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By imposing them from the outset, and not letting them begin to break your rules as early as check in day.
Having someone on site would have allowed you to terminate the booking on day two. Airbnb aren’t going to do it, you need to take control of the situation yourself.
It is amazing how much you assumed just from one post that I decided to share with the community as a reminder that Airbnb won’t support your house rules - which was the topic of this thread.
I posed a serious question to you as to how one should handle a case like this and you brush it off like it’s not a big deal. I have been a long-term rental landlord for many years, so I understand the legal situation there. I guess I just don’t see your logic that having a local co-host or property manager would change anything legally about the situation, despite your claim.
Then “I guess” you don’t really get the difference between STR and LTR; and “I guess” who haven’t bothered to even look at the law in Florida in respect of transient occupation and what rights the “innkeeper” has.
Go do your research…
Oh, and this STR gig really is easy money, isn’t it?
FFS I’m not even in the same continent and it looks like I know more than you do in respect of your local legislation.
@twokgrad I wish I had bookmarked it at the time, but I watched a video a couple years ago that a host had taken when he found that about 17 people were staying at his place that had been booked for 4.
He was infuriated, went over and stood there filming them as they all filed out of the house with their gear. Of course they were yelling at him, but although his anger was evident, he just stayed calm and didn’t engage in any screaming match with them.
I thought it was quite brave of him to confront the scene on his own- some of the dudes were big guys. It was obvious that the host was running on anger and adrenaline. For all I know, he might have had some buddies there as back-up, but they weren’t visible or audible on the video.
That’s what an on-the-ground co-host should be prepared to do. Deal with the situation in real time. Airbnb isn’t some savior on a white horse that is going to come boot guests out. They can contact the guest to tell them they need to leave, but the enforcement is up to to the host.
Maybe I’m too pessimistic because I think about what could go wrong - just because a co-host shows up and says “you’re kicked out”, doesn’t mean that anyone will actually leave.
JohnF points me to the transient occupation and the statue says “…any law enforcement may…”. I have read incidents of that happening - that the local police department doesn’t want to be brought into the situation. Maybe it would all work out. Fortunately I do have people that are nearby that could perform the co-host function even though I haven’t actually asked them to - this incident might change that.
So that is why I keep looking into how other real world people, especially US-based (due to differences in laws) approach these type of situations, since I wasn’t born with innate STR knowledge
Short term rental guests (under 1 month) aren’t tenants- they don’t fall under landlord/tenant law. If they are objectionable you have every right to boot them out, you just need to refund any nights not stayed.
Yeah I think that is where I messed up - wanting the best of both worlds…kicking them out and not refunding the nights that they didn’t stay. In my case, I was fortunate that there was no damage and left the house in good condition. Now I have a better understanding of the statutes, how to apply them and what to expect.
That is also part of the reason that I don’t do long-term stays - so I don’t have to mess with landlord-tenant legal matters.
You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. You were lucky they didn’t damage anything. Many hosts who have allowed guests like this to stay because they didn’t want to forfeit the money had far more expense in damages and bookings they had to cancel while they repaired the place than the $ they earned by letting the party animals stay.
@twokgrad Thank you for sharing your experience. I have, after several episodes, come to see that AirBnb misleads us as hosts regarding House Rules and fees. Their definition of enforcement is calling/messaging the guest. If the guest refuses to pay, even if they agree they broke the rule (ie sneaking in extra people), AirBnb tries to wash theirs hands if it. I’m in the middle of one now where they tried to blow me off several times. When I pushed for escalation they came back with “I will ask my managers if we can reimburse you 25-50%, but no guarantees”. They tried to pay me 50%. I told the rep to please “try again”. I’d ground what was owed me to the bare minimum to try and make it easy. I proved my case w/o question (they agreed). By my rules/policies I was owed over 2x what I requested. If I had known they had a process in place designed to wear me down and rip me off, I’d have started with the higher number. I’d waived some damage items to focus on the unauthorized guests as it seemed so straightforward. Boy was I wrong. Going forward I will just document any and all damages and get payment from the security deposit (that is not even really a deposit as they don’t hold the funds) when needed. Even then I suspect AirBnB will hose me if the guest refuses to pay, even in the face of clear evidence. I’m in the process of bringing my listing up to date on another platform to see if I get better partnership support that way. I’m also trying to vet guests better…thinking of taking only those with at least 1 non-negative review. Thoughts on that?
When I started out I held out no illusions of this Host Guarantee, but I foolishly had expected they would at least honor the House Rules you state in your listing (unless illegal of course).
Thankfully we have used it as a learning opportunity along with some nudging of a fellow poster on her, to learn just what we should do next time if it happens again.
To your point, after the initial onslaught of 0-review guests, we are trying to be more cautious with situations like that. Oddly enough all of our 0-review guests (save the 3rd party booking) have actually been pretty good - the only bad one was a 1-review guest that is also a host (8 times since 2017) that had a 4.0 rating.
At least one non-negative review? Well, I wouldn’t want to accept any guest with negative reviews, even if they had one good one. But maybe you meant a guest with only one review. That is positive.
The thing is that reviews aren’t the be-all and end-all of vetting guests. Some hosts shy away from leaving honest reviews of a bad guest, or decline to leave a review at all. There have been plenty of hosts who’ve had what they experienced as awful guests, who had several good reviews and 5* ratings.
Vetting is a mix of looking at reviews, seeing if the guest has taken the time to write a bit of information about themselves on their profile, the way they communicate with you and the answers they give to any questions you might pose to them.
And what might have been a good guest for one host might not be for another. Some guests might not be at all objectionable for an entire house listing, but might not be a good fit for a home-share, or vice-versa.
Yes, sorry. I keep getting bookings from people who just created their profiles and have no reviews. I’ve had to change my welcome message to kindly include why an AirBnB stay is not like a hotel stay. I stood up to my very first stay 2 years ago (did me all kinds of wrong) and I’m still working through his retaliatory review. I admit it causes me pause regarding reviewing guests I’m in a conflict with. The ones who do something wrong and own it have yet to be an issue regarding fair reviews but those few bad apples are hard to swallow and AirBnB acknowledged that guy was retaliating (had said in a message his stay was awesome until I called him on his abuses & then he got ugly) but left the review & low stars and said I could just post a reply. Then they highlighted my star rating in “red” and said I needed to work on it. What?! Anyway , I figure my best bet is better vetting & a gentle but unwavering approach to the rule breakers. I appreciate the advice you gave! I will review my process against it. Last week I changed the order of my messages to ask all I want to know before approving the booking, including getting written acceptance of my House Rules (AirBnB loves to question if I did that even though guests must agree to these same rules as part of the AirBnb booking process - anything to not do their duty to me as a host & make it my fault). The truth is at this point I am generally 95% right about who will cause me some issues and who won’t but I have a tendency to waiver as I want to believe the best of folks. I need to start declining bookings that feel questionable. The great news is that most folks are awesome and make hosting a joy for me.