Grrr. So I have 3 rooms that I rent in an old Georgian house. They are all newly-ish renovated and I paid special attention to laying extra thick rubber underlay when I put in carpets. The rooms are all on different floors. Just had a complaint from guests in the lower room, basically a basement, that the people in the Loft, that is 2 floors above them, made a racket last night, including taking their 3 large dogs out for I assume a bathroom break, at 3am. I have a noise restriction in my house rules, no noise after 11pm. So the complaining guests want to leave. I contacted the noisy guests and they have apologised and promised to be quiet tonight⌠but the other guests still want to leave. I am in a bit of a quandary. I have never had any noise complaints before in the 2 years these rooms have been listed. Not sure what to do. Suggestions welcome 
Are you up front in your listing that other guests will be staying and there might be noise related to them? Do you promise quiet? If they know you take dogs, they should also expect noise. Unless you promised quiet as a feature I would not refund them. However, as you have a no noise rule that the dog people broke you might try to get them to pay. You are kind of setting up an impossible scenario, it might be better to not have a quiet rule and just say that due to the fact that several guests are staying there will be some noise. And if you take pets, itâs to be expected, my cats sometimes run wild in the middle of the night. No one has complained, Yet!
Thereâs always a risk with unrelated guests.
I concur with having noise warnings, which Airbnb specifically highlights for guest agreement if you list it. You can keep your quiet hours also. Something like âThe Airbnb units are on different floors, so on the lower floors you may occasionally hear other guests coming and going and walking about. Noise-reducing floor padding and quiet hours keep this to a minimum.â
I have a noise warning (with several potential sources of noise listed!), and have never had a complaint, in fact many comments on how âquiet and peacefulâ the space is. I think it really, really helps to reduce expectations.
The only time I mentioned to guests how quiet it is here the grass cutters arrived at 7:00 am without letting me know and proceeded to make a racket! When I apologized she said she barely heard them! A heavy sleeper I guess!
Three large dogs says it all.
arent you or a supervisor on site with strangers all in different rooms?
Is this common?
Feels out of control and also dangerous to me.
But these rooms are on different floors so you could get the same thing with apartments! What about more noise dampening with curtains, acoustic panels for ceiling, wall insulation etc.? I think the noisy guests should compensate the other guests. I am a dog lover, but did you disclose the dogs? I would have a limit of 1 because they play. Most good dogs will sleep through the night 10 or more hours, but then mines a working dog so doesnât tend to waste her energy in the house.
Thatâs what I think too
I donât understand your reply
âNoisyâ is subjective, and if the guests who complained felt that the level of noise was unacceptable to them so much that they needed to leave, then you should be happy⌠guests who decide that noise, furnishings, or their perceived difficulties with what you provide are based on THEIR standards are guests that you do not want. I have unfortunately had guests who complained that the floorboards squeaked (despite it being part of my description of the home) and that they were not happy because they did not have ârealâ coffee mugs and choice of real cream even tho there is a photo of the exact coffee service I offer.
That being said, underpromising and overdelivering sometimes works - if you have something complain able, putting it out there first can sometimes work. Donât be afraid to lose a booking from someone who wants a discount or imagines your place to be what they see in THEIR minds rather than what is real.
I had some people downstairs complain that someone was bouncing something on the floor above in the middle of the night. It was probably the cats playing basketball with a dead mouse or banging the cat flap when I locked it and they cant figure out why it doesnât open outwards so just keep whacking it with their paws. Now I have lots of area rugs and only the one cat it doesnât seem to happen so often.
I agree, dogs shouldnât normally need to be taken out at 3am for a pee. Sounds like one of those times where owners over manage their dogs if its a nightly ritual. My dog will go out in the evening before bed and then in the morning. If they (rarely) need to go out in the middle of the night they wake me. Then again it is possible one of the dogs was old or sick and incontinent and needed to go out in which case the owners should have warned the host.
Also yes, there are dogs and there are dogs. I would happily put up with the working dog kind and encourage the others to stay at home and not run around yapping. I can pretty much tell the difference by whether their owners walk them in or carry them in.
No it doesnât.
Iâve had way more than three large dogs here at a time with Airbnb guests in the next room. The only complaint I had about dogs was my first year when I let people check in early before I was off work (and before I had the wisdom of this forum to reference). I appears that the problem here was the humans and their unseemly hours.
To be fair the human could have been suffering from insomnia and using the dogs to calm then down. Thereâs a theory that dogs only suffer mental illness as a result of us!
Iâve had 3 lots of professional dog trainers stay here recently with 3-4 dogs each and they were all brilliantly behaved. One was able to get all 3 dogs to lie down on a single large dog bed. My dog sleeps on my bed and pushes me off to the side.
I have it clearly on all 3 listing, no noise after 11pm. Also all 3 rooms are listed as pet friendly.The people above were at fault initially for walking the bloody dogs at 3:30am⌠who does that⌠but
Update:
The complaining people have checked out and filed a complaint with Air and are asking for a refund.
They are 3 separate spaces, 2 of which have their own private entrance. The third also has its own entrance shared with the middle room. You basically go through the street door and into a tiny vestibule which has the 2 doors to the other rooms, which are all locked and guests have their own keys.
The problem is they are making noise complaints about feet on the floor, dog feet they say, and that is simply not possible. I have almost inch thick carpet and underlay, and they are 2 floors above them. This is an old house with very thick walls on top of that. I have concluded that these people either thought they were at the 4 Seasons, or want a free stay. Nothing else makes any sense. He even accused me of lying when I told him I have never had a noise complaint before. I havenât. Not a one.
All the rooms are pet friendly and it states it in at least 2 places through the listing, including the title description!
I live in an old house too, the walls are thick but of solid construction. A separate layer of insulation does the trick.