Yes, lack of English fluency.
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The alternative for me was that Lisa the liar check in today stayed with her alleged covid and I get a shitty review.
I hope you do not host her either.
RR
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If I get any Lisaâs from CA with over 55 reviews my spidey senses will tingle.
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From Joshua Tree CaâŚ
RR
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To be fair, it is not about English, it is only in that âLisaâ is an Western name so may not be familiar in other countries and therefore the gender is not obvious.
In many languages, if the gender is unknown then the rule is that you use the masculine pronoun. Actually, now that I think about it, we do that in English too. Or at least we used to, back when there were postmen instead of postal workers.
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I donât think itâs incompetency, itâs pandering to guests at the hostsâ expense. Itâs deliberate. Iâm sure a part of their CS manual says something to the effect of âAppease the guestsâ.
I would have asked Mohammed, "So which is it- she has Covid and is being offered a refund in clear violation of Airbnbâs refund policy, or she lied about having Covid to try to get a refund? And is now lying to you saying she doesnât have Covid, when there is documentation in her messages saying she does?
And in either case, why are you trying to reward a guest for lying, Mohammed? Is this the type of guest Airbnb thinks is good for the platform, a guest who lies to hosts or CS in order to get what she wants? "
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I could write a pretty long essay about that sort of thing.
But I would have thought that if someone didnât know the gender of the person, they would use âtheyâ?
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They are the royal pain in the ass. Nothing ever gets solved in one or two emails, it goes on and on.
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Well, it seems grammar is much more flexible than our composition teachers let on. 
I started elementary school in the late 70s and was taught âtheyâ as a plural pronoun and points wouldâve been deducted from my score if Iâd used it as a singular pronoun in the way we use it now.
I was also just in time for the whole âhe/sheâ and âhe or sheâ thing (itâs sooo awkward). It was understood to be fairly recent and very contemporary. âHeâ or âhisâ (not âtheyâ) had been the default pronoun for so long and was still very common in the books we read (and also in Mrs. Strickland who was very very old and didnât approve, lol).
I recently read an article that said that âheâ became the default pronoun in the 1700s but that the singular âtheyâ was the default pronoun for centuries prior. So, itâs merely returned! I find it interesting that weâve gone so quickly from âhe/sheâ which is extra gender-specific to the gender-neutral singular âtheyâ. But I wouldnât get into with the French 
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Where I come from we manage to avoid most of the fuss about grammar by just using âyâallâ for all of the pronouns all of the time. Itâs really quite convenient, I highly recommend it:
âYâallâ is particularly flexible as it can be used as either a singular or a plural pronoun. It doesnât have anything to do with the number of people youâre talking about it so no need to worry about that kind of detail. Just toss it into your sentences as you please. Pro-tip: Use it after every word or every other word if youâre trying to get someone (or a group of someones) to hurry up and do something.
And then thereâs âall yâallâ which is typically used as a plural pronoun. However, as you can tell, there are no hard and fast rules and there are exceptions where it is appropriate to use âall yâallâ as a singular pronoun, like if youâre very very angry or very very sad. Pro tip: It is particularly effective when yelled across a very large parking lot. 
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I really wish those whose preferred pronoun is âtheyâ would have come up with a completely new pronoun, rather than turning a plural pronoun into a singular.
Like the title âMs.â It sounded strange at first, but everyone pretty quickly got used to it.
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In my 7th grade class, we had a grammar freak for a teacher, Ms. Wells. I canât tell you how many sentences we had to diagramâŚI always think about her when I see people murdering the rules because she might have been a tiny thing but everyone was afraid of her. But we also loved her.
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@Atlnative - LOL⌠I had to look up PITA⌠I got it now 
BTW - You can block the guest, if they are still bothering you.
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Definitely not the jerk. If she got covid, that sucks, but why should you be on the hook for it?
I had something similar happen a few weeks ago. I had someone who claimed there was a death in the family 4 days before the booking. She wanted a full refund instead of the 50% refund she wouldâve been entitled to. I told her i couldnât do that because i wouldnât be able to rebook it with such short notice and that was the cancellation policy that was agreed to. I didnât think i should be on the hook for the full amount either. She also needed to know asap so she could decide what to do. So, it seemed the death wasnât so important that she couldnât still make the trip though, which is where i got suspicious.
She wound up still coming for one night and left the next day. Didnât follow any of the house rules upon leaving. She left the place in complete disarray. My cleaner said it was the messiest she had ever seen the place. She did drink the 4 pack of beer I left her(not faulting her, i wouldâve too). But the reason I mention it is because she messaged a couple days later wanting to let me know she had a very negative experience and wanted to âtalk about itâ instead of leaving a review. I gritted my teeth and politely said i was willing to hear her feedback, but that I was quite surprised because literally every person weâve had before her, and the one after( we had another booking right after), had nothing but extreme praise, and gave us 5 stars. I never heard from her again.
Long story short, I think people use sad stories to try and get refunds when the cancellation policy has passed.
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Really ticks me off that you will be unable to rate her at the end of all this. I wonder how many people like this are running around booking sites and us hosts have no idea.
Maybe we need to come up with our own STR review app outside of the sites. Give as much of the personal information as we can so we can check an unbiased sources for reviews before letting people stay. how hard is it for someone to keep making new accounts whenever they use all the online scam tricks to screw us out of money.
People comment from time to time about having a private blacklist here of âbad guests.â But I donât think people really think things through on this issue. I have hosted over 1000 stays and have only 2 or 3 guests worth taking my time to warn other hosts about. The chance of you hosting the guest Iâd warned you about is minuscule.
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Even after allowing a change in her reservation it did not meet the 14 day suggested window of clearance regarding Covid. I would simply wish her well and let her know that in consideration of future guests and their health you must maintain the covid 14 day protocol. Since you have been informed of her illness as a host you either protect your guests or close for the 14 days. Not sure how anyone could prove where they got covid but to me itâs not worth the risk.
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Payout completed, money is in the bank:)
RR
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An awful idea @Joshwexler - would open hosts up to libel cases and guests up to unscrupulous hosts posting lies about them.
If you want to warn your fellow hosts just leave an honest review.
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Wow, talk about not thinking something through. Time and again, people on this forum have proposed a secret list or a private record of âbad guestsâ. Sharing information for this purpose is a quick Road to a gigantic lawsuit. Not only the owners of this forum, but all involved in the group, will all pay the price when a guest finds out they are âblacklistedâ. The failure of red lining to be fair is one of the reasons that Airbnb keeps data such as drivers license information etc. away from the hosts.
1 Like