I know we talk about this time after time

1

I am new in this field, so I have a question for you… I was reading this on the Airbnb website…

Emotional Support Animal: An animal that provides companionship, relieves loneliness, or helps with depression, anxiety, or certain phobias but is not required to have special training to perform tasks that assist people with disabilities

What we allow:
Unless the reservation is a stay in New York or California (USA) or another location where applicable law prohibits it:
Hosts may charge pet fees for a guest who is traveling with an emotional support animal
Hosts are allowed to decline the presence of emotional support animals from a stay or Experience

So I just want to check my understanding, and ask for everybody’s experience…

Is it true than that we don’t have to accept emotional support animals? I know we take service dogs. Has anyone turned a client away because of emotional support animal?

I would appreciate your experience in this. The reason we do not accept dogs on our listing, we live in a beach town. My fear is that someone will go to the beach and leave their dog in our house unattended. I am always worried about damage.

This newbie thank you for your advice!

2

Have a look on the Airbnb Help website it has FAQs around the basics of managing your STR on Airbnb including a section covering its policy on support animals

3

Yes, it’s true unless you’re a host in CA or NY. But it’s also a good idea to check your state and city laws as well.

Unless you’re doing long term (30+ days) rental because then your listing is considered housing and you have to follow the federal and your state fair housing laws. And that has nothing to do with Airbnb. You may qualify for an exemption depending on your location and your property set-up.

And be aware that even when it is legal for you to discriminate, it is never legal to advertise/post/state/etc a discriminatory preference so don’t put it in your listing, just say no animals/pets allowed, something like that.

4

My advice is to 1. Put in your House Rules that you don’t allow pets or emotional support animals. 2. Fully understand the Federal law that applies to trained assistance animals,know and understand the questions that you are allowed to ask, and ask them if the guest claims it’s an assistance animal. 3. Put in your House Rules NO animals may be left alone on the premises. That’s in Air’s emotional support animal rules, and if they really need the support animal, it should always be with the owner, as should an assistance animal. 4.If you’re lucky enough to have any shared spaces and live on the premises, and you have allergies, you can put no animals in the house rules, which is what I did.

Since this is a fly-in bucket list destination where guests come for sightseeing, whale watching, and outdoor adventure, no one ever brought an animal, including wintertime business travelers from nearby communities.

5

Same, have never had anyone ask to bring an animal, as almost all my guests fly here or arrive by bus from other parts of Mexico, and you can’t bring a dog on a Mexican highway bus.

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6

I have a homeshare and a dog allergy so Airbnb allows me to decline even service dogs. I have found guests with emotional support and service animals very considerate in asking about the possibility of bringing their animals.