Yes and if you’ve ever read any Christopher Hitchens or seen any of his lectures it becomes extremely hard. Agreed.
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Jefferson appreciate the comment. theres always one! Esp on this forum !!
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Have you been watching Hichens again !!!
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As someone else mentioned, this could be a case of a person who went off their meds.
One of my best friends dated a guy for two years and they had a great time together. He had told her when they first met (through a dating site) that he was bipolar, but always took his meds. As a youth and family counselor, she’s quite familiar with these issues, and said she had no problem with it, but if he went off the meds, that would be a deal breaker.
One day he showed up at her house, raging, and started throwing things around, put his fist through the wall. This nice, quiet guy she’d dated for 2 years had turned into a crazy person. Unbeknowst to her, he’d gone off his meds several days before.
But you were aware that a normal guest doesn’t check in for a two night stay with 20 boxes full of stuff and many more assorted bags. If not a clue that something was wrong at that point, what would be? It doesn’t even appear from your post that you questioned this with the guest. There’s a vast difference between being accommodating and being passive in the face of abnormal behavior.
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This supports my prior guessed assessment of “ off meds”.
Most people with a history of mental health issues can get along just fine in life while receiving proper treatment.
As a Nursing student I watched an intake Nurse handle an “off meds” situation with incredible grace.
Fellow shows up asking for aid with housing. Long story-he mentioned threatening to kill family, fantasizing about killing strangers in grocery with big knife, pulled out knife, stabbed desk. He agreed to immediate medication & allowed her to lock knife away.
Physician appeared. Sedation. Police. Involuntary committal. All safe. Of course I almost peed when he stabbed the desk.
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We once had a 35-ish female guest show up with a lot of extra stuff. And … wait for it … an undisclosed 3 year old to a No Infants or Kids Stay.
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I could have turned her away. I made a snap judgement at the time, as you did. Some of these will work out just fine and others will not. They are not necessarily mistakes. A bunch of boxes does not necessarily scream “Uh Oh this Guest will be a nightmare”. It is a reasonable cause for some degree of concern and a conversation opener. There are any number of valid reasons.
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In our case, she was a great guest. A really lovely woman, looking to get away from a bad marriage (local-ish). We hosted her a 2nd time, and would have kept doing so.
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I did not read any prejudice in this frightening account- only a genuine desire to be a good host to an increasingly disturbing and threatening guest!
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The above was a response to Ken.
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One in four people have mental health issues during their lifetimes so it means that you would be excluding many guests from staying with you particularly considering they travel with family /friends.
The vast majority of people with mental health issues haven’t stayed as you put it ‘in an institution’. And make great guests.
In what way do you feel it appropriate to ask this sort of question anyway?
You didn’t respond to my question as to why you expect Airbnb to vet for mental health issues (an impossible task which no other listing company vets for) . Would you also expect them to vet hosts in a similar way?
You had many opportunities to ask Airbnb to cancel the booking such as when they arrived with twenty packing boxes or made advances to you - yet chose not to.
At the end of the day it’s up to us as the business owner to put the checks in place that we need to, to ensure we vet guests in accordance with whatever criteria makes us comfortable (as long as it’s not discriminatory).
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Yes it was my first experience with this level of mental illness.
You are right that I ignored my discomfort at seeing the boxes on the street. I did ask and person said they were moving a few things, I did not at that stage have a rule against it and as a host I know that airbnb always sides with the guest. Im generally a generous person and try to avoid confrontation. I accept a certain amount of hasstle with airbnb as the cost of doing business, 95% of guests are polite, good people, but its those 5% that make it pure hell!
I need to find a way of standing up for myself as a host, without jeopardising my listing by either getting bad review or some falling foul with airbnb or simply giving them the opportunity to side with the guest. I find airbnb has found a way to indirectly make hosts accept issues with guests such as these by sidelining hosts. Ive had over 250 so Im not new a this but still need to find a way to navigate the choppy waters of an undesirable or problematic guest.
I looked into other STR www sites but was not impressed. I have a room vrbo seems to be houses, bookings.com has a bad rep. I want to investigate turnkey and see how that is.
thanks for the resonse.
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You don’t have to have a rule about guests not moving in with 20 boxes for a 2 night booking in order to say no, anymore than you need to have a rule about guests not shitting in the middle of the lawn.
It’s in the realm of abnormal and unacceptable.
And for your own good, stop dismissing your own intuition or things that make you uncomfortable because you are fearful of a bad review or are confusing being “nice” with allowing yourself to be taken advantage of.
I was trying to consider what I would have done if the same thing had happened to me. I think I would have simply said they weren’t allowed to move all that stuff in, that they needed to take it eleswhere, and maybe asked if they had a phone number for someone in their church who could be of assistance. If they really do attend a local church, this person is likely well-known to them and there might have been someone who could have explained what is wrong with this person and perhaps even offered to come take him off your hands.
Unless the entire church membership is as mentally ill as he is 
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This person would not have made it past happy God day with me. And I am a person of faith. I rarely rely on Airbnb’s vetting and ask questions unless they have automatically done everything I think they should. By that I mean have filled out a profile that actually says some thing about who they are, have gone through the verification process, have written me an introductory letter that talks about why they are coming and who is coming with them, and have phrased their request in a way that shows that they know it is a request and not a done deal. If they have a slew of great reviews I overlook the absence of some of what I just mentioned. My house is my only major asset. Just like I wouldn’t go out with a guy who I met online if all I knew about them was their name and their phone number, I wouldn’t have a guest in my house if that was all I knew about them. 20 boxes! Are you kidding me? You are lucky you got out of this one as easy as you did.
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If you are like me you might find that how you handle these things, at least the less threatening ones, depends on your mood. Sometimes I’m just tired from arguing with customer service people, family, etc. on any given day and don’t have the energy to take on another confrontation. Other days my pre-retirement executive kicks in and stands my ground while coming up with creative solutions. I chuckle because we also don’t know who stayed with us that might have been potentially more unglued and dangerous, but just didn’t exhibit any blatant odd behavior.
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Yes a great response you make some valid points. I do need to stop dismissing my own intuition inorder to avoid confrontation. However that does bring on a whole load more considerations and risks.
If I had refused entry it would have been quite a show down I think. What became clear is this person was not religious and did not even know where this church was and asked me for directions. Also this person went on a Saturday to the church and did not go Sunday (Presbyterian) stayed in room all day so I knew this person was using religion as a prop so to speak. There was no-one I could have called and this person would have been stranded on the street, they would have called airbnb and complained and it would have likely caused some form mental breakdown at the very least mental distress and unpredictable outcome.
Another aspect of this that I had not mentioned because it was not really relevant until now, is that this person was trans sexual. He as she. The behaviour was so abhorrent and disturbing that self identity was not relevant would have applied to anyone, however, if I had denied entry or cancelled the booking, well sexual identity politics are super charged in society right now as you know. Race is also supercharged and this person was asian and there have been some recent uproar in news re asian murder and race. Accusations of sexual discrimination and racism and their individual rights would have come up so it was another reason I felt I needed to act very carefully as sexual identity is such a hot potato right now. In addition they could have claimed I had no house rule and it was not made clear not to bring x20 boxes which would have been true. We have all read the stories on here how perfectly reasonable hosts have had their airbnb listings destroyed by one unreasonable guest (the one about drunk guests urinating through the attic door comes to mind) after years as a superhost. It is also very clear where airbnb stands on issues of race and sexual identity, concealing pictures of guests prior to booking and statements regarding race and diversity and inclusion etc. I dont have an issue with race or sexual identity per se but I do have an issue with abnormal or unacceptable behaviour. I felt that hosts are not backed up by airbnb in general we all know airbnb sides with the guest and given their stance on race and sexual identity I felt it further diminished my position in the eyes of airbnb, who quite frankly is dissmisive of hosts and their issues.
I took the easy route at my own expense and was lucky to get through it without serious incident. It was such an uneasy feeling of unpredictability that I felt this person could burn the house down using candles or some such, flooded the house due to mental illness, committed suicide as a possibility, attacked me, destroyed furnishings or property. All of this were obviously worst case scenarios but seemed viable given the guests mental condition but did run through my mind as a possibiility.
It was a difficult 3 days and 2 nights and I will be sure to ask more questions prior to accepting bookings next time.
thanks again for the response.
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Yes a great response you make some valid points. I do need to stop dismissing my own intuition inorder to avoid confrontation. However that does bring on a whole load more considerations and risks.
If I had refused entry it would have been quite a show down I think. What became clear is this person was not religious and did not even know where this church was and asked me for directions. Also this person went on a Saturday to the church and did not go Sunday (Presbyterian) stayed in room all day so I knew this person was using religion as a prop so to speak. There was no-one I could have called and this person would have been stranded on the street, they would have called airbnb and complained and it would have likely caused some form mental breakdown at the very least mental distress and unpredictable outcome.
Another aspect of this that I had not mentioned because it was not really relevant until now, is that this person was trans sexual. He as she. The behaviour was so abhorrent and disturbing that self identity was not relevant would have applied to anyone, however, if I had denied entry or cancelled the booking, well sexual identity politics are super charged in society right now as you know. Race is also supercharged and this person was asian and there have been some recent uproar in news re asian murder and race. Accusations of sexual discrimination and racism and their individual rights would have come up so it was another reason I felt I needed to act very carefully as sexual identity is such a hot potato right now. In addition they could have claimed I had no house rule and it was not made clear not to bring x20 boxes which would have been true. We have all read the stories on here how perfectly reasonable hosts have had their airbnb listings destroyed by one unreasonable guest (the one about drunk guests urinating through the attic door comes to mind) after years as a superhost. It is also very clear where airbnb stands on issues of race and sexual identity, concealing pictures of guests prior to booking and statements regarding race and diversity and inclusion etc. I dont have an issue with race or sexual identity per se but I do have an issue with abnormal or unacceptable behaviour. I felt that hosts are not backed up by airbnb in general we all know airbnb sides with the guest and given their stance on race and sexual identity I felt it further diminished my position in the eyes of airbnb, who quite frankly is dissmisive of hosts and their issues.
I took the easy route at my own expense and was lucky to get through it without serious incident. It was such an uneasy feeling of unpredictability that I felt this person could burn the house down using candles or some such, flooded the house due to mental illness, committed suicide as a possibility, attacked me, destroyed furnishings or property. All of this were obviously worst case scenarios but seemed viable given the guests mental condition but did run through my mind as a possibiility.
It was a difficult 3 days and 2 nights and I will be sure to ask more questions prior to accepting bookings next time.
thanks again for the response.
well done you dealt with that admirably and you were lucky he first stabbed the desk and not you.
Thank you but I can’t take any credit except for not screaming. I was hiding behind the nurse. The nurse handled the situation with calm, caring, confidence.
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If a guest arrived with 20+ boxes and a load of other stuff, I’m guessing that not many hosts would have let him in. We all get weird guests from time to time and this sounds like one of the weirdest but it was only for a two night stay.
I’m still not quite getting the picture here. The person was transexual but ‘made advances’ doesn’t sound right Neither does the fact that the host tried to stay out of the property as much as possible when being there to ensure that the guest didn’t pee in the attic or burn the place down would have been more sensible.
I’m uneasy with the way the host calls the guest a ‘mental patient’
No, we don’t all know this. I’ve never found that to be the case.
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I suggest you look into this a little further…
Maybe you can enlighten me?