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.