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Here’s the dilemma: in my listing description I said: short stays only, a place to put your head down at night and light travelers with a duffel bag oly.
This guest booked me for 7 nights (long stay), sits around the house with no job and no car and showed up with 3 huge suitcases.
I was appalled but he booked me instantly so I had no saying. Had he inquired I would have said NO. Called customer service and they basically said: meh… it’s questionable. You cant ask the dude to go because you didn’t specify the exact number of nights, duffel bag can be army size duffel bag and you can’t enforce how your guests are spending their time.
Yet this guy is exactly the kind of guest I did NOT want and tried to protect myself against. Mind you this is my office with a sofa bed. When you extend the bed there’s no room left and I dont want his luggage to be left all over the home or he hanging out with me because he is bored for having nothing to do all day and not having enough room in the my office. I’m busy, and don’t have time to socialize beyond polite exchanges. Yet, he disregards my requests in the listing and books me telling it’s OK it’s a small room. He tells me that he lived in a van for the past i don’t know how many months.
It might be OK for him but not for me. I put those requests there for a reason. I want him to be comfortable but I want ME to be comfortable too. I am not comfortable with 7 days trip in the house I live in. I only want short trips. Guests take a lot of energy from me because I kind of tip toe around them. You never know what would tick them off and give you a bad review. Perhaps a stink bug or the smell of something you cook? Or the tv too loud? Honestly when I have guests I try to stay at home as little as possible, just go shopping, to the gym, meet with friends, everything but not stay at home, cuz you never know… Therefore I need time to recover at least 2 days between guests. 7 days it’s a lot to me. 3-5 days are the best. yet this guy disregards what I requested in my listing. I turned the instant booking off because of this guy.
Yet if I called CS and ask what are my rights I’m told it’s a gray area. Anyone else had their requests in the description not taken in consideration by guests?
Go to Availability Settings. Set your maximum stay to 5 days. Set your preparation time to either “block 1 night before and after each reservation” or “block 2 nights before and after each reservation”. In the mean time suck it up until this guest checks out. He did nothing wrong.
If you put your extra requirements into the “rules” instead of the description, people might read it. They are “required” to accept all rules before booking.
–maximum 5 nights
–small duffel bag or carry-on suitcase only due to space restrictions
–Sofa bed is in my office. I use my office from 10-4 daily - guest must vacate during those times. Please discuss any time requests before booking to see if we can arrange a compatible schedule.
Also if you put those things in the rules or settings Airbnb struggle to say meh to hosts and are more inclined to help enforce boundaries.
However a bit tricky to enforce the guest out in the day thing. I was told bookings are for 24 hours. In my case their bedroom and shower room are 24 hours and the kitchen diner has set times for guests.
If you have a check in time of 4pm and a check out time of 10am, this is not 24 hours at all. Who told you this? Plus, many hosts limit showering hours as well due to noise, so that doesn’t really apply either.
That’s silly, of course if it’s a one night booking obviously the check in and check out times determine the number of hours they stay. Under normal circumstances Airbnb has told me that between check in and check out the guest has access to their booking at all times and can’t be made to be out at certain times. However access to kitchens and living rooms can be time limited.
Yep I have a no showering after 11pm rule because of the noise (quiet time), but you couldn’t stop a guest if they needed to use the toilet or basin could you?
To add to this if a guest rents from Monday to Friday, that’s from Monday check in time until Friday check out time but the accommodation is available to the guest for that entire period. If it’s a room in a house with shared bathroom/kitchen then this means their room as most hosts cannot guarantee 24 hour access to facilities other than the room.
This is why I am currently not going into our rental until 11 am this morning. I’m pretty sure that the guests have checked out because their car has gone and I heard their door at 6 this morning. (It was raining so they were unlikely to be going to sit on the dock or for a walk). But unless I actually see guests leave, or they tell me that they’ll be leaving at x time then I don’t go into the rental until their paid time is up.
I once saw a couple leave - it was about 9.30 am and my check out time is 11. They had their suitcase with them which they put in the car and drove off. So I went into the rental and it was a complete mess, I was horrified. Then I noticed that there were lots of their belongings in the bedroom. It turned out that they’d gone to breakfast, then returned and cleaned up the place and it was immaculate. They never realised that I’d been in.
Not beyond the realms of possibility! I often have guests who go out for breakfast on their last day, or shopping or for a last swim in the ocean (I often find so much sand in the bathtub). A few weeks ago, the guests’ last morning was spent at the gym and it seems that they didn’t shower there but came back to ‘their apartment’ to do so.
What steps have you taken to ensure this? Just the description?
Speaking of not reading, have you not read all the posts on this forum where the number one complaint about guests is that they don’t read?
And you clearly are not prepared to be an Airbnb host. You aren’t familiar with the website, settings, or terms of service.
Not just in the description but everywhere else. They disregard my “house rules” about where to park. I’ve asked direct questions that get no answer. Just last night a guest arrived with his female friend in tow. He booked for one but in his booking message he said “we.” I immediately wrote back asking if there was two or one in his party because there is a second person charge. He didn’t reply and that was several days ago. I sent a check in message and he didn’t reply to that either. Now that I’ve confirmed there were two I have to send the change request via the resolution center. He’ll probably ignore it and then I escalate and wait another two days for my $5. It’s not even worth the trouble but I do it on the principle of the matter.
Once a couple went out and I popped in immediately and started stripping the bed. The guy came back in and scared the daylights out of both of us. He just wanted to use the bathroom one last time. So I backed out and shut the door. Now I wait until the car pulls out of the driveway. Sometimes they sit in the driveway a LONG time. Several times they exit the room at 11 am and are in the driveway another 20-30 minutes. I think they are using the wireless in their car. If it’s after 11 then I go in the room whether they’ve left or not. And like you if I’m home I go in right away and look for anything left behind so I can message them about it.
I send guests reminder checkout instructions the night before which ask to message me when they leave. I’d say about 90% do (another 5% message later apologizing for forgetting). Oftentimes I get a response to the reminder telling me what time they’ll be leaving. Then I can let my cleaner know if they’re leaving early.
I’ve had this same thing happen several times lately when it never used to be a problem. For us, two guests are the same price as one so it’s not people trying to save money. But I still need to plan for how many guests are coming. I think maybe ABB must have changed something that makes it less the number of guests less obvious when booking.
I had a pair of guests telling me they would be going to breakfast, putting everything in their car, but re-entering one more time just before 11 to use the bathroom. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I really hated that. Maybe it was the way the woman “told” me what they were going to do. (in a private room listing, not entire unit). Vs. asking would it be OK.
Be here, or be gone … not something in between, I suppose is my attitude.
