I went through a doozy with a recent guest. I partly wrote this as catharsis, and partly to hear everyone’s thoughts. We have a two-family home where my wife, son and I live in the upstairs unit and rent the ground level one. Here’s what happened:
MONDAY
- Late Monday night, Jayde wrote me saying she was about to hop on a flight. She was coming to town with her family to see her dad. Given that she wasn’t local (we’ve had major problems with locals and mostly only locals) she seemed legit. I asked her if she was ok with our no smoking (pot especially) and no parties policies and she was OK with it.
TUESDAY
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Her profile noted she loves to travel with her family and enjoy great food experiences. Great! It was a nice booking because it perfectly filled up an open block in the calendar. I sent her an offer on Tuesday morning to book.
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On Tuesday afternoon she booked. I was at work and told her I wasn’t home to set the door code but I’d be home around 7. If she was checking in sooner I could give her a code. “I’ll be there soon.” was her response, so I emailed her an old code.
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On Tuesday night as I went to bed, I monitored the outside door camera on my Blink app. A woman (presumably Jayde) and a man entered the apartment at around 9:40pm. Just after that I noticed the camera went dark, meaning someone had unplugged the sync module in the apartment. I chalked this up to someone needing to charge their phone (despite plenty of other outlets in the apartment).
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Around 10:20, the camera was back on and I saw the woman and man exit the apartment. I went to sleep.
WEDNESDAY
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When I woke up, I checked the camera. Two different guys entered the apartment with a small dog. The were in and out of the aparment sporadically until about 3am. I was annoyed that I wasn’t told about the dog or that Jayde didn’t stay over, but OK fine.
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On Wednesday I worked from home as we had a contractor over. I noticed a faint smell of pot an went to check the downstairs entryway. Very strong odor there. I tried to email Jayde through the Air messaging system, and I was redirected to an message saying something like (I didn’t save it) the profile was under review and couldn’t email her there. I tried calling the listed number and got a message saying the number wasn’t in service. Note that I have Air set up to only accept guests with verified phone numbers, payment methods, etc.
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Before going to confront the guest I immediately called Air. I wanted them out for a clear house rules violation. No refund, no ability to write a review. Air support refused to cancel the reservation without me being penalized, or without them first speaking with the guest. This despite support knowing the profile was invalid. I agreed to have Air contact the guest.
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I went downstairs to confront the guest. He was roughly a HS-age kid. I recorded the convo, telling him he couldn’t smoke pot and it travels through the ceiling vents to our apartment. We’ll smell it right away and we have an 8-month old upstairs. He seemed apologetic and agreed to stop. Fine. I asked if he was Jayde’s son; he nodded yes and have me his mom’s number.
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I tried calling Jayde but straight to an automated voicemail. I texted her and she was similarly apologetic. She said she’d speak with him ASAP.
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I informed the Airbnb support of the correspondence. It came up that I had an alternative phone number for Jayde, which they asked me to provide them. They agreed that if this happened again they’d cancel the reservation without me being penalized.
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At around 6pm I smelled pot again. I walked downstairs and informed the guest they had to leave. I messaged Air support.
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I texted Jayde and she apologized and said she understood. She asked if I could help her find a new place and refund her. I told her this was out of my hands.
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The guest left at 7ish. I reset all of the codes. The place was trash. Pot leaves, discarded joints littered everywhere. They covered every celing vent with aluminum foil, removed the smoke alarms from the ceiling, and placed a towel against the main door. Our carpet and couch had ash burns.
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I messaged Air to inform them of the damage.
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I texted Jayde to let her know of what transpired, and got this response:
Nigga suck a dick this is the son fuck ya krib
Nigga I don’t care
Suck bnbp suck
Suck a bnb dick
I’m shoot that shit gangster
- So apparently Jayde wasn’t Jayde after all. I shared this discovery and language with Airbnb.
THURSDAY
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Air support finally got around to cancelling the reservation on Thursday morning. Wow, such urgency. I was fine with it as we needed to clean the apartment anyway. They also refused to prevent them from writing a review. I doesn’t bother me given the probably don’t have a working profile, but WTF, really?
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When informed of the damage, Air suggested I file a claim. When filling out the form, I saw the message: “There was an error processing your request. You can’t send or request money from this guest right now.” Air then transferred this over to their Trust and Safety team.
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On Thursday afternoon, with the calendar free, someone else similarly shady tried booking (detailed post). It fortunately auto-cancelled, but Trust & Safety was all over calling me to verify the guest didn’t check in. I was being difficult and didn’t answer their question, preferring to know the status of the prior booking.
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Our cleaner on Thu mentioned there were a number of items missing: pillows, a new sheet set, new plates, laundry hamper, our TV, dog bowls, paper towel holder, soap rack, a stove pot.
FRIDAY
- Still no word from Trust & Safety regarding the Jayde claim, but they called me again this morning about Thursday’s attempted booking. I answered their question, but also question how they prioritize these things.