First bad guests... Hurray!

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Well we just had our first awkward experience. This Peruvian lady, supposedly living in the USA, put in a reservation request for her and her Peruvian boyfriend from Friday March 10th to Sunday March 12th. She said her airplane landed at “12:40” and that she would be in the apartment at “2AM”, and if this was ok for us? OK, we are flexible, not a problem. (I can’t tell people: Stay in a hotel the first night and check in between 3PM and 4PM. It’s not an option.)

On Thursday my hubby asked me when the Peruvian couple was checking in. I said don’t worry, there checking in tomorrow (Friday) after midnight, as in “She reserved from Friday and will arrive Saturday morning 2AM”.

Well suddenly they were knocking on the door at 2AM Friday morning :scream:. My hubby, my mother-in-law, and my sister-in-law obviously all asleep and not expecting anyone.
I am not in Peru at the moment and my hubby didn’t know what to do so he let them in. Luckily the room was ready and available.

I am still educating my hubby :blush: with all the things I learn on this forum :relaxed:. I know sometimes I over-discuss things, but to be honest I do really appreciate this forum and all the people on it. A big thank you to everyone for all the small and big wisdom shared ! :kissing_heart:

  • The girls bags didn’t have any flight label on them.
  • The guy appears to be a bit low class scum (Sorry I can’t think of the politically correct words, but you know what I mean).
  • They also brought another girl with them, who my hubby let into the living room :angry:. She wasn’t going to stay but she just came along for the moment :rage:. This is against our house rules.
  • They demanded a key, because they were going to a discotheque. Obviously we never ever give keys to guests, and most certainly not to this kind of guests.
  • They arrived back at the apartment at 5AM. Took a shower together, talking loudly for anyone to hear. Also against our house rules (quiet hours).
  • The guy asked my hubby if he had any liquor. The city doesn’t allow shops selling liquor after 11PM. And luckily my hubby said that we don’t have anything in the house.

Needless to say that we feel very uncomfortable with these guests.

What can/could we do?

  • In my European morning I sent them a change of reservation. I couldn’t include the day before, but I put a higher price on the two nights she did reserve.
  • I sent her a message through AirBnB telling her that there was a mixup and that she had to pay for an extra night.
  • I also reminded her of all our house rules and told her that she needs to comply.
  • I called AirBnB to explain what had happened. Also telling them that it’s a strange situation, that we don’t feel comfortable with them, that for the moment they can still stay, but that i wanted AirBnB to be aware of things that already happened, just in case things escalate.
  • I tried to explain to the helpdesk woman that I can’t change the checkin date to the day before, and that by consequence we are without AirBnB insurance for the first day. This woman didn’t seem to understand this problem, and just said not to worry :confused:. She was going to call our guest and explain everything and tell her to accept the change of reservation.

Today the guest did accept the change of reservation (+50% on the total price for the extra night) without arguing. She has been talking to my hubby, and he has calmed down a bit. But to be honest, I am still feeling quiet uncomfortable having them in our home with my family and I have told everyone to put away any valuables that we might leave hanging around with normal guests. It’s a strange situation and I simply don’t trust them.

I will be glad to have them out on Sunday and I won’t ever have them again. I am already expecting their bad review, and I am surely already preparing my spiced review for them.
OK, this kind of %#@? is NOT :rage::triumph: why we went into hospitality.

So any recommendations? What did we do wrong? How can we prevent this in the future? Should we have taken other measures? Should we still take other measures?
What is the best way to deal with this kind of thing?
Please feel free to give your opinion about any aspect you want.
Thank you all !

Oh yes, just a few days ago we suffered another 3 star review from another “national” guest who didn’t like the street noise. She knows the city and knew about our location. We are the cheapest deal around and for the price we offer great quality, albeit with a bit of noise. Cut us some slack %^#@/€ guests! Being a bit realistic about price and what you should get for it would be nice. :cry:

On the bright side: We may have found a better apartment in a better location to rent. My hubby is going to have a look tomorrow. If everything goes as planned and we move there, we will be able to raise our prices and we won’t have to worry about this kind of clientele anymore. :slight_smile:

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I always double check what they mean when they say early AM. Do you mean Friday 2am or Saturday 2am? Because Friday 2am means Thursday evening late check-in. People are clue-less. As soon as I saw your: [quote=“GutHend, post:1, topic:12459”]
Friday March 10th to Sunday March 12th. She said her airplane landed at “12:40” and that she would be in the apartment at “2AM”
[/quote] I knew exactly where this was going and that they would show up a day before you expected. Some people even charge more than the extra day for the inconvenience of a late arrival!

Good job contacting Air already. In the Air message system copy and paste your house rules as a reminder that they agreed to these rules when booking. And any further violations, call Air and have them removed.

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Well, I clearly was very naive :joy: in thinking that people won’t expect to arrive at 2AM and not pay for that night. But it’s a lesson learned, in the future I will double check.

And I did copy+paste all our house rules when messaging her. Because it was already quiet clear to me that she never ever read them.

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You’ll find most of the horror stories here are from guests who don’t read or who are cheap or don’t understand that if you arrive before daylight, it’s considered the night before. You know, common sense stuff. The worst guests are looking for the cheapest place possible while bleeding as much from the host as possible. You get better guests when you raise your prices above a certain point in your market. You want to avoid the cheap, annoying people that don’t care.

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We had something similar, but were lucky to clarify what day the 2am fell on. When we realized it was 12 hours before our normal check-in, and also requested a late check-out, we said they needed to book the extra day. It turned off that guest.

We have instant book on our listing. They need to be recommended by a host and verified identity. We have rejected people who we don’t get a good “vibe” like no identifiable profile photo.

I think the best your family can do is just keep their guard up, provide great hospitality, and politely remind them of the house rules. You’ve already contacted AirBNB so keep that communication line open. These guests may need to be gently “educated” about how AirBNB works - and that this is someone’s home.

Besides being a bit rough, they don’t sound like the worst guests. She accepted the increased fee without question, and it doesn’t sound like they’ve stolen or broken anything. Unless something terrible goes on, I would just leave a factual review and then give some honest private feedback.

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Similar has happened to me but I caught it at the point of booking. When I explained that a paying guest would be asleep in the bed at that time (not exactly true but I wanted to make a point) they got the message and decided to book elsewhere. I’m not sure if they found a host naive enough to give them a night for free.

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Now that the girl has been speaking with your husband…what is her story? Is she really not a Peruvian living in the U.S.?

How far in advance did they book? What are they doing in your country? Are they on vacation?

Do you think they are on the run using Airbnbs with stolen credit cards?

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Honestly I wouldn’t have agreed to a 2 am check in. That’s insane. I would politely recommend they book a hotel instead of home sharing. We don’t have 24-hour front desks like hotels.

Asking hubby if you have liquor in the house? Lol. That’s one I haven’t countered. Though I did have a couple of gals when I first started hosting who helped themselves to my beer without asking. People are amazing.

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This is what she has told my hubby so far…
She is living in the USA, and she is having a long distance relationship with this guy from one of the lesser neighborhoods in the city. His family is really conservative, so they can’t stay with his family. So she came over from the States to be with him for 3 days.

So she didn’t have any label on her suitcase. She can fly al the way south for 3 days but can’t pay an extra 25 dollars for an extra night.
Once in a while I get into a paranoia state of mind, so I might be totally wrong, but I have the feeling that she didn’t come from the States at all. If I were there I would start speaking English to her to see how she would cope. And my main fear is that they came over to get a key to the apartment, to make a copy and to return in a few weeks, to empty our apartment. This is the vibe I am getting.

Apparently, while I was asleep, she has been discussing some more about the fact that we don’t hand over any keys to the apartment. And also complaining about other things. But I will have that full story from my man in a few hours.

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I understand your point of view, but being strict on check-in and check-out would rule out a very large portion of our clientele. Flights arrive late in the evening and early in the morning. Buses arrive very early. Maybe in the future when we are an established business we can become picky about these things, but not for the moment.
And to be honest, if people behave well and are just nice good people, we don’t mind getting up at night to check them in :slight_smile:.

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I flew to Sydney from London for 3 days for my friend’s wedding; and another 3 days from Bath to Perth for my SIL’s wedding.

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There’s nothing wrong with anyone flying to the other side of the world for 3 days. But I guess you didn’t try to play your host to save 25 USD :relaxed:? Or did you :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:? No I can’t imagine :wink:.

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Any idea (let’s say this is the plan) why they would target your property over other listings? You would think a robber would target a whole home listing. It sounds like you have a lot of people living in your home full time. Does someone always need to be home to let the guests in? Are there always two people at home in case one person is in the shower and the guest is trying to get in?

If you really have a terrible feeling about them - I would call Air and ask them how much info you will be given if the guest does rob you. Are they just going to say that is “confidential” information? How would you try to press charges? Would Air give the ID information to the police? Is this guest even verified?

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Yeah…I’m not buying the whole long distance relationship thing. Fly all the way from the U.S. to Argentina…just to visit some low life?

What city does she live in? What’s the story of how she met this guy and is now in a long distance relationship? What are her future plans? Is she going to move to Argentina to be with her lover?

Have you googled her to see what you could find?

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Why they would target our home? Well first of all there’s a foreigner living in it. Foreigner to lots of people equals money. We haven’t been hosting very long so maybe they could think that we are an easier target. Since I don’t have one, I don’t know how a criminal mind works :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:, so I really don’t know.
I do know crazy things happen in this country and that Peruvians are sometimes even too paranoia to give their name and their phone number to someone. This because of stories that would take me too far :wink:.

In our place, when we have one guest room occupied we can be with 1 - 5 family members at the same time. This is because of family working in the provinces, studying abroad, having another house in the mountains, and them coming over to Lima once in a while.
We try to make arrangements with guests, so that there is always someone home to let them in, or so that we are 5 minutes away to let them in. The problem with handing in keys is that anyone can copy them. We also have two locks, so if a guest forgets to hand in the key, we would have to change two locks. The only time we handed a key to a longer staying guest, who we deem totally trustworthy, she forgot to hand in the key. It wasn’t the end of the world but it did make me think about the key thing and made me decide to never ever hand over keys again. Once we get our own apartment I would probably invest in a magnetic card system, to solve this problem.

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I like to be flexible too, but 2 am is ridiculous. That’s the middle of the night. And, I have a day job. This Air thing is not my livelihood. SO, there are limits to how far I’ll go to be accommodating. I would never DREAM of showing up to someone’s home at 2 am. I would book a hotel with 24-hour check in if I landed somewhere at midnight (well…I have enough sense not to book a flight that lands somewhere at midnight anyway, but if I did get into that situation for some odd reason…well, you get the idea).

Amazing to me how some of my guests ask about late check out, etc., because ‘poor me, my flight doesn’t leave until 1 a.m. What am i going to do?’ Hmmm…seems like you booked a a flight that was in less demand to save a few bucks and are not acting like a victim of circumstance. Did your travel agent hold a gun to your head? Sigh.

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We are in Peru, Lima :wink:.

I tried googling her and her boyfriend but nothing showed up that I could relate back to her.
As for their personal life, my hubby hasn’t put them in front of the inquisition yet :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:. But I do understand your point of trying to get a measure of things :relaxed:.

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Lol. Well that explains the Peruvian boyfriend then! I am getting you confused with someone who said they were hosting in Buenos Aires. I thought it was you!

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LOL. Buenos Aires, that would have spiced up the story even more :smile:.

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Haha, the common sense of it all!