Review assistance requested

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Update: I had to contact CS about another guest who booked one and gave me the names of her 3 other guests but hasn’t accepted the alteration request after weeks of reminders and requests. She seemed very host positive so I followed up on my two outstanding resolution requests, the first of which is the one in this thread.

She said that Michelle had responded to me that the matter was closed 5 days ago. I explained that her being involved was because I called about the threatening text messages, NOT the resolution request and that no one has responded to it so I could provide the video evidence. She informed me that Michelle is in fact the case manager for the Resolution as well and she would email her to contact me.

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Wait what? !
I accept people in my apartment I don’t want to deal with their poop either!
Common courtesy = clean up after your dog.

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Update: after sending a dozen videos with over 30 minutes of footage she still wants more proof of smoking. He is smoking in at least 2, one at a distance in his car which he has already admitted to in his texts and one on the porch where he walked from the car into the house with the cigarette in his mouth. You do need to pause the video to see the cigarette but she still wants more proof. I have some on a different camera at a lower resolution that will take a little more work to get to her but I imagine it still will be a struggle.

She is also questioning whether I provided crates for them to use outside my property. I provide complimentary crates for use in the house but I suppose they could take them with them. Not necessary though as I only require them crated in the house not when they are off property…very strange inquiry for sure.

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So your guests are not allowed to smoke in their cars?
I am really interested to see how this pans out with air…

RR

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I think it’s clear

There is at least one other host here with a no smokers at all rule. She hosts in her home but I guess it’s not that uncommon to have as a rule. Oh, I think there is also someone in the CA mountains/forest who also has a no smoking at all anywhere rule.

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What even is the point of this question?

As to the larger question of fines/fees etc., nobody took my House Rule of an 11 a.m. checkout (be on the other side of the door at 11, sayonara) too seriously until I put in a $25 fee for late departures in place. And then boom, compliance. Ditto for early check-ins.

P.S. Yep as @KKC notes, I don’t permit SMOKERS here … AirBNB has backed me up … the smell on their clothes/breath/hair/skin gives me asthma so I cannot be in the same room w/ them.

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Not if their car is on the property at the time. In this case it was because he was in the driveway.

Actually it is WORSE when a guest smokes in their car and the. Come son the house then if they were to just stand outside next so their car to smoke. They are trapped in the car with the smoke.

Ironically, at least twice whe he was in his car smoking he did so with the door and/or window open.

Most guests get it and leave the property as the rules state.

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Update: so Michelle wants to know the duration of how long Christy parked her SUV in the lawn so I looked back to the record of the August Smart Lock (I only have sporadic footage of their stay because it expires and I was busy and couldn’t get it all) and it shows they left around 10am…but also shows they left the house unsecured all morning while they were gone, which is also against the House Rules and has a $50 fine. These two really seemed to break almost every house rule!

He had an unauthorized person (does have a $50 fine plus $20 additional person fee) at the house midday when he let the unsecured dogs out the first time but he didn’t go in the house or stay more than 15 minutes so I hadn’t brought it up.

The more I dig on these two the more broken House Rules I find!!!

Apparently Michelle only received 8 of the 12 videos so I am resending them today.

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Too bad your review didn’t get in on time. I’ve had that problem too, where I try to wait till the last minute and miss the window. I think in the future I’ll leave more cushion and risk retaliation.

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Update: I resent them but Michelle didn’t receive them again so said she would send me a new direct email (she has been messaging me in my guest inbox despite telling me she wouldn’t. She never sent the email so I messaged back about it and the response was that she has made a determination of not valid. She says that George never smoked in the house (untrue but regardless, my rules state nowhere on the premises), that she only saw the videos of the dogs being supervised (because she still hasn’t received all the videos and she knows this) and as far as the car on the lawn goes (even though it wasn’t in the rules originally I asked about it since I wanted to know what they would say) she said that since I didn’t have proof of how long she parked there it was not valid. Regardless I told her from the evidence of when they left (proven by the time stamp of the smart lock it had been put there about 1030 am), she had seen multiple videos where it was located in the lawn and she saw when it was moved after 630 pm. I also reminded her that the rule wasn’t that they were allowed to park there for a certain amount of hours. It was not allowed at all and she could clearly see that it had been parked there for some time.

When I responded that I wanted to know how she could determine this without receiving and viewing all the evidence she came back with “we reviewed the evidence provided and determined it is invalid.” I asked who we is and and Danni replied that she is a colleague of Michelle and reviewed what I had provided and saw no evidence to support my claims and it was closed. I checked the Resolution Center and it is not closed yet. I replied asking how many of the videos they had received and reviewed and that I did not consider the matter closed.
I received an unsigned form response thanking me for taking the time to provide my feedback. To which I only replied “How many of the videos have you received and viewed???”

My guess is they will not contact Christy anymore (suppoesdly Michelle did but Christy has not responded) and they have no desire to cover the additional money over and above the $50 they already covered for them not picking up their dog poop. I will need to escalate this I’m sure. I don’t know how to force them to support me on the House Rules. If they allow smoking and lawn parking despite clear House Rules prohibiting it and despite clear evidence showing it, I don’t know what to do other than take it to small claims court. Is this worth it? In this case, since I do not have video proof of all 8 times of smoking anymore, only 2 and his text admitting to smoking in his car and only video proof of one of the two unsecured unsupervised dogs incidents, I’m not sure. What do you all think?

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Social media posting? “Airbnb says it’s OK for guests to park on my lawn and destroy it because I didn’t say “No parking on the lawn” in my house rules – wow, that’s absurd”

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That’s not what they are saying, actually. It does say no parking or driving on the lawn in my House Rules but they are saying that because I can’t prove how long it was parked there that it is not valid. THAT IS PREPOSTEROUS!!!

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How much is your time worth? Is the principle worth the effort? For each person it’s different.

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That was just an example of a posting that would get Airbnb’s attention, edit at will.
“Airbnb says it’s OK for guests to park on my lawn and put ruts in it. I provided photo documentation and my house rules say “No parking on the lawn.” But Airbnb says I have to provide proof of the exact number of hours the vehicle was on the lawn or they won’t do anything – wow, that’s absurd.”

Any homeowner can relate to vehicle damage on a lawn and Airbnb should realize this will discourage future hosts from listing. That is the rule-breaking that resonated most with me and actually felt angry on your behalf and had flashbacks to contractors putting ruts in my lawn!

I think the dog supervision and he said/she said smoking dispute are too complicated to parse into a facebook post or tweet, which need to be concise to be effective, and may even make you come off as a bit picky and prone to complicated arguments (not that you are – it’s all perception), so you would get the most leverage from focusing on the lawn damage issue.

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Where exactly are you recommending I post?

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For me principle is always worth it but I was wondering what others thought about actually suing over it.

I guess, given @PuppyLover’s history, I could sue the guest for the fines and Airbnb for failure to uphold the House Rules even with evidence?

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In puppy lovers case she suffered significant damage due to being delisted by Airbnb. For a few hundred in damages my time would be worth more.

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https://twitter.com/airbnb?lang=en

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I have a sneaking suspicion that Michelle and Danni (as well as “Melody H.” in my case) are robots.

Badly badly badly programmed robots, designed to box in hosts and make them crazy. Read about “learned helplessness.”

AirBNB seemingly has raised the surrender flag on dealing with any and all calamities pre-IPO,

thus hosts who raise a complaint get some templated robot nonsense that notes “I’m off for 72 hours,” “your case is closed and will not be further reviewed,” “you can’t prove smoking,” etc. The 'bots will pay $75 for certain things and nothing more.

Now as to the practicalities of your case @Militaryhorsegal, you seek $1,050 correct? You can indeed sue the guest in Small Claims for that amount + your court fees + postjudgement interest. Let’s say the court filing fee to you is $40 and the service on the guest is $60-90 (more if out of state).

Step 1 is to ascertain if the guest has assets, i.e. a decent job and/or property that you can put a lien on. If yes, and you are willing to work REALLY hard to get your money, you might see it in 1 to 2 years. Winning a judgment is always close to a coin toss, ALTHOUGH if the guest lives far away and is not willing to travel to contest $1K, you will win by default and can then collect. Collection is definitely 75% of the work and effort, and that’s with the fact that the court process is tricky. However, patience wins.

To sue AirBNB for nonenforcement of your fees would be a more intriguing and opaque matter as to resolution. My educated guess would be, comb thru the ToS and your state laws on contract enforcement and then hit Air with a parallel small claim and cite laws (legislation in your state)/ToS/precedents (“case law”). Then you might well have Air lollygag around until 2 weeks before the trial date and offer you a settlement of around 60% (my experience). Plus probably want you to sign a non-disclosure agreement (which I told them, I would not).

If the Air lawsuit goes to court, due to an unsatisfactory settlement discussion, Air will have to shell out for a $500/hour local attorney to defend. You would think that would be a bucket of cold water on their poor pretrial settlement offers, but, apparently not.

If you go to appeal like I have ( … interesting, to me, footnote follows …) you will get a 128-page response to a motion such as mine to increase damages and move the trial from de novo (do-over) to on the record (incorporating the first judge’s shock at AirBNB’s cr@p ToS). I have enough scrap paper now for a decade from the inch-thick mailed version of the Air response. An attorney friend looked at it and just went “HOLY COW!” He thinks AirBNB is a tad bit nervous that little old me the pro se litigant is locked and loaded …

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tl;dr @KKC is correct in her assessment that it’s a LOT of effort, excruciating effort, for a small and uncertain payback.

But you are also correct @Militaryhorsegal – sometimes it’s the principle of the thing.

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