Suspected sex worker late night visits to staycation

It’s our single male guest’s birthday weekend, and he decided to be in Atlanta for a staycation. He lives just outside of the city, so he is a local… He booked for just himself but every night he’s had a different very late night visitor (sex worker?) who’s come and gone seemingly via Uber. The rental unit is a converted shipping container in the back of our property, so it’s pretty private. Not sure how to handle this he’s here for one more night… Open for suggestions and trying figure out how to prevent this going forward. We do allow our guests to have up to four visitors but we don’t exactly define what that looks like. We have a fire pit and sometimes they have guests come and hang out at the fire, or often, they bring folks over to show them the spaces (the property’s been featured on a Tastemade / Airbnb video, there are 2 shipping container units tucked in a meadow and lots of people want to have a look, which is okay with us, if it’s friends and they are respectful, which is almost always the case)… And it’s not that the two different women who have been here the last two nights have been disrespectful—it’s just that we don’t support the practice of men buying sex, and we don’t love the idea of different strangers wandering in to the backyard at 3:30 am and leaving at 5:00. Ps. We run a nonprofit called hu-manup.org and talk about our work on our profile (look us up:) ACK!!

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Maybe set time limits on what time of day visitors are welcome? 9:00am to 11:00 pm? Require visitors names be provided and have them sign a visitor log - for insurance purposes.

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What’s the benefi t to you of allowing visitors? I would just issue a blanket rule…
O5erwise this will keep happening. The guest could rightfully say it was a friend and you’ve given permission.

Most hosts come to the conclusion that extra visitors are a huge liability. Also, they may void your host guarantee if allowed on site to say nothing of your insurance.

Going forward, new rule

Only registered guests allowed on the property or in the apartment at all times. Absolutely no overnight visitors.

As for this guy, you could confront him…but he’s likely to feign shock and outrage.
If you change the rule, you won’t have this problem.

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Maybe those are Tinder dates? I wouldn’t rush and accuse the man of paying for sex without any proof. If you allow visitors, I don’t see what difference does it make if they have sex or not. However, as visitors are huge liability, I would rather got with a ban on unregistered visitors. The idea with visitor’s log for insurance purposes is also good - if they’re engaged in any sort of illegal activity they will be reluctant to do so.

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Your guest is conducting himself within the confines of your current rule about visitors. You allow up to four visitors (with no other specifications) and he’s had one visitor per night.

He has one night remaining of his reservation so you will either have to close your eyes or confront him - and the former is the path of least resistance.

Now that you know what he has been up to and want to curtail anything similar in the future, the only solution is what has already been suggested…change your rules.

There are those on this forum who can help with the wording.

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Of course we thought of Tinder, but was that the case,they likely wouldn’t
be arriving at 3:30 am. Also there’s usually some sort of a date involved
(with the clear intention of hooking up afterwards)— a beverage consumed—
something… These women arrived alone. We’re not going to accuse him—we
have changed our rules. We let him know that our camera notifications woke
us both nights (plus the gate to the meadow is right under our window) at
3:30 and 5:00, that we noticed that he had two different visitors and asked
that he be more considerate and he hasn’t responded. So, yeah, we’re going
with not Tinder.

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Rules changed: visitors 9-11, only. The only reason we continue to allow
them is it gives us good word of mouth. 99% of the folks who come are just
curious about the design and it helps create some buzz. I’m still trying to
pay these things off… they were featured in a Tastemade/Airbnb video,
which we were told was a new show, called Head First Explorer—a
collaboration between the two orgs, that would be seen across all social
media platforms, by more than 200 million people (It was one of 3 cities
they were featuring— Asheville and Denver being the others)… so we took
the bait, and a reduced location fee, and killed ourselves prepping, for
over 2 weeks, cause the host not only stayed in a unit, she picked veggies
in the garden and cooked us a meal in the house + there was a huge crew &
they filmed everywhere… but we kept thinking :thought_balloon: we are going to SO
booked!!! And in the end, what was it? A sponsored Facebook post. By
Tastemade—Airbnb couldn’t even post it (something about their logo at the
end and them posting about food) — I really don’t care. We got hosed. So,
yeah, we tolerate some visitors, and likely will, until we get some more
publicity…

Thanks so much for the advice, everyone. Ya’ll are the best.

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Well, it’s possible that it’s a quick hookup with sex as its only purpose. A lot of people use Tinder for that, not just for dating. Or he was hanging out with them during the day, and they dropped by for a quickie? It might be prostitution, but there’s no way to prove it. In any case, it was unwise from you not to at least put the rule “no overnight guests” in your house rules. I hope this is the last such experience of yours and that in the future your updated house rules will prevent such situations from happening.

It’s live and learn. You just assume people will behave properly and… surprise! They don’t!

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As prostitution is illegal in Georgia; if it happens again you are within your rights to terminate the booking if your guest is engaging in illegal activity.

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Here is the problem. There is no way to know if the visitors are providing a service for money or not. How they come and go is not a clue. This is a local. He could know a ton of girls “that” way. He could have anxiety attacks in the middle of the night and have a team of therapists who can come to help. He could be very good at Tinder.

A rule of no visitors after 11pm or before 8am should cover your bases in the future. Though someone suggested a rule of “no overnight visitors” that doesn’t really work here since 3 AM to 5:30AM isn’t really overnight.

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How would you know if it were prostitution?

Hi Rayodie,

I had this happen to me too about a year ago – I solved it by requiring at least a 2-night stay to reduce any one-night hookups and most importantly, I almost NEVER rent to anyone within an hours drive. It’s just not worth it. I’ve done it twice (another time after this one) and I regretted it both times. The only exceptions I make are for family reunion-type visits.

Here’s what happened: A guy asked to stay for a night with a guest. He was local and when I asked why, he said they just wanted to get away. He lived in Salem, MA and it was October so I figured it was to get away from the Halloween crowds. I went against my gut knowing it might not end well. I was new though and experimenting. He arrived and let himself in (we rent out our downstairs but have keyless entry and I don’t meet guests unless it’s convenient/desired). From the moment they arrived to the wee hours of the night we heard very loud moaning. It woke us up at times.

I didn’t kick him out or say anything because he wasn’t violating any rules and of course, I’m not going to embarrass him or the woman. But I was offended. Not because they were having sex, but because it was so rude, in your face, nothing discreet about it. I found it offensive he’d go into someone’s home and act like that. Get a hotel room or a place that’s not attached. It irritated me.

I waited until he left me a review and I left him a short, positive review too – he did leave the place very tidy. Then I privately emailed him and let him know it was not okay and he may want to consider other people are not going to appreciate it either. Never heard from him. Promptly changed my policy.

I wish hosts would review honestly. You can still be somewhat discreet and let other hosts know that he isn’t quiet during the night.

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I had this happen and I really thought the whole neighborhood could hear. Just a big show and unnecessary.

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We are Airbnb hosts, not morality police but unfortunately we have to deal with the sex worker issue when confronted with it. We had a similar and worse problem, so now we state very clearly in our listings descriptions that we rent to couples only. It elimiates the sex worker issue with regards to single men. We will however rent to single women if they question our rental policy because they are more discreet and usually do not bring their romatic interests to the rental unit. We have five apartments in an area of Dominican Republic which is notorioous for sex workers, sex tourism.

So my sister and I or my son and I are not welcome

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Not only that; renting to couples only violates the Airbnb Non-Discrimination Policy. You are discriminating based on familial status and based on age as many guests will be too young to be part of a couple.

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The couples only policy unfortunately does eliminate some people who would
pose no problem. However, as I had mentioned we do make exceptions because
this policy is designed primarily for single men and to keep female sex
workers off our property.

Has your guest written his review yet? On the sex workers? :rofl:

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