Now seeing airbnb from the guest side

I have one 25 lb dog and a cat.

The gal in the other room was appalled by the cleanliness as well. She stayed for a month.

Oh good, @searchedtobelost . When you mentioned the cat, and pets, I wondered whether there were more and that was what was limiting you to horrible places. A fellow once tried to book here with his seven cats and I had to tell him no. No idea what sort of place would have taken him.
But with just those two, you should have no problem, once things maybe open up a bit more, getting a nice pet-friendly place. I don’t travel with a pet, but I often end up in listings where the host has one. Always nice, clean places, and my own pet-friendly listing is nice and clean. :slight_smile:

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I’ve decided to lower my standards a bit and to do some of my own cleaning.

I purchased my own disinfectant. At my recent stay I wiped down and disinfected the higher touch areas myself. Granted the place was pretty darn clean when I started, but I did find a grimy light switch in the bathroom, so I’m glad I came up with this plan.

I’m also thinking about investing in a tiny stick vac for future travels. Did buy myself a $1 mini dust pan and broom to clean up after myself.

:flushed: :astonished: :hushed: :open_mouth:

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I found this thread that has quite a lot of replies. I’ve included a few topical quotes…

“Also, I know from personal experience, when my wife and I would travel with our dog and/or with my in-laws and their dog, we would book STRs and hotels that allowed medium to large dogs they tended to be not as clean and overall not as nice as the places that didn’t allow pets at all.”

“I had one person that wanted to bring her ESA dog tell me that she refused to stay in a place that accepted pets as they usually stink, are more run down and never as clean as places that don’t take them.”

“In fact, it’s now usually easier to get a decent hotel room that allows larger dogs than it is to get a STR that allows larger dogs. A lot of hotels have relaxed their pet policies, I think to compete with Airbnb, and some don’t even charge fees for pets anymore. And it’s working. In a cross-country trip last year with our dog, we only stayed in a couple of airbnbs but lots of dog-friendly hotels.”

I read that and pretty much every other animal related thread on this forum. The information that was here about ESAs, undisclosed pets, vehemently anti-pet policies, etc. helped inform our pet policy which is “please, bring them. the bigger the better and the more the merrier.”

But this house was set up for big dogs when we bought it, kennels and all (so I am the only person in the county that I am aware allows them to be left behind if needed). The only thing we added was a large dog door.

We are featured on Bringfido.com and being dog-welcoming is one of my 3 major marketing angles. But “no cats, no exceptions” is in the rules. I have 2 family members with severe asthma who are allergic so we can’t accommodate them.

I am Instagram friends with a pet-welcoming lakehouse owner who said they are going to build kennels on their property for guests inspired by me promoting the availability of ours. I told her I think it’s a great investment for a lakehouse so people can bring the dogs but kennel them if they want to go do things that aren’t so dog-friendly on the lake. They, like ours, already have an existing structure they can incorporate it into so the construction costs and footprint would be minimal.

They do have a/c at our place. That’s why we installed the dog door. :wink: The rule is shut the kitchen door (i.e. the access to the rest of the house) if they’re left unattended. They can chill out in the centrally climate controlled laundry or “mud” room as my husband calls it and not be causing mischief in the rest of the house.

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I’ll basically babysit anyone’s dog for free, that is you pay the dog fee and the dog can stay in my part of the house during the time that the guest is out of the house but I don’t advertise it. That’s why it was so annoying when the guy here last August left his dog in the room to tear things up. We even had a "meet and greet " in my yard but then he never took advantage of it. It worked out okay though since he left over $240 on the desk and moved out a week early.

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That sounds like the perfect setup. Indoor/outdoor access.

That is a hilarious story (except the part where your stuff got damaged).

For those with pet friendly listings… here’s an idea for an amenity that might help … air purifiers in the bedrooms! With all the pet dander and whatnot that is brought into a unit, an air purifier would make a noticeable difference in the air quality.

Yep, got that too. When are you coming through El Paso TX again?

LOL.

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I have family there… (second cousins)

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My lord, you could turn this into a Netflix mini series.

Did you ask for a new mattress, a deep clean and a refund?

@searchedtobelost Ok, I need to know, is your nickname “Lucky” by any chance?

JF

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If you click on the photos to zoom, it’s quite obviously grimy, dirty, and full of hair in almost every photo. I would barely call it an improvement.

@searchedtobelost certainly is having some bad luck. I tend to agree with his/her sentiments that decent airbnbs (that accept cats/pets) are probably slim pickings (here in the U.S.) due to covid. The high ratings however, on both of these listings have me stumped.

As it has been mentioned here many times, Super Host status does not necessarily mean much.

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Hahaha! Wouldn’t that be something… I’d get majorly flamed in the reviews.

Sorry not sorry, but (the) hosts (I’m interacting with) don’t want any negative feedback. They don’t want to make any accommodations or answer any questions. Ideally I would send them money and never show up!

I don’t think these hosts actually want to host. Especially these pet friendly hosts. All of the places I stayed were rather depressing.

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Yeah, I’ve read host posts before that make it evident they don’t really want to host. Like some home share hosts who ask if it’s okay to require that their guests go out from 10AM to 4PM, because it bugs them to have other people around the house all day. They obviously aren’t hosting because they enjoy it, to the point where they actually think it would be okay to tell guests they couldn’t use the space they’d rented for 6 hours of the day- they just want to make some money. They don’t get it at all.

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I quit hosting because I no longer wanted to exchange my privacy and personal space for money. After a while it started to wear down something inside of me.

I eventually sold the house because I’d rather live alone than rent a portion of my space to another human. And I didn’t want to keep pouring money into the house. It needed a remodel and I didn’t want to sink the money into it.

After quite a few of my recent stays, I’d think… “you obviously secretly hate doing this and can’t/refuse to keep up with the work. Sell/move out of the house and save everyone some heartache.” They were living in a home that was too large for their personal needs, ability/willingness to maintain it to a good standard, and financial situation.

Essentially it comes down to it being extremely uncomfortable to rent from people who are house poor and/or aren’t maintaining a home in a good working fashion.

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