If you receive an inquiry and block the guest without responding first, does that affect the response rate? You can’t respond after because its a two way block. I’m just wondering if I should respond then block or just block. I know what to do if its a booking request but this is an inquiry.
Respond, then block is what I would do. No idea of how they would look at a non response after a block.
JF
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Yeah I have to report the individual message that and then select they’re being abusive or hostile and then enter a reason. After that I can block them. Its necessary sometimes if a guest has been declined for sending a reservation request that violates Airbnb ToS and repeatedly sends the same reservation request over and over again. I’ve experienced some people being really hostile and abusive even stalking too. I don’t want to go into it too much but I’m sure anyone who’s hosted more than 100 nights has probably had something like that.
Luckily I haven’t experienced anything like that.
Me either…
I haven’t either and I’ve hosted many, many, many more nights than that! 
I have never had to block anyone, and up until now I have always accepted everyone so I would never have had the need to block someone prior to booking. Thanks @Mexican for the info.
RR
If you are flagging a message, you do not have to respond to it first. Flagging the message is its own response. Sometimes a flag turns into an actual block, sometimes it doesn’t, but it doesn’t matter. Don’t respond to an inappropriate message.
This is the same whether it’s an inappropriate message from a potential guest or if it’s just a regular scam message (“I want to rent your place, but not stay there…”).
I’ve probably hosted 1000 nights/800 guests and I haven’t experienced that. I haven’t had hostile or stalking guests. I have had a couple who I blocked preemptively after one request. Maybe I just didn’t give them a chance to become jerks.
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Wow, I’ve received a handful of inappropriate inquiries (i.e. requests to violate Airbnb terms of service), but after responding and pointing out what’s inappropriate, not one guest even responded again.
Makes me wonder what causes some hosts to get more than their fair share of certain types of guests. It’s got to be a combination of things. Kinda like Airbnb finally figuring out that young guest+local guest+no reviews+whole place+short notice = high risk.
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I wonder Brian, and this is only a theory, that all hosts get dodgy messages (like the ones to violate the TOS) but some just forget about them. I know that I do, my memory is dreadful. 
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Well, I’ve gotten a couple of dodgy messages over the course of over 3 years of hosting- a couple that asked me to call them (in an Inquiry message) because they “have some questions”. Of course they are just trying to get me to book off-platform. I just wrote back to say that I’d be happy to answer any questions they had, via the Airbnb messaging, that weren’t answered by reading the listing description, and never heard back from them, no surprise.
Then, the week before Semana Santa one year I got a message from someone I was pretty sure I knew, who’s a local who rents out houses and then, without the owners’ knowledge or permission, turns around and lists them on Airbnb. It was obvious from his message that he was trying to do the same with me. So another short message back and never heard from him again.
But none of those messages were aggressive or hostile or persistent or stalking.
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Or just ignore them. Blocking seems like more work than I am willing to put in! I have hit the report button for obvious spammers though
RR
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