AirBnB just shut down my listing because someone flagged it!

Customer service won’t talk to me. I’m only allowed to correspond with the person in the Trust & Safety department (or something like that) that shut down my listing. And of course, that department can’t be reached by phone, so I can’t even ask for this person’s supervisor or anything.

Oh wow! Did they cancel all your future reservations? Or give you a “by when” to correct the wording in your listing?

No, they just deactivated the listing so that no one can see it in search results. All my current bookings are still active.

They keep responding by saying that we don’t qualify for an exemption and refusing to answer any of the questions I asked or providing clarification about their “shared space” definition, so I have asked for a supervisor to contact me. We’ll see if it actually happens.

Ohhhh, okay you got flagged and then got a rote reply. Ah, okay makes sense now.
This may not even turn out to be grave if your reservations are still there.

In the states, I’ve noticed a slow down in certain aspects of the website on weekends and it can also sometimes crash. Not sure if it’s because of a massive upsurge in users on the site or a reduced/skeleton staff working, or both, or other factors.

Hope you have this all sewn up soon, and can get back up and running asap!

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Since this is a vacation home would it not be used by your daughter when guests are not staying there - so she would be there not just to clean but to enjoy the vacation home. Under those circumstances would it not be justified that the potential for animal dander overlooked by cleaning service would still cause a dangersous situation. Could you not ask Airbnb if they don’t think this would fall under Health and Safety and do they not strive for zero incident reports? I would suspect like any large company that safety is number one and using this approach should help drive your concern with Airbnb management.

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Yes, and that’s exactly what I keep telling them- that our family does use this home when it’s not being rented out, and that pet dander doesn’t just magically leave with the guests, even when you have a good cleaning service. They said I should just budget in some “wiggle room” into my cleaning time to clean after animals were there. They make it sound completely reasonable for me to have to have the air ducts cleaned, change out the 2 furnace filters, shampoo the carpet, etc. after every single guest (because if I’m accepting service animals, guests don’t have to notify me about the animal. So I would have to assume that every guest had a service animal and clean to those standards.)

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You keep on mentioning service animals which as I have mentioned are extremely rare. Makes me wonder if you have read the AirBnb non discrimination policy and why in your circumstances you would wish to list on AirBnB.

Did you read in my post that one of my very first bookings was someone with a service animal? Also, how do you know they are rare? People with service animals don’t have to notify you they are bringing them. So unless you rent just a room in your own home and see exactly who comes and goes, you would have no idea if someone had a service animal with them.

Also, if you have read the nondiscrimination policy, you would see that AirBnB considers ESAs under the same umbrella as service dogs. ESAs are NOT covered under the ADA, and anyone who wishes to claim their pet as an ESA can do so to get around the no pets rule.

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I rent 4 rooms and have had 100 plus Assistance Animals and yet to see a Service Animal,

Okay, now I’m confused. You’re telling me that service animals are rare, but that you’ve had 100+ assistance animals?? AirBnB lumps all “assistance” animals in the same rules as service animals. I can’t have either in my house. So obviously, if assistance animals are that common, I’m going to be getting some of them if my listing doesn’t specifically prohibit it. Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying?

Sounds like a good reason not to use the Airbnb community forums, which I found unhelpful and sucky to Airbnb anyways.

I also found this confusing. Approximately how many bookings have you had? I would expect both Service Animals and Assistance Animals (I’m not sure what the latter is, but perhaps the same as Emotional Support Animals) to be quite rare compared to regular pets.

Thousand? I have not added it up but with 4 rooms and 3 years on AirBnB and most of my stays being 1 to 3 nights it adds up.

Your maths is still not adding up to a 1000 assistance dogs! Me thinks gross exaggeration here …:joy_cat::man_shrugging:t5::smile::thinking::thinking::thinking::thinking::thinking::thinking::thinking::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::dog::dog::dog::dog::dog::dog::dog::dog::dog::dog::dog::dog::dog:

My honest guess, less than 5% if your guests have bought an assistance dog so with 3 years x 365 days x 4 rooms / 2 night average stay that’s 109 guests with dogs. That’s being generous and assuming your 4 rooms are booked 100% of the time, which I could guarantee they’re not.

Actually, she said 100. But in your estimate, 5% for assistance animals is way too high, and of course 100% occupancy is also unrealistic. My feeling is that a really busy host with multiple rooms, and in the United States, might see a few assistance dogs in a year. Unless they are much much more common than I realised. As I understand it, people only have assistance dogs if they are severely disabled or have some serious medical conditions. Most people like that are not going to be travelling much.

For hosts that mostly host international travellers, I would expect that number to approximate to 0 fairly closely. Here, in two years, I’ve not had a single mention of an assistance animal. Of course, in India, they might exist, but it certainly isn’t a thing.

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So if you’ve had 1000 bookings and 100 assistance animals, you’re looking at a 10% rate of people bringing service animals. That’s a pretty high number, imo. Not rare at all.

Nooooooo, and that is horrible stereotype to be making. People use service dogs so that they can lead a normal life. They are not just for people who are wheelchair bound or paralyzed or something like that. One of my friends has a service dog to alert her when she’s about to have a seizure. She is otherwise a healthy and normally-functioning adult, and you wouldn’t have any idea by looking at her that she is disabled.

Yes, and it is actually a huge problem in the states for people with legitimate service dogs. People claim “emotional support animal” so that they bring their little pet dog into places that would normally prohibit animals. It’s infuriating for people with legitimate service animals.

Here’s another article from this week-

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Hi @jkamm,

I apologise. I did not intend to stereotype. I didn’t even realise it was a stereotype. But I’ve never had the pleasure of knowingly meeting a service animal, and know almost nothing about this matter. (Though I suppose service animals are mostly service dogs. Unless that’s is another stereotype. :slight_smile: )

And I wasn’t at all aware of this policy abuse wrt Emotional Support Animals. Has this been going on a long time?

I’m honestly not sure. It’s been in the news a lot this past year because of people trying to bring ESAs on airplanes, like their emotional support peacock. Yes, you read that right. And no, this is not an isolated case, sadly. And many airlines and other businesses (like AirBnB) actually allow this because they don’t want to get slapped with a discrimination suit.

My own Assistance Animal is cute, is always being told by other people he is, but not small. 169lbs.

I did get him ESA tags from Amazon but that was mainly to wind up a friend of mine who is an Airline Pilot and has had to deal with US Federal Law on this issue.

Now my State law does not allow him in Supermarkets, Restaurants etc, he would need to be a Service Animal.

I did see a lady in Costco with a dog that was not a Service Animal but had a vest that said otherwise, I think they just ignore going there, no doubt she would have screamed discrimination of anybody had said something.

Is it possible to ask someone in an inquiry or booking request, assuming guest is upfront about having a service animal if said animal has documented certification as such? Curious…

EDIT:
Sorry just saw this:

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