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Well, I’ve told X and Z per your advice that we cannot book a reservation with a puppy.
I looked into blocking them but haven’t done so because you have to ‘report this message’ and I was concerned that if Airbnb looked at the whole series of messages that I have copied here that maybe they’d have trouble with some of my responses or rules.
Do you think that concern is reasonable? Very low risk?
So I think my risk now is that they instant book. I’m waiting to hear from @JJD if I could put the age 25 requirement in my pre-booking message (I suspect she will say ‘NO!’ and I’ll get another scolding).
The twists continue.
Now Z in my messages is showing up with a different name altogether!
So now I have reported the message. BTW, when I reported it I was unable to explain when first asked by the Airbnb system because the place where you’re supposed to explain said 'Something on this page is broken." But later I could leave ‘feedback’ where I explained it (and the broken page message).
Then you contact Airbnb to cancel the booking from a guest who intends to bring a puppy to your no pets listing.
And it doesn’t make any sense to have unenforceable rules, like a $200/hr. overstay charge or a puppy not being allowed to walk or pee on the sedum. As has been pointed out to you in the past, if a dog has to pee, it isn’t going to"hold it" until the owner walks it off the property.
You have the mistaken notion that you can control others’ behavior with rules.
I don’t know that it’s unenforceable. It’s unenforceable only if it’s unreasonable.
Anyway, its intended primary function was as a deterrent to the guest.
Two things:
I was unclear. My thought was to require that the dog be leashed at all times when outside on the property, AND tied to a post (we have a pergola) so that they could not dig through the yard. If all the dog did was pee on the sedum that’s fine. Other animals pee on the sedum too but an unleashed puppy could wreak havoc in any back yard.
You have a point on my trying to control behavior on rules.
My thinking here is, especially with a young <25 guest (yes, I know, many are very responsible) is that by writing this out I’m providing guidance to the guest on how to manage this puppy. Plus, with our exterior cameras I’d be able to see if the dog were unleashed and could take action before any tearing up of the yard occurred.
Again, I don’t really want to fine anyone. I just want to avoid destruction of property.
Why would a guest tie their puppy to a post? A dog that isn’t used to being tied up, which most dogs are not, is just going to whimper, howl and bark. You have some of the strangest ideas.
Really? Explain how you would force them to give you $200.
They even sell ties that go into the ground or around trees so that the dog can’t run off.
When I had a dog and we were in a public park or such having lunch or sitting for awhile we’d tie our dog to a tree with a very long lead to prevent the dog running off if it saw, say, a squirrel.
I could easily establish that they had not left by check-out time by taking a tine-stamped picture/video of them at/in the property post-checkout time.
So long as I had that rule in my listing it could/should be enforced, just like any other rule, if reasonable. I don’t know if Airbnb would find it reasonable, but remember my primary intention was deterrence.
Yes, I realize it was deterrence.
A $200/hr. overstay fee is not, by any stretch of the imagination “reasonable” and I can’t imagine Airbnb would force a guest to pay.
“In addition, Guests agree that the Host can charge the Guest, for each 24 hour period that the Guest stays over the agreed period without the Host’s consent, an additional nightly fee of two times the average nightly Accommodation Fee originally paid by the Guest to cover the inconvenience suffered by the Host, plus all applicable Service Fees, Taxes, and any legal expenses incurred by the Host to make the Guest leave.”
I don’t see the reference to the quotation, or its authority.
Anyway, you say a $200 overstay fee is not ‘by any stretch of the imagination’ reasonable but that’s just your opinion; an Airbnb customer service rep might differ. Still, that’s irrelevant since you understand that the purpose is deterrence, not enforcement.
However, if the guest somehow knew that the fee was unreasonable or suspected that Airbnb would find it unreasonable then then the deterrence function would not be fulfilled.
Were I to advocate for this fee with Airbnb my case would simply be that a late overstay could easily prevent the cleaning from being completed before the next guest arrived that the $200/hour fee could be less, much less, than the penalty-free refund that Airbnb might allow for that next guest because the place was not ready. Plus, I have to get the police involved to eject them, which would be quite a hassle.
It used to be in the Airbnb TOS. Section 8.2.2. Found it by googling. It was quoted on various hosting forums.
However, it doesn’t anymore appear to be in the most recent TOS.
If I were in your position, I’d be more worried about this being a party or a stolen credit card than getting chastised by AirBnB over something you said in the messages. If you don’t block them and they IB, I’d cancel with the “I am uncomfortable with this guest”.
Why not? If you have a same-day changeover and have to pull in a second cleaning crew to get the house ready because the guests overstayed, it could cost you $200.
I’m also a believer in the value of large numbers as a deterrent. If you say $200, the guest is less likely to leave late and risk paying it than if it’s $20.
I’ve already written them that we cannot accept the booking.
I’ve reported the message, so we’ll see what that does. I cannot literally block them unless reporting the message will likely lead to the block.
If they IB, I agree with you that I will cancel.
My only concern is that someone IB’s under a different name (I’ve seen four different names now for this same reservation) and I can’t know if the new booking is by the same person.
BUT, I now have my pre-booking message on age 25 guests (thank you @JJD) and I have the no-pets rule.
But don’t you think the $200 per hour charge might serve as a deterrent? If not, do you have an alternative suggestion when you have some misgivings about a guest but not ready to cancel/decline?
Please keep in mind that a provision like this has some positive chance of deterring the overstay; no penalty has a 0% chance of deterring the overstay.
Please remember that this is not in our house rules now and had never been before. Why? It sounds unreasonable; it’s potentially off-putting. I get that. That’s why I pulled it out in this unique situation.
What I anticipate you and others saying would be that if I am uncomfortable just cancel/decline. Maybe that’s the right course of action. Certainly in this situation, as it evolved, these guests should not be able to book here.
My thinking is to keep this arrow in my quiver and pull it out when I’m uncomfortable but not so uncomfortable as to cancel/decline.
As an aside, I have now been in contact with the Host who does not want pets under any circumstances, so now I know that.
@HostAirbnbVRBO
You know, if they’re after the same dates around July 4, you could temporarily block those dates and maybe they’d go away and pick on someone else. You wouldn’t have to keep track of who X,Y or Z is.
Well, unless they had told me otherwise, I would not have assumed for one second that the host would be okay with accepting a pet to a no pets listing, simply because the host was out-of-town. Seems quite unprofessional for a co-host to take it upon themselves to entertain the thought of accepting things that are against the host’s rules without asking the host first .
If I were a co-host and thought that for some reason the host might be willing to waive a rule, I would tell the guest that I had to consult the host about that, not carry on messaging with the guest as if something that clearly violates house rules might be okay as long as they told me what they think I want to hear.
By not consulting the host first, you wasted your own time, the guest’s time and the time of everyone who responded here, because the entire situation was a non-starter.
If I had serious misgivings about a guest, I wouldn’t come up with a whole bunch of threats to try to dissuade them, I would just decline to accept them.
And if I only had some questions, the answers to which might set my mind at ease, I would just dialogue further with the guest.
All these made-up rules on the fly as deterrents is just playing games. I have better things to do with my time than waste it playing games in order to avoid declining or trying to ensure guests follow rules.
Besides, this was just an inquiry. They might have sent the same inquiry to a dozen other hosts. You seem to have assumed that they really wanted to book at your listing specifically, which may not have been the case.
Our check-out letter says that we and our cleaners will enter at 10 am, the checkout time.
The scenario I was considering was one in which the guests just don’t leave even though I’v entered the Airbnb unit, admittedly an unlikely scenario but one I do not disregard (especially if it’s six guys in their 20’s). In that scenario it might be very time consuming, with getting the police, making a statement, etc. I’d like to deter that possibility, however remote.
