My family member was abusive while guest was present

Hey there,

I have a big house and it holds sounds very well. I decided to invite some family members to my house to finish a couple of drinks then head out on the town. People were ringing my door bell at 1am and being really disrespectful so I asked everyone to leave. My sisters refused to leave and got abusive, she swore at me and yelled and as she did my two airbnb guests walked in the door. When I told my sister to quiet down the abuse got worse and louder. My airbnb guests were in the kitchen and my sister was in my living room- the are connected closely.

I gave them a refund but I’m so upset and embarrassed. I don’t know what else to do.

Cheers,

Tamada

Hello @Tamada

I think you have learnt your lesson - that inviting family (or others) over for late night drinks when you have guests is probably not the best idea. I am wondering how people were meant to get into your place, if they didn’t ring the door bell?

When some people drink they can get aggressive and loud. You know your family members - on reflection was this a bit of a high risk strategy on your part? Had they all been drinking before getting to your place? (you say finish a couple of drinks - so I presume you/they had been drinking already that night).

I’m not sure what else you can do, apart from learning from this and not inviting late night guests when you are hosting.

You might find your guests will be more forgiving then you think as they were up anyway and you gave them a complete refund.

2 Likes

I’m so sorry you found yourself in this uncomfortable and unfortunate situation. I’m sure, as @Helsi has already stated, you have learned that painful lesson. I also agree that your guests may be more forgiving than you might expect, given the fact that you gave them a full refund, which I think that was the right thing to do.

Of course, I know nothing about your family, nor its dynamics, but if my sister pulled a stunt like that, I’d be asking her to reimburse me for having had to refund my guests. I understand she was drunk, and therefore not thinking clearly, but, what the hell was she thinking? She’s already cost you those guest’s money, and there is a chance those guests will give you a bad review, which could possibly cost you even more money!

2 Likes

I’m sure your guests will be more understanding than you think. It’s a lousy situation but you personally handled it as gracefully as you could.

I can relate to what happened to you: My long-term tenant embarrassed me so much regarding his behavior that bled into the experience of my Air guests over on the other side of my rental ( he played loud music, was drunk, raucous, etc). Like you, I did the best I could to personally go and handle the situation, but I was still livid. The next day I bought some cookies at the nearby bakery and hand-wrote a note apologizing to the guests for what happened. I fully expected a bad review and would have understood their perspective in whatever they chose to relay–turns out, they left a stellar review and were SO nice.

I obviously can’t guarantee this is what will happen to you, but I highlight my experience to say that you might be surprised at the compassion of guests when they see that you’ve done the best you could in trying to curtail behavior that isn’t 100% in your control.

So… don’t dwell on it too much since you’ve clearly done the best you could to remedy the situation. And yep, lesson learned about your dear sister.

2 Likes

I highly recommend going to Alanon. I would never permit my guests to carry on like that I don’t carry on like that. But even though you have dealt properly with the business end of it, it is time to deal with the personal end of it.

Has your family ever acted like this before? If so you should have known better than to invite them while you have guests staying. If not and this came out of nowhere, yes there’s nothing you could have done. Refunding was the right thing to do. But as I Learned, refunding does nothing to keep ingrate guests from leaving a bad review.