deal with was kind, helpful and, at the time, most importantly they dealt with our near hysteria in a calming manner.
We were extremely grateful for everything that airbnb did for us. They did have our back that time when we were hosting and in 2 other occasions when we were guests in another country and were victims of profiling.
Of late I have had a lot of questions for airbnb relating to our rights as owners who have hired PMs. Whether in the chat line or verbally speaking with them, I have always requested a written copy of our dialogue and have always received it. ( I believe someone asked about this)
