Is this allowed and is it rude?

Welcome to the (sometimes crazy) world of hosting!

Unfortunately, not all guests are sweetness and light, and some enjoy bending the rules -or don’t even look at the rules in the first place!

First off make sure your guest reads and agrees with the house rules prior to accepting the booking - ask them to confirm.

Once booked send your guest a message to reiterate the number of guests you are expecting - you can use this as an opportunity to ask if they have any questions, confirm check-in process etc.

Decide on your house rules regarding visitors -if you do not want anyone popping into the rental aside from those booked in, then you need to clearly state this in your house rules.

Reiterate this rule with a sign somewhere obvious inside the property. It can be lighthearted if you are worried about sounding too bossy. E.g. Sorry, we cannot accommodate any visitors, so please do not invite friends, colleagues, family members or next door’s cat - our rental is ONLY for those booked in to stay.

Forums such as this are great for finding solutions and sharing the ups and downs with fellow hosts. There are some very experienced hosts around, so it’s really useful to listen and take on board some of their views and ideas.

I hope things work out for you.

2 Likes

I’ve had people show up with more than my maximum and told them the extra people could not stay. One called me “uncooperative.”

I have a little 2 bedroom addition , divided by a sliding door and a private entrance and I’ve had people try to sneak in extra guests with me living in the same house!

I’ve been looking at camera options to help catch them or persuade them that it not a good idea.

Airbnb could aid the process by requiring a guest list with names, basic age categories, relationships (for minors)— and photos too. I think it is odd that only the person booking is vetted at all and the rest of the group could be convicted child molesters for all I know!

My check in message details that the person who made the booking must be in attendance (no third party bookings), that the number of guest must match the booking and that visitors are not allowed at any time. That has helped a couple times, one with a third party booking for a minor!

Of course it’s all in the listing and the house rules, but it comes to light with the check in message sent a week before.

Yes, they will try anything. Not often, but it will happen. I would expect more often with a whole house venue.

1 Like

Update: Something stressful and unrelated to our condo rental happened this week so I completely let the extra guest thing slide because I didn’t have time to care (stupid and passive, I know) I finally got time to watch the Ring videos this morning and the amount of people going in and out of the condo all week is unreal. They brought their boat and apparently have friends staying in other lake condos and she has given people the door code and they’ve gone in and out of my condo all day every day—I guess using it like it’s a public restroom for all of their friends. I called the guest today and asked her who were all the people going in and out of my condo using the door code and she informed me that they have a bunch of friends here and that she’s stayed in our complex before and never been questioned about friends going in and out. She also admitted (when I asked about nights that 2 adults and 6 kids spent the night) that her kids’ have had friends stay over and it’s ridiculous that I have an issue with any of it. I let her have it and I’m 100% positive that I’ll be getting a bad review. Don’t care anymore.
I think it’s crazy that people can book my place and then show up with extra people and if I cancel their reservation I lose that money because they get refunded. AND, they get to leave me a bad review for kicking them out.
My daughter’s flight to London got cancelled yesterday due to weather in Atlanta, but I still had to pay for the hotel in London tonight even though she won’t be there until tomorrow. However, some jacka$$ can deliberately show up to my condo with extra guests and not only get their money back, but can also leave a retaliatory review. I think I’m done with the whole vacation rental thing.

3 Likes

Big mistake calling the guest you essentially asked for the bad review. I would have slammed her in the review, and after she reviewed or the 14 days past I would put in a request for the extra money.

As to quitting, and being upset about all this to the point of calling guests I would suggest going forward before you make any decisions ask yourself this, what is the best business decision? It’s business, if you continue to take it personally you will just feel like shit all the time and make less money.

Breathe, come here to vent and then react with purpose.

Best wishes for you going forward

RR

Edited to ad: don’t review first and prompt her bad review. Wait until last second then slam her. The 14 days starts from the minute you get the first email prompting you to review.
Write your review here, let us help you sharpen the knife!

RR

1 Like

no no no no no no – review fraud from friends/family/business associates is illegal on both the federal and likely state level.

I know, but 2 men I had never seen entered the condo using the door code so I panicked and felt like I needed to make sure they were people the guests knew. She told me she was letting friends who were on the lake with them come up and use our bathroom and that’s why so many people have the code and are coming and going all day every day. I called her because she didn’t answer my message through Airbnb.

Thank you, that’s good to know. I thought the 14 days starts when I review the guest or when they review me.
They check out this morning and I think it’s very likely that she will review me. Apparently they had no idea the doorbell is a camera (even though it is disclosed in my listing) and have now figured it out and are talking/gesturing to it.

Unfortunately, not. This situation is a plague on Airbnb as this forum demonstrates. There is absolutely no “educating” of the guest population, newbie, experienced, on this point.

Also, I don’t think most of those posting here have thought through the end game here – what DOES a new host do about an unfair bad review? Or TWO? The guests DO hold all the cards here since Airbnb allows both defamatory and retaliatory reviews. This host’s question is 100% legitimate.

The experienced hosts here all know how to set and hold to their boundaries, I don’t see sufficient or airtight advice about the corollary here – the ensuing bad review. It’s going to be hugely detrimental and quite likely fatal to her fledging business.

OH YEAH THEY COULD AND WILL! @Dawn1 has been hosting for 3 months and has NO CUSHION here for even one unfair bad review. She’s a good host with a run of cr@p guests. Two will indeed be fatal or close to it when prospective guests read her reviews, and don’t book.

And further when she gets the note from Airbnb that she IS at risk at being delisted because of poor ratings. This situation is as dire as she portrays.

@Dawn1, you’re getting a lot of bad advice here. You have to realize that Airbnb (and short-term rentals generally) is pretty much (now) a very poor option for both income and your sanity and self-respect. Guests are capable of more and more jackassery and the company holds out a very nice payment level on one hand and a set of no-win policies in the other.

The only option you have here is to replace

“max occupancy 4, strictly enforced”

with a variation of @HH_AZ’s advice, which I would tweak as follows.

• House rules read “Maximum occupancy 4 including children and infants. No visitors, guests, additional family members permitted.”

• Put a magic phrase in the house rules that the guest must provide to receive entry and wifi info. This ENSURES that they have to at least skim your rules to find and provide the magic phrase. Don’t waste any breath asking “if they have read the house rules,” 4 out of 5 haven’t. And will lie about it. That is, until WiFi and the keycode hinge on their reading.

• Back to the House Rules. Add an additional item noting “Please send the names and ages of all guests within 48 hours of booking. These will be verified in person upon check-in via camera monitoring. Any discrepancies between those guests booked and those entering the property will result in an immediate cancellation without refund. Your cooperation with the rules of our homeowners’ association is appreciated!” (< i.e., don’t SAY “strictly enforced,” SHOW how it is strictly enforced.)

If you don’t get the list within 48 hours, message them with a reminder, then cancel, tweak of @KKC’s advice.

WHATEVER YOU DO, do NOT let potential problem guests stay on your calendar til the day of booking, because then they CAN leave a retaliatory review even if they don’t check in, or if they START to check in and then are cancelled. You want to AVOID the “14-day game” of chicken with them. Make sure they can’t review you.

Most important advice of all – don’t be afraid to drop the platform, it’s become 98% untenable for all but a select few of hosts with both an airtight listing in terms of monitoring, location and lack of moving parts to create opportunities for guest mayhem, as well as rules/enforcement and a nice run of luck.

2 Likes

@Dawn1 - you really need to ask yourself why this is happening. Have you explicitly told guests that they cannot have visitors who pop in to use the loo? Are you or your co-hosts meeting the guests on arrival to establish a personal rapport? And, I have to ask, why do you have an issue with it? If those extra people who stayed are costing you a lot of money, then you should ask them for it. You can ask in a friendly way. If they don’t cost you more than a couple of dollars, then why (as your guest said) do you have such an issue?

It sound as though you’re in a place where families get together and move in and out of each others rentals. If you don’t want friends to do that, then deal with it (you or your co-host) when it happens.

I think you’re right - you sound to be an anxious person and it causes you too much stress and anxiety. Maybe you shouldn’t have gone into this business in the first place.

I don’t have anything in my listing about charging for extra guests because I don’t want to allow extra guests, and it is a POA rule. I know not enforcing my rules is my own mistake—I should have had the reservation cancelled when they arrived with 6 people. The last time this happened I called Airbnb and tried to do that, but they just called the guest and had the extras go somewhere else, which then left me with angry guests. It seems like a no-win situation to me.

2 Likes

I have an issue with it because it is a very nice property with nice furnishings and i don’t want a lot of people who aren’t on the reservation piled in there sleeping on my sofas and chairs, or in and out using the bathroom. Also because it is MY property and I have maximum occupancy allowed on my listing. If they want to bring more people they can book a different property.

Nope. The neighbor upstairs emailed me this week concerned about the number of people going in and out. It is a quiet complex and I’ve never seen anything like this going on out there, and we use the condo ourselves often. The people coming and going aren’t staying in our complex. All of the kids are using the pool in our complex while the adults all hang together down by the lake, and they’re all using our bathroom.

[quote=“PuppyLover, post:29, topic:33679”]
@Dawn1, you’re getting a lot of bad advice here. You have to realize that Airbnb (and short-term rentals generally) is pretty much (now) a very poor option for both income and your sanity and self-respect. Guests are capable of more and more jackassery and the company holds out a very nice payment level on one hand and a set of no-win policies in the other.
[/quote

My thoughts exactly! Thank you @PuppyLover for not insulting my anxiety level or my self respect. If I continue to rent my property I’m definitely going to work on my House Rules and I appreciate your advice and suggestions, as figuring out how to best avoid bad/dishonest guests was my original reason for posting.

1 Like

Also, I did message her through Airbnb on their second day and very nicely reminded her of the maximum occupancy rule and the pool rules which are there in a binder and state that guests of guests in the pool/hot tub area aren’t allowed. She said she understood the rules and and that they would “continue to follow the rules”—either oblivious to the camera or just didn’t care. Very next day, 8 kids in and out back and forth between my condo and the pool. I wasn’t aware until yesterday.
Lesson learned and with my remaining bookings I will have zero tolerance with rule breakers.

Renting to friends and family at sweet heart rates as " fraud " means that every retail friends and family event is an indictable offence. Lock me up!

3 Likes

The REVIEW is the problem, not the sweetheart rate!!!

It’s not unbiased. It’s useless to the prospective customer. It’s deceptive unless the relationship is disclosed, and remains illegal under federal law even if it IS disclosed.

The flip side of defamatory reviews by guests is sweetheart reviews by friends, family and business associates. Both are against the law. Do I get why @LoneStar and others advocate them to recover from an unfair negative review? Totally. Is it advisable? Never. Don’t give Airbnb the rope for your hanging.

Which brings me to the conclusion that, we are between a very hard rock and a very rocky hard place in terms of surviving reviews given the hot mess they have become.

https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2014/07/creating-fake-customer-reviews-site-could-be-false

You bet. Glad to be of assistance. The theme that IS useful and present here in all the posts is, “Show don’t tell.” It’s rule #1 of writing (and in this case, house rules and enforcement.)

for example

  • don’t say “strictly enforced,” SHOW how the rules are strictly enforced (“violations found on camera will lead to immediate cancellation”)
  • don’t ask “have you read the house rules,” SHOW how without reading them, you won’t gain entry nor have access to WiFi (“read the house manual and send me the Magic Phrase to get the door/wifi codes”)
2 Likes

Thank goodness I have until Tuesday before my next guests. I have carpet cleaners coming tomorrow morning because there’s a huge coffee stain in the master and what appears to be a spilled dark soda in the other bedroom, which was also all over the wall, a lamp, and two brand new decorative pillows. Bathrooms were gross. By far the worst guests I’ve had and I so wish I had enforced my house rules and made them leave. I’ll be working on improving my house rules wording this evening and adding a Magic Phrase, and awaiting my bad review.

1 Like

Is it fraud if I rent to my friend and they leave their honest review? I did say Honest review.

I have offered close friends that they can rent our place at a special rate. I don’t see why they are precluded from leaving their honest review? I review my friends’ businesses any time I use their services. I guess I am a criminal. Who knew lol.

2 Likes

Already answered with relevant links. I’ll be happy to underline again for you, Is it fraud? Yes. It’s quite simply not as you view it, an “honest review.” Ask yourself if you want to book Airbnbs, buy Amazon products, go to Yelp! reviewed restaurants, reviewed by friends? Family members? Business associates of the owner? The law recognizes that this is fraud and not “an honest review.”

Four parties can potentially be gunning for you for fraudulent reviews – consumers, competitors, the State of Texas Attorney General (representing either consumers or competitors or both) and the Federal Trade Commission (ditto the Texas AG).

There will be no ability whatsoever to defend your rigged reviews as being “honest” especially if your friends did not disclose in the review that they are your friends. Even with this disclosure, there’s no defense for the biased review, and a biased review without disclosure is clearly a misrepresentation to the consumer + an attempt to unfairly compete in the marketplace (on its face, otherwise why would you have friends reviewing?)

A handy list for you:

Biased reviews:
Friends
Family
People under your roof (housemates, for ex.)
Business associates

Biased reviews without disclosure of the above relationship:
Adds to the tort (the wrong action against consumers, competitors)

Let’s turn this around so you can understand the problem –

Reviews on Amazon, Yelp!, TripAdvisor and all the big sites have an overwhelming problem of rigged reviews. Re: Airbnb, there are massive rings of friends who write biased reviews in at least four states I am aware of.

Next, if you yourself are looking for an Airbnb and the reviews are written by friends, you cannot trust them. If someone in your TOWN is cycling their friends in and out of THEIR Airbnb, they have achieved an unfair advantage over you.

I’m hopeful you can see this is not a harmless activity.

Eeessssshhhh. Let others do the reviewing.

I’ve been friends with Johnny of Johnny’s Asphalt and Haulage since kindergarten. He did a job for me and in my honest opinion, the asphalt, price and service were good. Thanks Johnny and how’s your mom ‘n’ 'em?

I appreciate it. I will absolutely make certain we are transparent if someone we know ever does stay there.

1 Like

More along the lines of “I am a professional who uses #'s services for Y purpose and although she is my friend, I hired her for this type of job because I know she has X thing that I couldn’t find elsewhere”

Customer can easily confirm my claim or not, these are how my recommendations go on the rare occasion.

1 Like