I’ve just rec’d a Request to Book from a person with a child under 12. This would be in violation of my House Rules, along with no pets, no smoking, etc. I contacted Airbnb Support and asked that they deal with the denial of the request, since if I do it Airbnb dings my record of acceptances. I feel that if any request is in violation of what is laid out in the House Rules, it should NOT count against the Host if the request is denied. I was told, no, I have to deny the request and suffer the repercussions or ask the person to withdraw their request (this I did - I haven’t heard back yet). I then went to both of my Airbnb sites and saw that neither one had anything in there about House Rules!!! This used to appear like a checklist or bullet points right off the bat when folks looked at a place. I then tried to see what would come up if I tried to book my one bedroom space as 2 adults and 4 children for a random day in January - nothing popped up to say to the perspective Guest that it was not possible. Traditionally (at least since 2016 when I first joined Airbnb) Guests are said to be responsible to observe the House Rules when they book or they can be “kicked out” (example: seen smoking in a non-smoking Airbnb) with no refund. But if there are no House Rules seen, how is this to be enforced?
I’ve now checked on line to Airbnb to look at other properties. None that I’ve checked have House Rules anywhere to be seen! What’s with this?
I’m currently working on a review for a guest who just seemed to think none of the rules we had applied to them personally. I met them and asked IN PERSON if something was unclear in my listing. They said no. 
You still have to accept the house rules when you book!
“Rick and his wife were very pleasant people and did a decent job of communicating their plans to us. However, our listing was not a good fit for them. While our listing states, “not suitable for children” and “no parties or events,” they held a family Christmas party here which included their grandchildren.
The same children opened and entered my private dwelling which is separate but attached to the rental suite and let our dogs out.
We wish Rick the best in the future, but would not rent to them again as they either did not read our listing in full — or decided to not respect our private space and other rules for the space we share on AirBNB.“c
How far under 12? I would host an 11 year old girl over a 12 year old boy any day of the week if given the choice.
Why are they requesting to book and not instant booking? With IB you would not be penalized for cancelling under these circumstances.
RR
I have reviewed like that, guest either did not read or ignored the rules…
RR
Mine are still showing, albeit below the reviews as they’ve been for the past year or so. (Who puts anything important below the reviews?
I’ve also noticed, if you click on “contact host”, it brings up house rules, but only the default/Airbnb ones.
Also, I was monkeying around with a new listing and I couldn’t copy/paste my rules. The new rules are only allowed to be short/bullet point.
Basically, Airbnb is doing everything possible to hide and minimize them. It’s really pesky, these homeowners wanting guests to know they have standards!
I’ll be including them in my confirmation message from now on.
You can choose saved responses and house rules are there by default. I send them to every booking in the first email:
Thanks for booking 20202020
just in case you missed this information:
Then I click use a saved message and click on house rules and it puts them in the message. Word for word your house rules, you cannot change the saved message without changing the house rules, though you could set up another saved message with just what is most important to you or edit them once they are in your new message.
RR
Only they know why they didn’t Instant Book. I have no idea, but I am set up to accept Instant Book.
I tried your trick on clicking on Contact Host. It showed the No smoking, no pets, no parties, but it did NOT show the Rules about no children and no infants. There should be something on Airbnb’s side that won’t allow them to book with children if the Host has No kids/infants as a Rule. And why would Guests bother to click on Contact Host? They just book and be done with it. Few read anything, even the messages I send with instructions about where to find their entrance. Very discouraging.
A possible suggested version for you:
Would Not Host Again. Rick and his wife violated multiple house rules and our private host areas. They held a family Christmas party at our stay (no parties & not suitable for children).
They also entered our separate private area, and let our dogs out. This could have resulted in a tragic accident for our beloved pets. We do not recommend this guest.
I still see house rules on the desktop website, the mobile website, and the app. On the mobile webite and app, you have to click “House Rules” to see them. On the desktop, you can see 3 rules, and you have to click “Read all rules” to see the complete list.
I don’t have a “rule” prohibiting infants or children , though. Those are automatically inserted in the house based the boxes you check in your listing, like no smoking and no parties, and those are showing in my house rules.
When you set up your listing, did you actually go in and make all the menu choices you need for House Rules customized for you? Or add your own rules? If you didn’t you should have. Maybe you confused the list of possible Air written rules without checking the buttons?
If not, you need to create House Rules right away. If you don’t allow infants or children, you should cite all the possible safety reasons why (and Air can’t force you to ameliorate them). Once you do that, you should be able to get Air to cancel when someone intends to violate your House Rules.
I checked both “not suitable for infants” and “not suitable for children under 12” and then under “Additional rules” I added:
- We currently don’t accept bookings for children under 12 (or infants) in our shared space because the house has not been childproofed and contains tripping and falling hazards as well as second story windows that are not safe for children. If you arrive with undeclared children we may not be able to accommodate you for safety and insurance reasons.
I just keep a MS Word file of the current house rules and copy and paste it into all 3 separate room listings. I also have the directions and entry instructions for each room in a separate file. That way I can change them as I need after pasting into the message.
If the host has “not suitable for children” it only prevents people from instant-booking. (And only if they have the kids counted in the children/infant categories. Some “forget” and classify them as adults, or don’t count them at all “oh I thought kids were free! lol”)
They can still do an inquiry or request to book, just as they do for extra people, pets, and other things against house rules.