Yes! Truer words have never been said! After reading horror stories of nefarious guests such as this, hosts should be ever watchful. My hope is that Air Will communicate w/ NJH regarding the alleged safety issue, & reopen her calendar. I’m crossing my fingers that this will be shelved, but as we all know, Air is all too often siding w/ guests who make BS claims, in retaliation for innocent hosts.
4 Likes
I am in the camp of, would not have asked for the extra money. The OP is in worse shape now then had they let it go. Being shut down is not worth $150 to me, a bad review is not worth $150 to me. I do not like it, I would be furious if someone snuck in a cat. I am realistic though and will put my interests first.
RR
3 Likes
I agree with you, that if a guest did something that broke the rules/was inappropriate that I would pick my battles, set aside my emotional reaction and act in my interests.
But here I feel for @NJH who, I am guessing, did not imagine that the guest would invent a ‘safety issue’, nor that Airbnb on a mere unsubstantiated allegation shut down her listing. I would not have imagined that either.
I think your point is: “Think again”. or “Imagine it now!”
So I get it, and this exchange is of course one of the benefits of this forum: understanding the range of possibilities both of guest actions and Airbnb’s reactions.
Rather than the lesson here only being ‘pick your battles’ may I brainstorm alternatives?
If:
- The OP had a routine where she always asked on the platform ( we do this the day of check-in or the day after). "Is everything as you expected? " and “Please reach out at any time if you have any questions, requests or concerns.”
and
- The OP would have made the request for the cleaning fee (and also submitted its review) at the very end of the 14 day window,
Do you think those actions would have ‘likely’ protected the OP from the guest’s spurious safety claim AND given the OP an opportunity to claim the additional cleaning fee?
Because Airbnb would/should see that the guest was asked and made no objection during the stay (or, ideally, responded to say all was well), and raised an objection only after the critical review and request for the additional cleaning fee payment.
Of course, I know there are no guarantees of what Airbnb would do.
I just think Hosts don’t want to feel like a hostage to the potential for a guest’s bald-faced lie to stick and would like to think that with some wise precautions on our part we might greatly up our chances for fairness.
Of course, we do need to pick our battles. But, before this thread, I would have thought that when a guest brings a cat to ‘no cat’ listing that would have been an easy battle to win. Can it be made so?
1 Like
I think that a guest who is going to lie to your face about the cat (ok it was not a dog but still). Liars gonna lie, this person felt entitled to have her cat there and not disclose (lie) so no surprise to me when they lied about (presumably) indoor cameras which got the host banned from platform.
RR
2 Likes
Our son became allergic to lots of household items during his teens. He is also allergic to cats and dogs. All meals we cook have to be approved by our son with the ingredients closely scrutinized–which means we can not eat out at a restaurant at all. He is especially allergic to corn and corn products. You wouldn’t believe the food products that have corn starch in them.
Several times, when a server at a restaurant walked by with plates of fish, our son (now 35) got a whiff of the fish, started choking and had to be rushed to a local hospital. That allergic reaction cost us more than $5,000 for the hospital bill.
Cats and dogs cause worse allergies. He has gone to allergists and tested to see what he was allergic to, just about everything.
1 Like
Yes, I have a friend who is celiac, so can’t digest gluten (as opposed to all the latest food fad people who like to think gluten is some kind of poison, which it only is to celiacs).
There are so many things she can’t eat that wouldn’t be obvious to most people. For instance any pre-packaged foods that say “spices” in the ingredients. Apparently commercial food processes mix a bit of wheat with spices, because it makes them distribute more evenly in the mix.
I wasn’t doubting the seriousness of the OP’s allergy, I just didn’t quite understand why there would be 9 loads and 6 extra hours of laundry required for 1 guest for 1 night. But I guess if absolutely everything in the place has to be washed, it’s understandable.
3 Likes
Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease. It is not about not being able to “digest” gluten.
Yes, I know it’s an autoimmune disease but got confused about them not being able to digest it- it’s that gluten destroys the lining of their small intestine, so that the nutrients from food can’t be absorbed. It also destroys digestive enzymes in their system, because of the effect on the intenstine, like the one that digests lactose.
Being a celiac is quite different from simply feeling better with less gluten, because you have some intolerance to it, like certain foods just not agreeing with you. Celiac is actually a disease.
But true celiacs, while they find it humorous that so many people now claim to be gluten intolerant, love it that there are so many gluten-free foods available now. My friend used to have to take some food with her whenever she went out for more than a short trip, because there was almost nothing she could find when she was out and about that she could safely eat.
I have Dermatitis Herpetiformis which is a rash caused by gluten. You can have it without having celiac disease and I generally don’t have gastrointestinal symptoms so I don’t think I have celiac disease. But I avoid gluten as much as is reasonable and buy the much more expensive and not nearly as good, GF beer, pasta, bread and so on.
I am extremely thankful for all the gluten avoidant people who have made it possible for me to have some substitutes and hopefully avoid full blown celiac disease developing.
6 Likes
Sure, there’s foods which can trigger all kinds of symptoms that are best to avoid.
You’d know if you had celiac disease, or at least know there was something seriously wrong, although it took years for my friend to be accurately diagnosed. She was always hungry to the point where she had to get up in the middle of the night to eat, skinny as a rail no matter how much she ate, fatigued, even though she was in her late teens at the time, horrible debilitating stomach aches.
I thought I had dermatitis herpetiformis, at least it’s one of the things I researched years ago when I developed a horrible itchy upper arm problem. Took quite awhile to figure out what it was, but turned out to be something called brachial radial pruritis (which just means itchy upper arms) Nothing definitive that causes it, and not actually a skin problem, but a nerve disorder. Not food related, no cure, and not much research on it has been done. Suffered with it for 20 years, but somehow magically seems to have gone away on its own as of about 2 years ago. .
1 Like
No.
When I first got the rash I thought it was bug bites. After it went away and reappeared I realized it was a rash. After it appeared a 3rd time I correctly diagnosed using Dr. Google but confirmed with a visit to a dermatologist that it was DH (I had a blood test) about a year later. I got a prescription ointment that manages the symptoms well. At the time I thought the blood test was just confirming DH, but it may be it was the test confirming non symptomatic celiac. I should probably follow up on that. But in any case avoiding gluten is the best course of action. I’m glad I don’t have to avoid toasters and restaurants for fear of having an episode.
2 Likes
What I meant was that you’d know if you had the full-blown celiac disease that was causing you not to absorb any nutrients from your food- you’d be starving hungry all the time and really thin I think. At least my friend was. But good you found out the rash was caused by gluten. Definitely easier to avoid than restaurants and toasters.
Interesting on that site you linked to that they mention wheat allergy and that it isn’t celiac. So many people these days self-diagnose as gluten intolerant, because they feel better when they don’t eat bread or pastries, but if they don’t get tested, it could be wheat, yeast, the herbicides or pesticides used on the wheat, or food coloring (why commercial bread and cookies, etc, have “coloring” on the ingredient list has always bamboozled me- what color would the cookies be if they didn’t add coloring?) that they are allergic to.
That’s one or two symptoms but not anyone has the same ones. I didn’t really have any digestive symptoms (no abdominal pain, no diarrhea, no bloating, no weight loss). All of my symptoms were autoimmune and vitamin deficiency related. I had the rash, joint pain (I had a lot of symptoms of RA (Rheumatoid Arthritis) which scared me because it runs in my family) mouth sores, anemia, etc but how I found out was that I had Iritis several times. It was actually my eye doctor that sent me for the serology tests. Personally, I was glad it was Celiac because I had every reason to think I had RA.
Yeah, that’s a different thing. Some people are allergic to wheat but celiac is not an allergic reaction to wheat proteins. It is not even an allergy.
I don’t think it does any harm, even if it is seen as a trend. There are numerous reasons people might feel better eliminating it and if you feel better not eating something then just don’t eat it. I don’t eat basil. I’ve never been tested for a basil allergy and I don’t know why it doesn’t agree with me but it is the only thing I’ve ever eaten that has ever given me heartburn and it is almost immediate heartburn, so I just don’t eat it. Not sure if it’s hip or not though 
1 Like
It’s awesome to be able to google symptoms of various ailments these days, at least you can narrow it down and if it’s not something severe just avoid or experiment with eliminating whatever you suspect is the culprit.
And while there are a lot of doctors who seem to resent patients doing their own research, doing so can help to ask for appropriate tests to be run.
The problem with self-diagnosing and not following up with testing sometimes is that it might not be what you think it is. I know someone who thought she was gluten intolerant, so was avoiding all foods with gluten, but still didn’t feel good, and allergy testing showed she was actually allergic to yeast, the tests for gluten intolerance were negative. So she can’t drink beer, or consume any other products that contain yeast.
Maybe to some degree, but I have mixed feelings about Dr. Google. There’s a lot of weird stuff and poor sources on the internet. You can find anything you want, including a bunch of health issues if that’s what you’re looking for 
But elimination diets are generally low-risk and were popular before the internet. As long as it’s not too extreme, I think it’s almost always better for people to be conscious of their diet rather than not thinking of it all.
For medical stuff I always look at reputable sites like Mayo Clinic & John Hopkins. And because I’m a firm believer that there are “alternative” medicine approaches that work, and know that from experience, I also look for that info. But I always use fact-check sites to make sure that it isn’t pseudo-science and quakery. I’m not going to be taking medical advice from Gweneth Paltrow, that’s for sure. 
Elimination diets are simple and useful, as long as one does their due diligence in finding out what foods contain an allergen. Like if you’re trying to determine if you are lactose intolerant, it’s necessary to not just think that cutting out obvious dairy products like milk is going to provide you with a determination, because other things can contain lactose that you might not suspect.
1 Like
It took me a few days to have time to come back to this because I wanted to find links to these papers again.
The right word isn’t toxic, it’s “inflammatory,” like the tone you use when you refer to “food fad people.” The research is recent, incomplete and contradictory, like research tends to be. It’s worthwhile to question any “fad,” whether it’s recycling, EVs, diets, a certain exercise, or some viral thing like an ice challenge. What I don’t get is the needlessly judgmental tone about something that someone is doing for themselves that doesn’t hurt anyone. If it was the first time you’d done it I’d let it pass without comment, but at this point it’s pretty evident it is your MO.
1 Like
I really don’t mean that as you are interpreting it. I’m not taking issue with or belittling people who feel better when they avoid certain foods.
I’m talking about marketing which plays into people’s misunderstandings. Like shampoo that boasts “Gluten-Free!”, as if shampoo has any effect on one’s digestive tract. Or like the guy at my farmer’s market that sells the yoghurt he makes who shouts out to passersby, “It’s gluten-free!” Of course it’s gluten-free, it’s yoghurt.
Or people who assume and claim they are allergic to something because everyone’s talking about it, when they haven’t really done elimination diets or tests that might show that they are allergic to some other ingredient in the food. Like folks who think it’s gluten, because they feel better when they avoid bread products, when it could be yeast that they’re allergic to.
Wow, I can’t believe so many people are questioning how many loads of laundry poor NJH is doing and totally missing the point. BTW, my house needs more than 9 loads without having to deep clean cat dander. NJH is asking if anyone had anything similar to this. NJH, my advice is to make sure you include the $150 cleaning fee in your rules. Mine is worded something to the effect of “NO CATS. I am severely allergic and will have to charge a $150 extra cleaning fee if you bring a cat” It is my understanding that if it is in your rules AirBnB will back you up. Sorry you are in this situation now. Perhaps calling AirBnB again will help clear it up. If I don’t get the answer I want I call back and have had good success getting a more sympathetic person(or someone who speaks better English and understands my situation better). Also, I have my house listed on the other vacation rental site too. That way if something happens on one site I still get bookings on the other.
3 Likes
I wonder if you’ve missed the point? We were asking the OP for clarification about the number of washing loads she would have done not because we personally want to know but because it’s something that Airbnb would be questioning when considering the validity of the claim.
Had the OP let us know, then we may have been able to help.
Remember that this was a one-night stay by one guest and the OP was unable to show Airbnb any evidence to support the claim of extra cleaning.
Airbnb has, rightly or wrongly, decided that the claim needs further time to resolve presumably, Because the OP hasn’t been back to explain since the post 8 days ago, it’s hard to know.
3 Likes