I warned one host about discrimation on obese people, but never reported her. She put in her listing no one over 200 pounds allowed and openly stated it on a public forum. She had an obese person break a chair or something. I pointed out that a man who’s 6’5" tall and average built can weight between 230-260 pounds, so she was elimanating a lot of average size people also. I told her she needed to supply a better quality or type of furniture.
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Hi @jkamm,
I’m surprised you didn’t know that, but ok.
Oh, no, no, no. You don’t want to ask that. Here is what my standard response to a booking request says:
Please confirm that your party consists only of x adults, and no pets
or children.
where x may be 1 or 2 as necessary.
I suggest in your case you change “pets” to “animals”, because I don’t think a service animal would be considered to be a pet.
This won’t work so well if you are using IB, because you won’t get a chance to query your guests before they book, and if ask after, they may not answer the question. Though if they do, you can still ask them to cancel the booking.
If you don’t have IB, all you have to do is write back and ask the guest to cancel. Ok, I see I didn’t think this completely through, because if you haven’t accepted the booking, you can’t easily send your guest an email, so your request will be on record on the Airbnb messaging system. Hmm, tricky. I still think this approach is your best bet, though.
And IMO it’s a good idea to talk to your guests before booking, anyway. Which IB basically makes impossible. Of course, from the guest point of view it is a nuisance.
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Woah, wow sorry to differ but you are severely misinformed and passing that information on to other hosts. In fact, there is a national guideline in the United States for service animals under the ADA-Americans with Disabilities Act, which Airbnb’s language concerning this follows almost to the letter. However, each state’s mandate may be different, especially with concern to Title’s II & III of the ADA, which addresses emotional comfort animals as distinguished from service animals with extensive training to perform tasks related to the owner’s disability.
This topic is also covered on Airbnb’s own forum, where a host was shut down for asking to see a service animal’s paperwork, which is against the law.
It has already been stated that you may only ask two questions:
- Is this a service animal for a disability?
- What work or task has this animal been trained to perform?
It is quite grave in the US and IS a national law in this country, though specifics may vary from state to state. Every host in the states should familiarize themselves with these laws and the ADA guidelines or in addition to being shut down by Airbnb, risk opening themselves to a discrimination lawsuit.
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Hi TuMo,
Sorry you had similar experiences. There are currently obviously no clear and transparent processes in place. I also think you are right in saying that their staff is poorly trained and as such, decisions on these matters are random and non-structured, and not subject to a process of due diligence.
As much as I sometimes like to complain about the UK health care system, there are things in place that they really got right; both internally and externally procedures in place for quality control with committees consisting of all stakeholders and statutory obligation for transparency. These are things that are rarely properly developed in even big national companies such as BT Telecom, where some of the managers I spoke to do not have the slightest clue of of processes on how to deal with a complaint and how to turn a problem or complaint around and develop it into a learning experience with the goal of an overall improvement of the service that the company provides. Certainly a company such as AirBNB is way too immature and currently seems to only busy itself by straying away from the formula of creating an experience that is more than a night stay in a hotel by getting like-minded people together. Seems they are now to busy focusing on developing “experiences” and costly high-end stays in “special places”. The AirBNB management would do good by taking the occasional stroll in this forum, as to not lose sight of what was their original core-business(model).
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It’s always good to be reminded that this is a public forum so any post by anybody can be read by anyone. A big difference between this forum and the Airbnb community forum is that one can remain anonymous here, you can’t on the Airbnb community forums. Also, not everyone who posts here is an Airbnb host.
Sadly, I don’t think it was a misunderstanding. There are hosts who don’t think everything needs to be washed between guests. I am one of those who was convinced, primarily by your posts, to switch out all my old puffy comforters and replace them with layers that could easily be washed after each guest. I’m often quite dismayzed. There used to be a guy who shared a couple of rooms in his home and posted basically that he didn’t clean the bathroom between guests, or really ever, if I remember correctly. Yet he’d bellyache about less than 5 stars on his ratings. LOL.
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I don’t have instant book enabled and it didn’t make much of a difference. It all depends on your area though and how many other listings there are and a variety of other factors.
The advice to ask each guest to confirm “x amount of guest and no children or animals” is a very very good idea…
though still may not guarantee that a pet or its dander (even people with long-haired animals may have hair and dander on their belongings), will never be in your property. We had two guests sneak in pets without telling us, (before using Airbnb). Both caused urine damage.
If your daughter risks being hospitalized or severely injured if exposed to dog dander, then I would just keep her away from the unit altogether and hire cleaners. Some listings have cleaning fees that may sound high, but doesn’t affect their bookings at all. Same with IB.
Try experimenting with both while you create your own webpage and begin using other platforms. The good thing about the pet issue is that it doesn’t come up very often.
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You are correct on the high cleaning fee. I do a ton of 1 day bookings with a $170 cleaning fee. People still rent it for just the one day even though it’s pricy.
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See, this is where it gets tricky. I am not a business. This is our personal home that we own (even though we don’t live in it), which is not open to the general public. Therefore, I’m not sure ADA requirements apply.
Under the ADA, State and local governments, businesses, and nonprofit organizations that serve the public generally must allow service animals to accompany people with disabilities in all areas of the facility where the public is normally allowed to go.
Okay… now I’m really curious. What is a duvet other than a comforter??
Holy cow! You must be in a much more exciting location than I am. 
I wouldn’t get any bookings if I charged that much.
Ah okay. Your post didn’t sound like you were aware that there is a federal mandate stating that service animals must be publicly accommodated under the ADA and FHA.
In fact, vacations rentals that are “indistinguishable from a hotel” would fall under the ADA as they are considered a public accommodation, but long-term rentals would fall under Fair Housing Act, which has different guidelines.
Better safe than sorry with discrimination issues.
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A duvet is a standalone item, whereas a comforter is used (I think) above regular sheets and blankets. They are differently constructed although I can’t tell you exactly how. A good duvet keeps you cool in warm weather and warm when the weather is cold. I use one year round here in South Florida, even when the weather is very warm.
Some people (mostly Americans if I remember rightly) like to have a top sheet between themselves and the duvet but in Europe bedding consists of bottom sheet, duvet and pillowcases. That’s the only bedding required. Plus a mattress protector in the case of Airbnb hosts! Although I’m in the States I always use the fitted sheet / duvet / thing because it’s so quick to make the bed and there’s not much laundry and, needless to say, they are washed properly after every guest. 
I just have to laugh…it’s an old forum joke about the duvets, comforters, quilts, duvet covers, shams, pillowcases and their similarities and differences. Let’s throw in a discussion of blankets and bedspreads too.
A duvet is the insert, the part that is filled with down/feathers or polyester. A duvet always has a cover or is triple sheeted (using sheets to make a cover). An American style comforter is like a duvet but it’s cover is sewn on. To wash a comforter or duvet you really need to hand wash in a tub or large capacity commercial washing machine. It’s best to have a duvet with removable cover for cleanliness purposes. If you are going to use something like a quilt or bedspread it should also be washed between guests. The quilt that I still use is polyester and microfiber cover for quick wash/dry. Mostly I use thin layers that are easily washed in a couple of loads.
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You really got that from my post? 
If my daughter wasn’t so allergic, we would probably have a service dog for her. I am well-informed about service dogs and all aspects of the ADA. So if I am being misunderstood here with all the information that I provided in my post, how do I get a message across to guests that I am not, in fact, discriminating against them when I ask them to please not bring service animals?
What would make an AirBnB indistinguishable from the hotel, in your opinion? This seems like a very vague policy that is open to interpretation. I’m really curious where you found that verbage as well because I can’t find anything about vacation rentals on the ADA website.
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No! I was responding to Cabinhost’s response to my response…apologies am lowtech.
Okay, that’s the same definition that I know for a duvet. I thought I was missing something.
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Oooooh. No worries.
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I found that wording on a litigious site from California. It’s here:
I’m not sure you can (legally) say that without inviting a lot of (legal) headaches, even if there are gray areas. It’s a pickle for sure.
Maybe just detail your daughter’s allergy on your listing…without saying “please don’t bring service animals”…because what kind of jerk would still do that if they knew it would cause your child physical harm?
Then move to the confirming message asking each guest if they’re bringing animals with them. Cover all your bases.
That’s not a bad idea in theory. But it depends on guests reading - often they don’t. I suppose it would do no harm to have that there. Nobody can accuse you of discrimination based on that.
You can not look at these things in absolute terms, the Paradox of Tolerance comes to mind. One of the amusing examples is AirBnB and how they tie themselves up in knots by interfering in things they should leave well alone.
Monty Python comes to mind, perhaps all AirBnB CSR’s should have Philosophy degrees?.
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I think that’s what I’m going to end up doing, but honestly, I think there are a lot of entitled people out there that feel THEIR needs are more important than anyone else’s, and they will bring service animals anyway unless it is strictly prohibited. In fact, one of my first bookings was for someone with a service animal, and at that time, I did say on the listing that we have severe animal allergies and couldn’t accommodate pets! (I just didn’t have the part about not allowing service animals. I added that after many, many conversations with Air customer service about it.)
Oh, that’s an interesting twist…that Airbnb advised you to put that info. about the allergies.
Hmm, maybe you should try contacting a new rep. They are growing so fast, there can be inconsistencies to the responses.
But so true, entitlement is just out of control in society now. That first guest of yours may have even chosen yours specifically due to the mention of pet allergies, which is an entitled reaction that would have been unheard of twenty years ago…but these days? …would not even be a huge surprise.
Look forward to hearing what you decide and how it all turns out. 
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