In hindsight I should have handled this better, but here’s what happened:
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The guest same-day instant-booked at 7pm for one night with four people. He didn’t say anything about why he booked or who he was with. No picture either.
Going forward, I’ve added check-in questions to Instant Book. -
We didn’t greet him (we live in the top unit and Airbnb the bottom unit).
Going forward, we will purposely greet people if their IB answers aren’t sufficient. -
At 2am, we awoke to hear loud music. We went downstairs to find 20+ people partying with their own industrial-grade speaker. The unit reeked of tobacco and pot smoke.
Going forward, we will re-iterate the smoking, noise, and parties policy in our greeting message. -
We asked them to turn down the noise, limit the number of people to 6, and limit smoking to outside the house. They apologized and agreed.
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Prior to that we called the police. When the police arrived, we told them everything was fine per our conversation with the guests. Rather than kick them out we gave them the benefit of the doubt. Besides that it was freezing outside (5 degrees F).
Going forward we won’t be so lenient. -
The next morning we smelled additional smoke. It reeked as it travels upstairs to our unit through the vents. We asked them again (9am) to stop and asked them to leave ASAP.
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When we inspected the place after check-out we itemized over $2,000 in damages. Cigarette burns on the sofa, carpet, and daybed. A broken chair. A missing TV remote. Vomit on the floor. Ashes everywhere. Two stained walls. Damaged coffee table. Smell everywhere.