My crazy neighbor calls the Sheriff

So father’s day weekend a couple weeks ago I had a family of 4 book our place. They had a couple young kids and 14 glowing 5 star reviews. Anyway, I get a call at 10:15pm the night they check in from my guest that my neighbor called the Sheriff and reported slamming doors, shouting and racial slurs. The sheriff showed up and explained that the neighbor also said the guests were having a party and were drunk. Clearly that wasn’t the case and they left without further incident. My guests then told me that they had an earlier strange conversation with my neighbor when they were checking in where my neighbor was talking about her drug rehab and problems with health. (this is a common occurrence with the neighbor who is a full time resident) My guest asked that she not talk about these things in front of her kids and ignored her. She said that she was very upset and felt uncomfortable staying there. In the end, I offered to refund their weekend, and find another place for them to stay. Luckily I know another airbnb host who has a place in the same neighborhood that let me move them over to their place and only charged me for the cleaning. The guest could have given a really bad review, but I’d like to think since I tried to take care of them they didn’t. They actually didn’t leave any review at all.

Back to the neighbor, I have heard random feedback from several guests that she’s weird and eccentric and talks a lot about how short term renters aren’t really welcome in my neighborhood. I went down to the local sheriff station and talked to the deputies that actually were dispatched to our place and they said that my neighbor often calls them with random reports but they have to respond.

Obviously I don’t want to be refunding nights because my neighbor is weird. I’ve tried talking to her, but it doesn’t seem to help.

I have a neighbour who behaves a bit antisocially to me and my guests. After a dispute about my cat (which I sorted by rehoming the cat) my guests told me she was making hand gestures which basically said “crazy gay man lives upstairs”. She probably didn’t think they’d tell me so next time I had guests check in I stood with them in the front yard and said loudly enough for her to also hear: “there is a lovely old lady next door but she suffers from dementia due to years of alcohol abuse and occasionally makes funny hand signs. Best to just smile and ignore her. She really is lovely but has no control over her drinking or dementia so we just smile and put up her”. I knew the bitch (she has neither dementia nor a drinking problem) would hear and since has stopped.

She also occasionally plays music loudly for an hour or so once a week. A lot of it is Beatles records of which I know every song, not just the hits. She occasionally plays Revolver which is my favorite Beatles album so when she cranks up the volume I get out in the garden and do some watering, standing near her fence and sing along loudly and enthusiastically. “Got to Get You Into My Life” is a fave. And I am a really, really bad singer. :japanese_goblin: Hope it hasn’t spoiled it for her.

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In this kind of instance, I really suggest that you consult with an attorney.
You may need to issue some sort of “cease and desist” ( no legal advice from me …talk to a local attorney).
Good luck

Yep you might want to put in a complaint about her harassment. There is an offence in the UK around wasting police time, there must be something similar in the US.

@JamJerrupSunset, I can’t help but chuckle at the whole thing. Your response is exactly the road I’m headed down at this point. In fact, I was at the property about a week ago and she always comes out to report on all the guests that have been there and when she came out, I was arranging some things in the back of my pickup truck and getting ready to leave. When she started talking, I completely ignored her like she wasn’t there (this drives her insane) then got in my truck and left.

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@georgygirlofairbnb, @Jess1, I did follow up with the sheriff’s office a few days ago when I was up there and she seems to call them a lot about various random things. Even though they understand my frustration, there’s really nothing I can do as far as they are concerned except for if she physically threatens or harasses me in person. The attorney is the other route, but I seriously doubt it will change anything. It would probably make it worse. One thing I have been doing is documenting every single encounter that my guests tell me about as well as various contractors that I have had out there to do work. If it does come to it, I will have a mountain of eyewitness accounts to show that she is bothering people un-necessarily. I have so far 3 guest written accounts and 1 contractor. Who knows how many more there are that don’t mention anything.

It’s seeming to me that it’s almost obligatory for all Airbnb hosts to have a nutty neighbour! :slight_smile:
We do too. Luckily though we haven’t had too much of a problem as yet.

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This is the greatest advantage to living in a (cough cough) working class neighborhood. My house is probably the nicest one on the street. If neighbors were going to complain they would have, but not about Airbnb, about dogs.

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