Are they referring to pic number 31 that shows the front entrance to the building? did you use the word “private” somewhere?
I just see that you selected “entire home/apt” which is what you offer.
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I really feel for you. We can be somewhat skeptical of first time posters here but when I found your listing and realized you were posting under your real name I knew you were legit. When I was your age it would have been hard to take a $2000 hit in one month. it’s easy for us old timers to say you shouldn’t spend money before you get it, blah, blah, blah, but I know for sure I’ve been in similar shoes.
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I get what you’re saying but it says it’s on the 4th floor. These must be people who have never been in an apartment in their life.
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no they were referring to a pic i had up that was a picture of the stairwell to landing of my floor/apartment. they told me to take it down as it was misleading. so i took it down. now wish i hadn’t as “evidence” that i did not miss lead. maybe i can find it…found it.
I did not say anything about the stairwell being private or the landing…
i don’t know how you could make that assumption. of course anyone can come up the stairs and knock on your door?? Even if it is the only door to knock on once you get up there.
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I am just confused and you make another good point. How did she think she was getting on the 4th floor without passing other “apartments”? The place is private. I can only guess they wanted to cancel for whatever reason and tried to pick apart Air’s definition of entire home/apt.
Entire homes/apartments: Guests rent the entire unit and don’t have to share the space with you or with anyone else.
This is just craziness on Air’s part! That’s like saying every single condo unit is not a private space because you have to share the elevator or stairs with other guests staying there. Sheesh!
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Another thing too…it says “guests rent the entire unit” and not “guests rent the entire building”
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What is Air’s “evidence” that you “mis-represented as private”?
I feel so badly for you. I don’t understand how some reps. seem to have so much power to make decisions like this without input from the host.
I sometimes think in these strange cases that the guest has threatened a credit card chargeback - the rep. backs down then and just puts it on the host.
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What about how to enter the main building front door? Do you have written correspondence mentioning how to enter the “building” and then how to enter their “apartment”?
So do they now have the key code to enter the main building door?
I’m afraid the so-called reason for the guest canceling makes both the guests and Airbnb look incredibly stupid. So the guests decided they didn’t like the apartment for some reason and hit on the lack of a private staircase as an excuse … lame enough (how were the other occupants meant to reach their homes - flying? levitation?) but that the company should swallow that as an acceptable reason to penalise you beggars belief.Or perhaps it doesn’t - we seem to be hearing more and more of these stories lately.
None of this helps you of course, and the only thing I can say is: you were in the right, they were wrong. Maybe take some cold comfort in that …
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I would ring Air back up and quote exactly this!
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Write to airbnb’s twitter. I honestly feel as if there is an influx of under trained customer service reps. I’ve had multiple phone calls that ended with “let me call you back” or “he will call you back” and heard nothing. The twitter account handles business accordingly!
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I feel for you. You were wronged. It’s ridiculous to assume that a stairwell in a multi-unit building would be for only one of the units. If you had an elevator would Airbnb say that you had to say in the listing that the elevator goes to all units; there is not a separate elevator for each unit? Also, now that they’ve told you to remove the picture of the stairway, you are open to people cancelling because they didn’t realize that there were stairs or they think there are too many stairs or the stairs are too steep for them. As we agreed to a Binding Arbitration Clause in our agreement with Airbnb you might consider asking for arbitration of this dispute (as long as Airbnb would be paying the Arbitration Service).
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I have to say that contrary to what other hosts may say to you my toast would also be burnt. And I agree with you that the stairwell issue is simply an exaggeration in order to get out of the reservation.
Other posters have said that you made plenty of money over the years and as a result you should probably calm down about this. I don’t agree. Like I said this situation would bother me to a great extent as as well. Honestly, there aren’t all that many hosts getting rich off airbnb. Even if you were, who cares?
The very serious problem I would have with Airbnb is decision on this would be the disregard shown for my years long relationship with that company. You’ve been hosting for what seven years and there’s no problems. Then these people come along who most likely don’t have that relationship with Air B&B and the company believes them over you.
At this point if air B&B is not kicking you off the service then I would try to let it go, because I need to move forward. I’d be nervous but I also know that I’d have to move forward. I’d tweak my ad to make sure that no one (supposedly) has this confusion again. I’m not saying that the guest was right what I’m saying is that it’s important to protect ourselves. Hell I just had someone message me today and although there’s pictures of my two dogs right on the ad they were asking me if I have dogs LOL. The dog’s pictures are on the ad simply because I had a guy stay here who didn’t like pets LOL even though I explained that I have these dogs right in my ad.
Shrug it off and keep going. I’m with you.
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You can not relay on your cancellation policy, there are so many ways that someone could get out of a booking if they really wanted to, there is always something to use and in most cases AirBNb would do as they have done here.
Just a risk of the business.
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yesterday: the site won’t let me post any more. reached limit for first day. i’ll post this after my 21 hr waiting period.
awww wish i could keep responding!
Today 3/5/17:
I was kept from posting as new user. I’m back. Thanks for all the support.
Oh! Here is the offending pic that the guests sent to Airbnb. It’s of the bottom of the staircase leading up to my apartment. Airbnb said this was the defining evidence against me that i had misrepresented the whole staircase situation. Airbnb also mentioned that the paint was not fresh and scuffs on the walls.
I ride a bike. I’ve had roommates who ride bikes so yeah coming down the narrow staircase with bike on shoulder it’s true the stairwell walls get bike tire scuffed.
But it’s not like that in my apartment! It’s just the wear and tear of stairwells.
They also had an issue with my Ikea wooden shelves which you can see at the top of the stairs…Airbnb called it “clutter” and I said it’s actually really cute.
\
Here’s Airbnb’s final response to me:
Libby, Mar 5, 10:52 CST:
Hello Jaime,
I truly am sorry that this case has turned out the way it has. We have noted that you have a fantastic history with us and this did play into our decision. Derek wanted to ensure that you were given the chance to rebook and canceled the reservation on our behalf so you would be given that chance.
We do understand that in most, if not all, apartments there is a common shared stairwell, however, the fact that the photos of the stairwell are included in the listing photos which is listed as an Entire Place, this means that anything depicted in the listing should be private to the guest unless otherwise outlined, but no where in the listing does it state that the stairwell is shared amongst residents. Please understand that Airbnb is a community that embraces cultures from all over the world, and because of that, all users will have different expectations. For example, I grew up in Arizona, there is very seldom an apartment complex that has indoor stairwells as the architecture there has all stairs and halls on the outside.
With this in mind, we need to ensure that all of our hosts are setting the correct expectations for any and all guests and stating what is shared. We did not make this decision lightly as we do completely understand how important this income is for our hosts, as a matter of fact, we were pretty on edge regarding the decision until we were able to compare the listing photos and the photos the guest sent and it became evident that the stairwell landing is now completely different. We understand that your home is not always going to look exactly the same, however, it is your responsibility as the host to ensure that the listing is correctly updated to reflect any changes in accordance with out accuracy hosting standard.
I would like to apologize once again for this situation and the added stress that it has caused. We want to make sure that you are set up for success in the future and I am glad to see that you have now removed the photos of the stairwell.
Best,
Libby
Site will also only let me post one pic per post.
So here’s a pic of the “clutter” at top of stairs. See! Cute Ikea shelving and recycling. The shelving is more space for stuff but mostly decorative. I lived in this apartment for 10 years so…
At least they didn’t sig off with their usual “hope this helps” or “It’s been my pleasure serving you and please let me know if you have any additional questions or concerns.”
Which all might as well be blah blah blah blah…
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I’m glad things worked out for you. Hopefully nothing like this will happen again.
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