Can and will are two different things. Never heard of them doing this for a host. But I am sure there is always a first time @Narmer.
How did your guest respond to your informing here that there were no bugs at your place BTW?
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Helsi, If you don’t hear back from me regarding Air turning off the reviews, then you know they followed through on their promise. It was explained that the block will work both ways, neither one of us can leave a review. My gut tells me its related to the prevalence of bite scamming on the platform. I expressed my concern about receiving a negative review in this specific circumstance and the Case Manager offered to block reviews for this booking.
I followed through and uploaded the clearance letter from the exterminator and accompanied it with a note thanking the Case Manager for the support and willingness to block the reviews.
By the way, I didn’t pay the hotel charge or her cleaning. I did give her credit for last night, the night she didn’t stay in my place. So she paid for 4 of the 5 nights. She did say that she has been “paranoid all day and has bites all over her legs.”
I’m moving on…
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An exterminator can use a less toxic product that has a hormone that won’t allow fleas to mature past the larval stage and is quite long lasting and had excellent results for us years ago before hosting.
Using the exterminator will provide a paper trail to show Airbnb too. Bedbugs are my fear as a host.
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They say we have a bed bug epidemic here. I live here, and the protocol for bed b itugs also works well on spiders, mosquitos, etc. PM me if you want the sordid details!
Airbnb can turn off a review for you in special circumstances?
Sounds like you did the right thing getting the exterminator and airbnb first. Once you get your documentation from the exterminator as you are, work through there. If there is no proof there was bugs which you mentioned, I don’t think it would be right for you to refund her anything at all. As mentioned, it could have been from anywhere, and an assumption from her it was your place. You proven it was not your place by a hired exterminator. It is entirely up to the case manager or yourself if you want to refund but sounds like you really should not be refunding with your proof. It is hard to tell if she also is doing so to get money out of this. Good luck and let us know what happens in the end.
As she made a false accusation perhaps she should pay for the pest assessment!
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I had the same situation as you. A year of fantastic reviews from all guests and then a guest who demanded a refund after staying a whole week. He was a problem from the beginning - many requests for accommodations, frequent late night guests and left the place a mess. However he complained to AirBnB about the intolerance of the host and said it was abusive for his frequent overnight visitor (a 6 year old granddaughter) to be quiet in the late evening. No overnight children was a specification in the listing but he thought that was unfair and unreasonable. He complained about the lack of an in suite washer and dryer (It was in the garage next to his suite; specified in the listing). Stayed 8 days, left the place messy and still demanded a refund. Airbnb suggested I should refund him to keep him happy. I said I do not reward bad behavior.
I think there is a trend happening…Airbnb guests looking for reasons to claim a refund. I have decided to close my AirBnB account.
Just curious…what was the ratio of good guests to bad guests? Reading your post it looks like a “fantastic year” then one bad guest. So I’m guessing 20 fantastic guests? To one bad guest? And now you’re quitting?
Surely I’ve misinterpreted something.
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Dear Moderator. The problem is not having one bad review from a guest. The problem is guests who break the house rules and then find a way to attack the host. Even that is not the key problem. The real problem was the response of AirBnB, when presented with the evidence of the guests bad behaviors. I was so surprised by AirBnB’s suggestion that i should refund this guest for the whole week - just to be nice to the guest.
So I did a lot of research through all the chat lines. It seems the incidences of guests trying to do ‘refund scams’ is increasing and AirBnB’s response has mostly been to ‘throw the host under the bus’. Yes I do believe that guests can have legitimate complaints but increasingly now I am hearing of scammers - guests who behave badly but stay for extended periods. Then once they leave they make up false stories in order to demand a refund. Hosts get caught unawares.
This is a great risk for me. What if a guest goes so far as to hurt themselves due to their own negligence and then go after the host for refunds and damages. I don’t carry that kind of insurance and I don’t trust AirBnB to stand up for me.
So I didn’t misunderstand. One bad experience is one too many for some folks.
I’m not too sure what this is? If you read forums like this and reddit I hope you understand that isn’t research. What you find on sites like this are anecdotes, not data.
I also hope you understand that these anecedotes are very much “self-selected” not random samples and are therefore quite skewed towards problems. People with problems search out places to vent. People who were satisfied with Airbnb’s response did not.
If you go out looking for problems you will probably find them.
So the bottom line is that you have a low risk tolerance. You had one bad guest, Airbnb didn’t support you and that’s it for you.
Thanks for sharing your anecdote.
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Wrowe’s story to me illustrates a fundamental issue in this industry. Risk bears a cost. In the past, owners and hosts minimized their risk by vetting their guests, and managing their own refunds and damage deposits. Prices were low since most owners/hosts were comfortable that they weren’t taking a lot of risk.
Today, AirBnB (and other platforms) have pushed a huge amount of risk on the owner/host - but are trying to push prices down! The more risk you bear, the HIGHER the price should be.
Sooner or later this is going to break. Probably not in the next five years, but as they push us to be more like hotels, we’ll have to raise prices or go out of business. I’m hoping for raised prices, but fear there will be a lot that just fold up and stop, like wrowe.
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Try steaming furniture and mattress at lease once every two months.
We use plastic mattress protectors and pillow protectors.
Then use MATTRESS PADS ONTOP OF PLASTIC PROTECTOR.
• two pillow cases
• you can also use a hand steamer over furniture and matttress.
Good Luck.
I wonder how hotels and service apartment operators deal with such scammers, and whether it’s possible to take a page out of their guest management policies. If there’s someone from the industry, appreciate your sharing!
I’m with you on that… air do push a lot of risk on the owner. One of the biggest risks being that hosts can’t mandate or execute policy the way hotels do. Air does that, and they do it with the bias of whatever they think will help their business… not yours. That conflict of interest, coupled with the fact that we are individuals make hosts easy targets for fraudsters.
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Interesting that air are willing to turn off reviews if pests are reported… now i know what to do when I suspect a bad review is on the way. 
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That doesn’t mean we can’t use hotels’ experience as a guide to protect ourselves. Airbnb doesn’t exist in a vacuum outside of the law.
You are right, we can use hotel policy as a guide, we just can’t expect anyone to follow it.
Let’s say for example you had a “no parties” house rule and allowed a maximum of 4 guests. But your Airbnb guests held an all night prom party and trashed your place costing you $1000 in damages and the ire if your tenants and neighbours. You escalated to Air, providing receipts, photos and written reports from your property manager, neighbors and tenants but Air decided the guests didn’t have to pay any damages.
You would be right that air do not exist outside of the law in a vacuum because there is always small claims court (right?). In an academic sense small claims is the road to Justice but not in a practical sense (the reasons for which is a long-winded essay that doesn’t belong here).
When that prom party actually happened to me, practically speaking, Air did exist outside of the law in a vacuum and there was no real process for seeking the damages that I paid out of pocket.
I guess the point of examining hotel policies and processes is more of seeking insights on best practices. It may or may not be useful in an Airbnb context, but we won’t know until someone comes forward w that industry knowledge. It doesn’t even have to be a major hotel chain, I’m sure small operators also regularly deal with such scammers and have worked out a best practice.
Airbnb doesn’t exist outside of the law in a vacuum, the terms and conditions you signed relinquishing your rights when you agreed to host on its platform is upheld by local laws. The fact that there is no perceived fair and due process to claim damages from Airbnb is also part of the T&C’s you signed. You can always challenge the legality of its T&C’s or its policies, there’s just little to gain from it other than a potential moral victory. I knew this when I signed up to host, which is why the first thing I did was to purchase STR insurance.
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