It's an awfully big adventure! (PS opinions needed on an issue, please!)

Sooooo… 3 whole months of peace.

Loving it. Stellar reviews going on, life is good.
Had a great couple hosts, it’s all smooth sailing baby.

But you guys know, I’m all about the terrifying.

So, book a house for the end of the year.
The host seems friendly, if a bit depressed, which she admits to being because caring for her Aunt is tough. She also has a full time role in an industry I’m very familiar with.
We seem to get along well.

Unfortunately, we have to land a day late. It’s totally on us, and I don’t even approach the idea of a refund, or change. I want to start on a good note. I message her on arrival.
We seem all good, even if she seems a bit irritated that we weren’t there on the day we were supposed to be.

We’re fine for the first two weeks.
Then she messages me that she wants to stop by. Ok, no problem I think.
I clean the place to within an inch of it’s life. Except the host puts me off for 3 days.
Finally, she tells me she’s left her place, and will arrive in an hour.
She texts me 2 hours later and says she’s half an hour away. And she’s dropping off some things. Some books. And a sideboard!

WTF.

I’ve made lunch, so I head into the kitchen and go to get the tea on. My DH heads to the front door on the doorbell ringing, and I get the kettle on and the soup heating. A couple minutes later, I hear a raised woman’s voice, and I head quickly out.

The host is LOSING her mind.

She’s screaming about how it’s her house and we have to let her in, and that don’t we know it’s the law?

Turns out, by a sideboard she actually meant, we’re gonna spend the afternoon moving furniture, adding two massive portrait paintings, adding china, a desk, and a sideboard.

GUYS, her entire SUV was filled with stuff. Her fullsize, enormous SUV. That she obviously intended we assist her with emptying, but decides instead to let her 80 year old Aunt carry this stuff in with her.

We explain, we are staying here, and we would really prefer it if we could just put the stuff in the front room- of course she can come in. I have tea and I’ve made lunch. She refuses, and just keeps loading stuff in and out, getting clearly angrier and angrier as she does, to the point she smashes things in the carpark.

She continues ranting angrily about how her father died, and they’re selling a house, and this is a really tough time for her, and she reaches the point of tears. I ask her to please come in and have lunch, we didn’t mean to offend we just don’t want to start moving everything around.
She refuses, and continues loading up the front room.

(Side note: this host was a bit hoardy anyway, and there’s not a square foot of the place that doesn’t have furniture and a knick knack in it. Her pillow collection alone was bigger than Aladdins would be. So I honestly have no idea where she intended to put all this stuff, and it was quite contrary to the countryish style but reasonably minimalist pictures on the site).

Eventually she says she’s leaving, and I say that I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to offend her.
She parrots the same back at me, and stomps out.

I call air and let them know there are some issues, and ask them to keep it on record.

I message her that night, apologizing and explaining some of the horrors we had in the past, and that if you don’t try and establish some boundaries you can end up with people coming in and out all the time, renovating while you live in the house etc.
I told her about the fire pit we had bought her, as she mentioned how much she loves using her outside space, and offer to remove it if I’ve offended her.

I get a pretty reasonable message in response from her, and we move on. I offer to take her and her aunt out for a pedicure and lunch on me, but as she doesn’t take me up on it, I send her a makeup store gift card, and wish her a happy new year. She asks me if she can use one of the parking spaces, and I agree that she can use it for free without recompense. Even though she offers.

We’re all good. I message her several days before checkout, as I’m hoping she can attend so there will be no misunderstandings. She can’t, but she assigns a neighbour to come deal with it.
I have a professional cleaner in (despite a $150 cleaning fee) and spend $180 myself to bring everything up to spec. I leave drinks replacing the ones provided that we drank.
I leave a basket of bath stuff on the table for her. It isn’t clear whether the linen should be done, so I do it and let her handover rep know that there’s a final load in the dryer.

DISASTER STRIKES.
My cleaner scrapes a scratch in her leather couch with the vacuum end. It’s a half inch scrape, and not a rip. I take pics, along with my checkout ones, and inform the handover agent.
Let us know if it’s an issue, etc. Handover agent says it’s nothing, but she’ll let the owner know.

We checkout, I let her know by message that we’ll be back, that lunch offer still stands, etc.

An entire week later, BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM.

$6000 dollar claim in my inbox.
For a new couch. A 3000 dollar couch. A massive behemoth in almost rococo style. Marie Antoinette would love this shit guys.

And apparently her laminate has peeled, and the photo is so bad you can barely even see any damage.
3k to repolish the entire room.
The picture is probably 10 square inches, and I can’t actually see what the issue is beyond some light peeling. I don’t even know where in the house this is, as there is no photo reference for it.

Well, folks, here is where it gets fun.

I find her same couch, online for less than $500 dollars.
LINK.

I have a repair quote for the couch scratch for a couple hundred bucks.
This includes the repair service coming to her. I since got one for even less.

There is also rambling complaint about how the bin was full (yes, we left on friday and the service doesn’t come till Monday).
The fire pit needs to be removed. (well, I did offer lady, and I have it on air message record)
And the sheets in the dryer got mouldy… in a dryer which never left anything wet in one cycle. YEAH.
Her HOA complained.

Well, we are friends with the neighbour that did checkout, and we know the head of her HOA. Who is quite nice.
Turns out the board hates that she owns it just to air profit from it, and tried to stop it through the bylaws. Cept they couldn’t. So they’re after her for every offensive thing they can get her on.

So we decline. Explain how such claims in light of an hours research, are opportunistic and extortionate.
I can provide a cleaning reciept, pictures, and a repair quote for the couch scratch.
No response for 4 more days.

So we call air and ask them when they’ll get involved.
They say only she can escalate, and she has 30 whole days to do it.

They mediate, trying to espouse their friendliness policy.
we explain that we’re well beyond friendly at this point.
They get a rep who has spoken to her.
Apparently this claim was made with no idea what it should cost, beyond a stick your finger in the air and guess.

But she REALLY, REALLY WANTS THAT COUCH. No other one. Just the rococo monstrosity she’s linked to.

Fuck me guys. I mean, it really is the damned twilight zone.

And now we wait.

While she can still review me, mind.
And air just says… it depends.

I rented 11 properties in 12 months from them last year. Is there a point at which being a good customer counts?

How royally I’m screwed here remains to be seen.
She has two and a bit more weeks to obsess about how to make this hit as bad as she can.
So far, she hasn’t said anything in response to the issue at all.

Oh, and I left out the part where the place cost more than most people’s mortgages, but turned out to be in a community in the center of crack town, and someone tried to break in in the middle of the night.
But that’s a story for another day!

So to the important question: I just got an update saying that she’s reviewed me. What do I do?
If I leave her an honest and pretty terrible review, I can’t mention we’re in dispute or I violate airbnb’s TOS. But it could also affect how she deals with the dispute if she perceives me as mean/an asshole for what I said. If I say nothing, and she negs me really hard, future guests aren’t warned and I’ve got a “she’s a house ruiner” at the top of my profile.

What do I do here?

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What you described her wanting 3K for a new couch because of 1/2" scratch shows me that she is a trouble maker as a host. if i read review about your experience i would never rent from her only based on a fact that she might go after me with claims. I bet if you didnt report the scratch she would not even notice.
Also, she is wrong, she cant eneter house without your permission if she rented it to you… unless there is an emergency.

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@Yana_Agapova

Thanks for your reply, Yana.

And you’re right. It’s arbitrage level taking advantage of the situation.
But unfortunately, I can’t mention her claim in my review, it goes against airbnb’s TOS.

If I do, they’ll remove it. But I don’t want to leave other guests in the lurch.
I also don’t want to pay out anywhere up to 6k for her crazymaking.

:frowning:

Yes leave a review. You know she is going to be awful with you. So let her have it. She is completely crazy and no one in their right mind would want to book her place. Leave out all the details that are involved in the dispute … Or if you are unsure what constitutes a violation of the TOS, contact Air. You sound very nice and very respectful in my opinion. She had absolutely no right to enter a house she had rented out and especially to do things like moving furniture. Very stressful and very nervewracking for you and no way to spend a holiday.

Maybe she is just trying to get Air to pay for the couch, but seriously, six grand?

Keep us posted. It’s possible she will violate the TOS in her review and it will be removed. So watch for signs of it. Keep use posted. What a terrible host she was. Sounds to me like you did everything right and there were red flags. If you feel like sharing, post her review of you.

I’m with kona on this one.
Let her have it!

Before the new review system took place. I was afraid to leave bad reviews for my guests, in case they left me bad reviews back because of that.
Now, however, I only leave honest reviews.
I do not have the conscience for not doing this to other hosts.

So over to your matter;
This host you experienced has to be the ultimate nightmare.
Bringing up personal problems, entering the apartment without permission and acting crazy, should have been banned from Airbnb!
Hosts like these, is making our business look bad.

I am glad you documented everything with pictures.
This shows how important it is to document cases when they appear.
(You should have taken pictures of her and her SUV with all the stuff when she arrived.)

I am sure everything sorts out just fine for you. I would be surprised if it did not.

Bobas
Norway

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What a miserable experience. I’m so sorry that happened to you. It seems like you can leave a totally honest review without mentioned the claim at all. Mention one or two things you liked about the house, then mention that, since the host is in a very difficult and stressful time of her life that the strain on her is making her extremely unpleasant to do business with her, that it came to a very disappointing end, and that you would not rent from her again.

Good thing you’re such a good story teller!!

The reasons are immaterial, the upshot is she is a domineering, confrontational and dictatorial type of person. Totally ill-suited the be a host. I can’t fathom who would feel comfortable staying in her place, with every inch of it being an accident waiting to happen when is occupied with some ‘priceless’ nick-knack. In a nutshell she is a lunatic.

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She decided to lie- it was bad guys.

Here’s my review.
Friendly host to start. Quickly became nightmare booking.
Summary: Avoid this host and property. Would never stay again.

Pro:
+Seniors community full of kind people
+Has an apple TV

Con:
-Located in a dangerous area of Portland, as we discovered when someone attempted to break in at 3am. We’re not from the US, and you wouldn’t know it unless you knew Portland well.

-Host expects to be able to enter the property with 24 hours notice (which is fine) but also expects to be able to unload the back of an SUV’s worth of goods and move furniture, with 30 minutes notice by text that she had “stuff to drop off”.

Upon a request to put the things in the front room, rather than moving furniture, and that we weren’t expecting a huge load of items, she became irate and angry. She insisted that the law said we must let her in, and that we clearly didn’t understand that this was her house.
There was a great deal more exposition on her personal difficulties, all of which you would not expect to hear as a guest. It’s upsetting and frightening when someone becomes irate enough that they are smashing plates in the carpark, and you occupying your rental should not make you an imposition.

  • Host has unreasonable expectations, especially if she does not attend for a handover. $180 worth of professional cleaning on top of a $150 cleaning fee, multiple gifts, and more effort than was required for me to put in was not appreciated. It resulted in an unreasonable and expensive outcome, as well as a failure to communicate from her.

-Host has very stringent checkout procedures, due to her HOA’s requirements. These were not communicated beforehand, and resulted in small, problematical complaints that would not occur to you without knowing the rules.

-11 separate air rentals last year left me with the impression that Host is a nice person in general, but clearly currently under a great deal of pressure, and I hope she gets the help she needs. The sharing economy can be difficult if you are fastidious and time poor, of which she is both.

I would not recommend this host or property, and would never stay again.

Her review- she decided to really go for it. Mentioned damaged furniture she is currently claiming for. Claimed I left trash everywhere, which in her claim is a complaint on an overfull recycling bin.
Claimed I smoked heavily in the house, which is simply untrue and which she did not bring up in her claim. Claimed I forced her neighbour, who she designated as the handover person to do a walkthrough, which wasn’t true. Said we didn’t tell her about the couch- well, we told the neighbour we gave the keys back to, and asked her to tell the host to contact us if it was an issue. neighbour said it was tiny and should be fine.

She lied, made defamatory statements that I have proof to the contrary of.

Her review:
“Damaged floor and furniture, Smoker Smell, Refuse Overflowing everywhere, Furniture moved everywhere… Thanks to these guests I will be enacting some new house rules. My place reeks of cigarette smoke. I will now not allow smokers. I hope the smell will go away eventually. I allow smoking on my patio, but have never had heavy smokers, lesson learned. I took a comforter in my car to the dry cleaners and now my car smells like smoke, same with a rug I moved out after they left, it smells like smoke and so does my car . I gave them 48 hours notice to drop off some belongings as we had sold my parent’s 35 year residence, they wouldn’t let me in past the front door. I spent a lot of time putting back furniture they moved and didn’t put back. They left massive amounts of trash in my place and outside on the patio and in my garbage area, it caused an issue with my condo board. They didn’t put out the recycling bin that was overflowing with recycling. My hardwood floor finish was bubbled and they covered it with a chair. My leather sofa was ruined right in the front, I have no idea how they caused the rips. They tried to have my neighbor conduct a walk thru, and never informed me of any damage to the sofa or hardwood floors. Guest is very nice and got me a gift certificate for makeup and offered lunch and a pedicure-I just want my space respected, I don’t need gifts. They told me they had bad experiences in the past with hosts not respecting their space, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Upon visiting the condo after they left, I regretted renting to them.”

Airbnb said the review doesn’t violate their TOS. I want to know how that is!
Wish I could post pictures of checkout day in response :frowning:

How is mentioning the couch not a discussing a disputed claim!!?? Air should have deleted the review.

@Xena

I don’t know. Waiting to find out.

It’s clearly punishment for not paying her out. Because people will see that and never rent to me because my top review says I left smoke smell and trash.

It’s a profile ruining review. :frowning:

@Yana_Agapova @dcmooney @Mearns @AquaticQuests @Bobas

Well, as you can see she really went for it.

Totted it up and I spent just over 30k on air last year. Her profile ruining review posted as requested. :frowning:

Just to play devil’s advocate here…why did you have so many interactions with her? And offer her so many things–lunch, drinks, fire-pit, etc.? The fact is that she wasn’t being reasonable and the best thing you could have done was request to leave when things got crazy.

I don’t mean to sound harsh, but I just had guests who were trying to make inroads into my personal life…they are immigrating to Canada and were trying very hard to get to know me personally. (Turns out they wanted a reference for an apartment they will be renting.) They were inviting me for tea, for lunch., etc. But I know that getting that close to my guests is not a good idea. Ditto getting close to a host. My guests were stressing me out–even though I was sympathetic–and so I made my excuses (a very busy week) and only dealt with them via the messaging system. They were NICE people, not even remotely crazy, but after meeting them once, I knew that their reaching out was fraught with hazards.

No way I would have engaged with your host to the extent that you did. I would have, once the third or fourth thing went wrong, advised Air and found an alternate place to stay. Sorry, but you seem to have asked for at least some of the trouble you got.

Your host may sound crazy, but grief and family stresses like illnesses and dealing with elderly relatives does do weird things to people. Think of how nutty people get after a death and before/during/after the reading of a will, for example. She probably tried to hit with you the $$$ because you seemed a bit like chumps in the first place.

Sorry if this comes across as harsh, but the psychology of your response raises real questions for me too. Why did you allow yourselves to get so entangled with her?

No offence, but I do wonder why complaining guests come here to moan about their experiences. There are other sites where these complaints are more appropriate. I do wonder, perhaps, if the industry we’re displacing–the hotel industry–sometimes sends people here with horror stories to put hosts off.

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@Reeny Actually, if you’d looked at my post history you’d see “moaning” isn’t my MO, generally. Most of the time I attempt to entertain.

I was not “entangled”. For reference, in the past airbnb appreciated attempts at conciliation- which my gifts were. I did, in fact, offer to leave, and air has it on reference that I did.

I did not leave immediately because the dropping stuff off issue was the first one, and I thought I had solved it with an explanation and an offer to lunch. Everything else occurred at the end of my stay.
Additionally, finding a new rental in the middle of december was incredibly, prohibitively, expensive.

When you rent short stay properties all year, running into the occasional issue is to be expected. It was valuable to me to be able to ask the opinion of hosts- plus the crowd here is funny, kind, and I enjoy reading and occasionally giving feedback to other posters from a different perspective.

I only had one in-person interaction. Everything else was via message or claim.
I hope that clarifies.

And for context, I am not some shill from the hotel industry. I’m a traveller who rented 11 stays in 12 months with air last year. This isn’t some kind of “put the hosts off” rodeo. The more supply available to me anywhere I want to be, the better off I am.

My “chumpiness” is an attempt to do everything right. Unfriendly irrationality on your part never looks good when you are required to defend yourself.

Thanks for your input.

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This forum isn’t here for entertainment purposes. It’s here so that hosts can exchange information. Are you actually a host?

I’m just saying you got entangled with someone who obviously wasn’t in a good frame of mind to be hosting. Your attempts to sound “chill” just belie the fact that you spent an awful lot of words complaining about this host (this happened, then that happened, then OMG this happened and now I’m getting a bad review) instead of doing the proactive thing and taking care of business on the spot. Some people just love drama. I’m wondering if you do too. For example, I would never go to an Airbnb guest site to complain about guests.

I teach teenagers. After about the second or third complaint, about the same issue or person, I cut them off and ask them what they’re going to do about it. Too bad someone didn’t step in and do the same for you.

There are forums where guests can complain to their heart’s content. I suggest you find one.

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Honestly, I’m not sure how I engendered this response, so I’ll leave it at thanks for your input.
It’s a differing view.

I’m sure if the mods had an issue with me posting here, it would be pulled down or I’d be asked not to.

Taking care of business on the spot, which I assume you meant as leaving my reservation, would have resulted in losing a couple of grand due to the hosts cancellation policies. Air only offered to assist in finding a new place, not to negate that.

For the record, I’m not “chill” or anything near a teenager.
I have found hosts opinions here invaluable in the past, and posted to a guest appropriate forum also.

Your opinion is the outlier, but appreciated nonetheless.

As I said, I would not go to an Airbnb guest forum to complain about Airbnb guests. Not unless I was passive-aggressive and looking to provoke or upset people.

I doubt that I’m an outlier in theory although I may be in practice, i.e., I am the only one asking you why you are posting your complaints here.

Again, I reiterate. I teach teenagers. When they start moaning to me–especially about other teachers as they are wont to do on occasion–I cut them off. It’s inappropriate for me to be discussing other teachers with students and I suspect some of us may feel it’s a bit inappropriate to be discussing other hosts with you, especially because you are being longwinded about it and looking for support in the wrong place.

The moderators probably won’t ask you to leave since this is a fairly open kind of site, so I’m just putting it to you that your posting may be more appropriate elsewhere.

This is the end of the discussion from my perspective.

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I personally would actually welcome guests stories here, though this site is created specifically for hosts. We had incidents here in a past where some people no matter what were sided with hosts, not seeing clearly the picture. Its never good.
One thing i agreed with about extremety of your presents and offers. I as a host would say no to lunch and pedicures. Its just…not very appropriate, especially when you guys have nothing in common.
I have a bi-weekly guest not for 2 months, she is planning to stay until July like this. She is my age, we get alone beautifully. She is very polite, funny, good to talk to. I can see myself having her as a friend. Yesterday she offered to cook for us something vegeterian. She did, and it was amazing food. We had a bottle of wine, and chatted for couple of hours which was fun. I still am not sure where its going, as she is paying me for stay. I laso raised her rent because of high season, and she was not that happy about it.

I prefer to keep business and pleasure separately, just my experience its never a good idea to mix these two.

The woman is obviously is taking advantage of her being able to claim the money, but i will be very surprised if Airbnb rewards her.
Also, do you have other positive reviews? One bad review out of so many good ones is not going to destroy your profile.

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Yana, what I did with the guests I had last week is that I found an ethnic organization from their country that has an active group in my city. I gave them the details and urged them to contact this group as I know for a fact they are very proactive about taking care of new arrivals to Canada. They speak the same language and know the ropes when it comes to navigating the immigration process. I kept repeating to these guests that this was their best bet to get help in immigrating and settling in. Not sure they called, but I sent the number, website address, etc. I could understand their anxiety–my parents were immigrants too–but I really couldn’t get involved. I am super-busy myself.

@Yana_Agapova

Thanks for your view!
You’re right, and it is something I need to easeback on.
Tbh, the offer of lunch was some damage control- she clearly thought I was the devil itself for not letting her in to move furniture, and I was trying to make it clear I’m not an unavailable jerk.

In terms of physical gifts: small fire pit, giftcard and some bath products. Maybe that’s too many? I don’t even know anymore. Some hosts love it (In fact one of my favorite places that I’m staying in for a 3rd time, always go so well because the owner LOVES presents.) Other times it’s too much.
We’re not personally friends either. Fortunately when this stay finishes this hosts review will go up, which will push it down the page some.

I actually posted her review response because kona suggested I do so. I’ll be interested to see how air deals with it, as she’s broken the terms they gave to me as review terms, so we’ll see how it goes.

I’ll let you know how their response goes, as I am not currently able to live chat because “they’re working on my issue and will get back to me” as of 16 hours ago.

I have other positive reviews (my ratio now is 5/7- I think I mentioned in my last post I went a lot of stays before anyone reviewed me/wanted a review), so we’ll see how it goes. Personally I’m disappointed I can’t embed my checkout pictures as a response to her review. It would put paid to just about everything she said.

I don’t know when it comes to your guest/almost friend. It’s nice when you meet someone you really get along with. From my perspective, I have two hosts who are friends, one on air and one off. We have dinners and catchup and fun together when I’m in the area, but if I’m renting from them I still always pay full rate. As I see it, friendship doesn’t affect that my using their separate space at a lesser rate is taking income from them, and I wouldn’t do that to a friend.

If I were to stay in their home as an invited guest, that’s one thing (and one of my friends did do that on a layover, it wasn’t a booking). But if I want to rent their condo/home/studio, it would be crappy of me to expect preferential treatment (perhaps beyond hoping they’ll take my reservation over someone else’s, but it’s never come up)

I hope that helps?