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I totally understand why this made you feel dumbstruck, and am sorry you had such a dreadful experience.
So now it’s time to develop the hide of a rhino. Look on this as part of your Host Learning Curve. You will definitely handle any similar situation with aplomb going forward.
We all want to think the best of people, but sadly they let us down too easily.
So, I reviewed the guest in four dispassionate, factual sentences and (hopefully) blocked her. Here is her review: “I can’t thank Linda enough for being extremely understanding and accommodating for all that my family and I had going on that weekend. Linda remained professional the entire time even when she had to address her concerns. I’m appreciative to have been blessed to have such a pleasurable experience. The home is lovely and spacious. It would be perfect for a weekend get away for anyone with the location. Its beautiful and if you love the water, when the tides come in its perfect. We took FULL advantage of the living space and lets just say…This was a weekend for the books! Thanks to linda and her family and wonderful Airbnb.
I hope she doesn’t send some goons to firebomb the place. I have to put on my big girl panties and forget about how my review will ruin her memory, because she ruined mine. So there.
Boy did they ever and by the sounds of it your review will be reflecting that!
The person who invented glitter should be forced to clean it up daily for about a month straight. When my kids were young, the birthday party invitiations I sent out said “No glitter glue, glitter make-up, or glitter crafts as birthday gifts, please and thank you.”
There is a forensic files type show where a murder case was solved by glitter. There is this glitter expert they consuted, he has ID samples of pretty much every glitter ever invented.
Moral of the story: Never murder a woman wearing glitter. It will stick to you. FOREVER. like that murder rap.
She knew damned well what she needed to do — ask her guests to leave — but she didn’t want to do it. And you didn’t want to be firm about your rules.
I know what that feels like. It’s easy to give advice on these forums when you’re not actually faced with a situation in the moment, especially if you’ve never had to deal with such a thing before. The second guest I ever had, a sweet 20 year old girl, sprung her boyfriend on me the morning after her arrival. Had booked for 1 (I only host solo travelers, it’s a single bed), arrived, went out on the town at night. I went to bed and never heard her come in, but in the morning, she emerged from her room with a guy. My first thought was that she’d picked him up at the bar, but no, she quite openly, sweetly and innocently introduced me to “My friend XX”. I stood there quite stunned, at a loss for words, then said, “But you booked the room for one guest and I only host solo travelers.” The look on their faces was also so stunned and crestfallen that I immediately realized she really wasn’t trying to pull a fast one- she was a new Airbnb user and simply didn’t realize she couldn’t have anyone else share the room with her. I then said “You’re both going to squish into that single bed?” To which they answered that yes, no problem, they were real cozy. So I just said I would allow it, but would have to charge a bit extra, which they agreed to.
I was actually happy I let them both stay. They were really nice, smart young people, and it turned out that he had been travelling, they hadn’t seen each other for 6 months and weren’t really sure if they were boyfriend and girlfriend, but it was obvious that they were quite enamored with each other and never left their room until noon each day, emerging glowing and happy, took long walks, made breakfast every day and always invited me to join them. Her review was a one-liner- “I spent the best week of my life here.”
But I did tell her that other hosts would likely give her a bad review for springing an extra guest on them and that she shoud be sure to book for 2 in the future if that’s what she was planning.
Once upon a time a coworker gave me good advice. “Never assume someone is doing something bad because they’re evil. They’re probably just stupid.” Substituting “malicious/ignorant” softens it a bit and you said they weren’t stupid. Just ignorant. You handled it with kindness, which is always a good choice.
When I read this I experienced, on your behalf, a delicious sense of schadenfreude. She has dug her own grave as a guest going forward.
Wonderful!
Well, @NordlingHouse you are correct. I probably still would not have summoned the brass buttons that I thought I had, but I actually thought that I had communicated with this person. She seemed to indicate that the crowd would be dispersing shortly and being gullible, I believed her.
And last sentence!
LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL 2020
I found the full episode on Youtube 
