Very few people love their jobs. Most people work for money. Airbnb is just another job
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With all due respect Eliana, sometimes just sharing the problems we are facing helps us all not feel so alone in what we are dealing with. Who knows, maybe airbnb might pay some attention to the issues if enough people chime in. In regards to your ālets just keep it all positiveā, that just is not realistic, given that many experiences are not positive, and sometimes there arenāt positive solutions, other than trying to be extremely selective with guests, or stopping hosting altogether.
In regards to your solution to what you seemed to feel was all my problems, which was the pet issue, I did stop accepting pets. That has not stopped guests from taking advantage in other ways, and the bad experiences for me have continued, as hard as I have tried to be selective. I have also had some wonderful guests, so thereās your bit of positive. The really bad guests wear you down quite badly though, especially if they are sharing your home space with them. Whereās the positive spin for that?
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Continuing the discussion from Diary of a Burned Out Airbnb Host:
This is true, and many statistics support it. Listening to those that act as if airbnb is going to be a wonderful thing, and sharing your home with strangers that are likely expecting a hotel experience is not going to potentially have issues with guests that may be rude, have cleanliness issues, overpower your space and break all your house rules is absurd. These things will happen. Anyone that hasnāt had it happen hasnāt yet been hosting long enough, of course it is worse for those sharing their living space.
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Iām sad to read someone having such a bad experience with airbnb. Iāve only been doing this since February but Iāve been pretty busy. Iāve had almost total wonderful guests and have gotten super host, though Iām not sure how. I donāt have or do anything fancy. I love my old beater of a house and enjoy sharing it with people. I try to always treat my guests like friends and family while they are with me. I work so my house isnāt spotless. I also have 3 big dogs which ensures itās much less than spotless most of the time lol. Iāve been happily putting the extra money toward my own travel. I havenāt experienced tax time yet but because Iām an s-corp Iām looking forward to writing off my home improvements and supplies. Maybe Iām just still enjoying it because Iām still a noob and havenāt any horror stories to tell. But Iāve been a couch surfing host for many years and thoroughly enjoy that too. So, maybe Iāll continue to have good experience. Hope soā¦
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Thank-you Sandy for explaining your experience. I do get it. I started hosting in April and I do generally enjoy hosting. But you do get the odd knock (I just had one), which gets you down, probably way more than it should. Like Siannon was saying when people think your place isnāt clean enough (as they expect). But you know I clean their room and their bathroom, donāt charge a cleaning fee ā its my spare room! Not a hotel! The guests get a private bathroom, I mean thatās a perk no? Youād think so, certainly up here where I live!
I initially approached the whole hosting thing with a - I love having guests anyway, and having a bit of extra money is also going to be great. It should be a win-win, and mostly Iād say it is. But unfair criticisms do niggle. Nobody wants to be judged I guess.
The whole burn-out is a concern and now at the end of the season I do feel it. About half way through this experience, I started to feel a burn out. My place was waaaaaay more popular than I thought it would be. I put my price up to try and stem the demand, but it didnāt I just got more money!! Great I thought but I canāt put price up too high as it will really raise expectations. So I started just blocking out at least 2 nights a week in my calander so I had space and downtime has helped.
Iāve been wondering too how quickly this whole thing will implode. With more hosts becoming businesses and more guests wanting and expecting hotel accommodation at knock down price. Professional BnBs with multiple rooms listing on AirBnB its not quite the same platform I thought it was. Iām investigating Homestay ā which might fit my place better. But currently there are not many places in the UK listed on it.
My recent knock was from a girl (part of a couple), that booked and we all got on well. We shared our food - combined what they brought with some of our stuff, had good meal that evening, one of my neighbours came over too with his pot of food for the table and it was a good classic airBnB experience, we all got on fine and had a lovely time. I like to hang-out and socialise with guests if they want to. Then a week later she wrote an okay review ā no prob with that, but she was then really critical in the private feedback. She told me my place was not clean, was smelly and that my entire home was outdated. 3 stars across the board for everything. I was really a bit taken aback by it. Now you probably need some context here. I live in an almost 200 year old building on a remote hillside in the Scottish Highland. We are almost off grid here. The water comes from a stream and we have a biomass (wood burning) heating system, and solar panels, the pipework is exposed, there is no mobile signal and our internet is a satellite connection. The sewage is a septic tank, and all cleaning products have to be biodegradable and bacteria friendly for that to work. A lot of the house has exposed granite walls, high ceilings with beams. We do however have a hot water and a powerful shower. But itās not modern and it never will be, we like it this way. So this silly remark should not matter to me, I donāt want to take the odd personās insensitive remarks about my home and so not open up and welcome the next people that walk through the door or put up barriers to genuine interaction. How, how do we develop a thicker skin and keep open? I donāt think the answer is scrubbing the bathroom more. And yes ā you know I do try to set expectations in my listing explaining all that. Perhaps I should have more of an email discussion with people before they book. I wonder if by the time some people get to you, they have completely forgotten what your listing said, or maybe they donāt read it in the first place.
Sandy is right about AirBnB management pushing the hosts to be overly giving and generous, maybe that it spoils the guest? The recent example Iāve just given above was a guest who has done a lot of AirBnB.
I would HATE to get superhost status, so Iām kind of pleased she knocked my star rating a bit. God, superhost ā imagine the guestsā expectations then!!! No thank-you.
I have a lot of reflection to do over the winter months. I do think I have a special place that I would like to share with other likeminded people, I just need to work out how to keep away those guests that want a hotel rather than the genuine āexperienceā of remote highlands living.
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I am a long time Airbnb traveler. And I never ever expected anyoneās house to be hotel like and to be treated like I am treated Ina hotel. This is just silly. They get a place for a bargains price, they rent through Airbnb not thro hotel.co or similar sites. Itās someoneās home, and they have no saying on how this house is kept. Unless its crawling with bugs and anti sanitary . Itās just silly to criticize someoneās old furniture . Outdated, but may be this is exactly how you want it. May be you love your old furniture and old towels.
I stayed once in 100 year old house with a few inconveniences like I had hot water for only 7 min. So asked the guys if there is something can be done so I can have it for 15 min. I have long hair, it takes me some time to wash them. He said, no unfortunatelly we have a small water heater. So, started taking super fast showers and found ways to wash my hair faster.
Of course there were houses where I stayed crawling with bugs and. No working AC with 90F outside where it was impossible to get a sleep, thatās a different story. But if your House is clean and safe, then just ignore them.
Honestly i really donāt want to do anything extra for guests anymore. Usually itās not appreciated, costs me time and money and afterwards I get lower ratings.
Cleanliness yes, here I am very meticulous , because for me itās important, but otherwise to create a special atmosphere or go out of my way, no.
People will take whatever you let them take, and will treat you how you let them treat you. I learned my lesson.
I would love bye he way to come and visit you in your āoutdatedā house
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Hi Imo
I agree, your home sounds absolutely lovely. I am so sorry that after opening your home, and especially sharing so much of your kindness and hospitality, that someone could be so harsh and judging as to make such cruel assessments. Granite and open beams and plumbing in a historic home are absolutely wonderful features, and for me beat clean shiny stainless steal and bad plasticky laminates any day. You have to wonder why these people choose our homes in the first place, if they have a completely different concept of aesthetics. We live in NY in a popular area for NYers to holiday for weekends away from the city. Some New Yorkers, especially the artistic types from Brooklyn absolutely love our historic home, and older people that love grand old houses love our house too. But there are some people that seem to expect a perfect McMansion type environment, as if we would gut out all the beautiful oak and plaster create new floors that donāt creak, doors that arenāt sinking a bit on big old hinges, and all the imperfections of time erased and replaced. Instead we love the home and itās beautiful imperfections, the shellac that has gone a bit bumpy in places, but glows a beautiful deep orange brown. But some people just like new and donāt appreciate antiques, historic homes, and seem let down by some image they had imagined - like a hotel many are used to and think are luxurious that have been designed to look like the style our homes truly are, except the character has been taken away to allow for everything to be perfectly shiny and new.
I also just had a particularly awful experience again with guests. I have had two in the past month of entitled guests that treated my home like a hotel, took no care with my furniture and other items and ended up causing damage to things. This past weekend was particularly awful with a Chinese guy and his wife. Unbelievable rudeness from the guy, made all the decisions without giving his wife a say, ordering her about in Chinese, and treating us like āthe helpā. For whatever reason, he didnāt seem to enjoy his stay (although his wife did), and every night late it sounded like a zoo, as they thumped about slamming doors getting ready for bed. Thief whole getting ready for bed procedure took over an hour from 11:30-12:30, and shook the house. They clearly felt no need to keep it down for us or our other guest. I was mortified and stressed, especially as a I had offered them an upgrade to a larger room with a queen bed to give them and the other guest more privacy - the other room was on the other side of the home. They refused the free upgrade because he wanted to use the big desk in the room. It isnāt really a desk, itās a beautiful antique hand hewn French refectory table from the 18th century and is mainly decorative. I had an antique Spanish embossed leather chair paired with it, and it had been fine with all our guests not using it, or using it gently. After their stay however, the chair was ruined. The embossed part had been torn from the seat and ripped right in half. I couldāve cried. The huge thump we had been hearing must have been him using it like an office chair, forcing it back to get out of it, and sliding off, tearing at it each time.
So many things in our home are being damaged. Each time we get a guest that doesnāt care about our home and treats everything like an old motel room, I feel like crying. If I could stop doing airbnb right now and find something else to help manage the bills, I would in a heartbeat. Unfortunately as an artist and one that is struggling health wise right now and not able to do what I have always done for a career, I canāt think of what else to do. If I could, I would never take a bet on letting another stranger in my home again. Itās pretty depressing.
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One reason why I think their new ad campaign misses. Walk in their shoes? Sleep in their beds? Shiver.
People use Air because they perceive it to be cheaper and maybe get a more authentic experience than at a hotel. I
IMOāBravo! Great post. Your place sounds just wonderful! Imoā¦what idiots not to get it!!! What sh*ts to turn on you after your hosting. Even privately! UGH!
I would love to stay there, but by the time I ever get to Scotland you may be burned out and closed down, LOL. 
Just as I may be in Hawaii. The knock-downs do take you by surprise and sting because after all, they are talking about your personal house.
I think other platforms bring even higher expectationsā¦ and worse guests than Air. I had a recent FlipKey guest stand on my lanai with its million dollar view and say, āMeh,ā This is not what I wanted for my hard earned money. Iām a consumer and this falls short." Below, Iāve attached the view from my lanai. If you canāt be happy with that, you should head back to the mainland. Idiot guests!
I agree with youā¦ even the guests whom you thought were lovely turn on you! Shame on them!
I do believe you should charge a cleaning fee thoughā¦ since they have the audacity to comment on it, you might as well charge!
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Wow thats a pretty awesome view right there! I can almost smell the sea! 
Iād be happy with that! I loved Hawaii when I visited back in the 90s, and we had a family from Hawaii visit us this year, who said its all changed quite a lot since then, gotten very built up. Well I guess everywhere does change. Its superb youāve got such a lovely expanse of ocean to look at.
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Oh Gosh - i wish you had another concern too! What a burn out!
We are converting a van at the moment to rent out as a camper, as a potential alternative/additional to having people in our home. Could you take a lodger instead? I used to do lodgings when I was more urban, and it worked well for us, if you are in a good part of town, youād get a good price, prob not as great as holiday rental though. Iām sure youāve already thought of all these things.
Sometimes we can become trapped by money. A well paid job? What is the point if its just feels like a well paid trap? Iāve quit well paid proffessions when they stopped being rewarding and started over twice before. This time we moved here to the middle of nowhere, with no knowing how it would work out.
Keep positive Sandy, youāre obviously a creative person and you can and ultimately will, find something else more rewarding for yourself and it will pay the bills too.Until then use your guests as a resource, its an opportunity to see what opportunities are there. Iām amazed at what some people manage to do for a living. My last guest from Belgium makes soap! Thatās quite cool! Imagine the smells in her house!
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What a lovely person you are Imo. Itās true, we get ourselves caught in an economic trap. Ours is one that airbnb seems to make the most sense because of the large spacious home we have with multiple large bedrooms available for guests. It just seems sensible to use it. But although it makes sense that way, obviously it doesnāt suit our personalities and sensibilities. We are musicians, and I donāt know if that makes us a lot more sensitive to our environment or not, but both my husband and I are super sensitive to people and also to our environment. Even just having guests that thump around heavily (which really carries through our home) and slam doors can cause us both to feel really destabilized as if we are in a war zone. We couldnāt even treat a door like that if we were having a full blown argument, let alone just do it late at night repeatedly because you are impervious to the incredible amount of noise you are making.
Weāve stayed at hotels where the doors in the hallway were slamming all night long, and this is what our home can sound like at times, with just a couple of people doing all the slamming and galloping (sounds like) around. Itās stressful. Not everyone does it, but each new guests brings the worry of what new thing might happen this time. After years doing airbnb and keeping a very high standard due to being perfectionists, we have found that about 50% of our guests upset us in some way by their inconsiderate behavior.
I recently had a female guest decide that she would use some expensive handwoven linen and silk towels I had given her to use for the pool as outdoor yoga mats. I had given her a proper yoga mat, and asked she use that instead, but she refused and decided she would use my white linens on the filthy ground. They were ruined. She actually said to me āI donāt want to get the yoga mat dirtyā, which caused my draw to drop, because it was high quality black rubber and could be wiped down, whereas my towels could be ruined (and were) when she was done with them. This was just one of the things she did. Some guests have no respect for other peopleās things, and think that they can do as they please. I actually wrote one of my few negative reviews for this guest as she also brought friends back late at night without telling us and smoked pot on the porch where our uppity neighbors could have caught wind of it. She responded that I had given her permission to bring guests and that if I hadnāt wanted her to use my towels as yoga mats I should have said something, knowing full well she was lying.
I guess after years doing airbnb we have encountered so many difficult, selfish and even downright criminals (thieves etc), that it has caused us to lose faith in humanity somewhat, and I never feel very safe and trusting of whoever is here anymore after so many negative experiences. I donāt know if it is to do with where we live in particular that we have a high amount of entitled type guests. We definitely get many young NYers that have expensive degrees from NYU and live in Manhattan while working in trendy ācreativeā jobs that seem to think everything is a playground and we are some kind of butler service in their fantasy historic home for the weekend.
Anyway. Enough about that. Thanks for reminding me that there are other options, and I just need to think of what I might be able to do that would not make me so unhappy. Certainly being in the service industry is not my strong suit 
I wish you the very best with your future guests. The camper sounds like a fantastic idea! You are obviously completely different to us personality wise, given that you like to socialize with your guests, mind you - we have had a studio in our home and had bands staying here for 15 years, and have always socialized and shared meals, kitchen and everything for so long that perhaps it is that the glow has well worn off of this lifestyle for us, more than that we are just grizzled and unsociable. But the separation of guests and privacy would make for a much better experience, especially as time goes on you might find, and the less than positive experiences begin to weigh on you. Lots of people love the more unique types of places. Sounds like a lot of fun.
Imo, oddly enough in Hawaii, we donāt have any āscentā to our sea such as you get in California or other regions. I think itās because we are too warm for kelp or other salty plant matter that routinely washes up on beaches. The Big Island especially does not have any sloping shoreline. Our islands are surrounded by deep drop offs that within, say five miles of our beach, pictured above, drop off into depths exceeding 7000 feet. It gets super deep super fast!
On the Big Island we are not so built up as Oahu and Maui. Last time I was on Maui I was shocked at how overbuilt it was. And of course Oahu is the Big City in Hawaii. Itās one reason so many visitors like the Big Island. Itās still full of adventure and wide open spaces. Plus we have an active volcano!
Wow kona! What a breath taking view! Some people are miserable idiots no matter what you do 
. I have a theory that I get mostly really great guests because of my dogs. I REALLY stress the āmust love dogsā point on my profile. Dog lovers are just nicer people 
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Stephanie, Agree about the dogsā¦ May I now share my pupās photo? Would love to see yours. 
I often wonder if doing Air has made me much more grumpy. My own sons even say, āMama, you donāt like the guests much, do you?ā Hahaha. Noā¦ They are OK. I love their money, but most of the time I hope for them to leave the house and count the days until they check out!
But yetā¦ I get my highest praise for being a wonderful, helpful and gracious host, LOL. The guests are none the wiser about my real feelings that it is a take the money and run business for me. I have enough reviews (all positive, 4.5 stars total) and I donāt need any more.
As cheap as I am, and what I offer for the money, they should be HAPPY! Some are, some are not. Thatās the business. I donāt want to be a Superhost (too many expectations)ā¦ but I do just wanna be a budget place by the beach. If they are looking for granite and travertine, none is found here. Move along.
Sandy, you are too nice to these ungrateful slobs. They should bring their own damned yoga mats! They donāt appreciate what they are getting in the leastā¦ they certainly donāt deserve fine linens.
OH!! Look what I received this morning!
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Believe it or not, she had simply helped herself to our yoga mat because she had seen it in the home already, and on the morning she met my husband (in a loose see through singlet that hung down to her belly button), she suddenly bent over to touch her toes after a brief good morning to give him an eyeful of what she had on offer, and asked if the yoga mat was his and if she could borrow it. She stalked him the whole week, positioning herself in the only place on one particular sofa if she knew she was in the kitchen where she could peer in, and made herself as ubiquitous as humanly possible. Regarding my linens, you are probably right, but I do love fine linens, and love to share them with guests that appreciate these things too. Unforunately many do not.
Her outdoor yoga (on my white handwoven towels, not the mat for only reasons she knows), was performed in a bikini (thank god, because I am sure she would have preferred to be naked for the maximum attention), in the only area around the pool where she was visible to all our neighbors. Everywhere else in our yard is totally private. It was very draining having someone in need of so much attention, and the entitlement that she could treat our home and things however she pleased and take what ever she wanted as if we were long time friends, not a host and guest that had never met was alarming. She had no idea of boundaries at all. She also made a huge coffee stain on a designer cushion in her room. No apology, nothing, although she did try to rub it with something and pilled up the fabric nicely 
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thatās my two bullies kona. i have a brazilian mastiff too but heās camera shy. i rarely get good pictures of him.
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OMG. sheās not a princess is she?
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