That Moment When Your Guest Checks Into the Wrong Property!

This is too good not to share! My guest messages me to let me know she has arrived, loved the house, but does ask if she should have brought toilet paper as she can’t find any. I think this is odd as I was just at the house earlier in the day and personally replenished the supply under the bath cabinets. I thought for a moment that maybe the cleaning crew may have taken some or moved them but didn’t overthink it at the time.

Then, about an hour later, she calls me on the phone. She says there is an angry man in the house telling her that she is in the property that he rented for the week! For a split second I thought I possibly double booked (I’m on both Air and VRBO) but when she asked his name I knew it was not one of my booked guests. She then puts him on the phone and I told him he is at the wrong property, needs to check the address and please vacate my property. He is furious, insists he’s at the right place and my guest is wrong. So as he puts her back on the line, we discuss the address and she realizes she went to the incorrect home!

Her story…she showed up at that property as it had a similar address and looked a little like my place in the photo. She was having trouble with the lockbox (I have an electronic keypad and not a lock box so that should have been her first clue) so that property’s cleaning team LET HER IN assuming she was the incoming guest. I’m so glad that isn’t my cleaning crew!!! She checks in, unpacks and relaxes by the POOL that isn’t even a part of my listing. I don’t have a pool. You can’t make this stuff up!!!

She called me once she arrived at my property and we both had a good laugh. She read the address wrong and I can’t believe it got that far. I had to ask her - did she notice that the furnishings didn’t look anything like my property’s photos and how about the pool?? She sad she was tired and didn’t really notice. (!!!) I looked up that property and it rents for $11,000/week. Mine is less than half that. She still ended up having a great time with her family and wrote a fabulous review. Never a boring day in the world of vacation rentals!!!

Happy hosting!

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I had a similar experience when I was a flight attendant. The cleaning lady let me into the hotel room. About an hour later some guy came into the room with his key. It turned out that my room was the one across the hallway. At least your guest got to sit by the pool. LOL

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Funny!!! Awkward moments for sure. Yes, I was a bit worried she wasn’t going to like our place after she was in a much bigger, more expensive place with a pool! She was a hoot!

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Off topic a bit, but - have you ever gotten into someone else’s car, & as you puzzle over some unfamiliar items the owner showed up? And he doesn’t have a sense of humor? (But shares some colorful expletives). Unsettling in so many ways…

…it wasn’t even the same make, though ALMOST the same color.

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The opposite has happened here. We found a couple in our front hall when we had no one booked. (Small town, rarely lock door). I too thought perhaps I messed up, but then she called me by my neighbor’s first name. The neighbor also hosts. In fairness, ours were once twin houses but they have sunk a lot more money into their renovations than we have. They were gracious and apologetic. I do have two long term rentals and people do ring their doorbells now and then.

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Oh gosh! I have known people to do this but I haven’t myself. So sorry he was kind of a jerk. Honest mistake!

That would also be startling! Glad you all sorted it out quickly! My next door neighbor said she had some folks show up to check-in and she’s not even a rental property! Haha.

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My Airbnb is attached to my house but separate from me. When you come onto the porch there is a door right in front of you and one to the left. The one on the left is the Airbnb and it has an Airbnb logo sign on it.

Once I was working in my home, literally on my hands and knees in the hall cleaning grout. No bra, hair askew, probably smelly. I hear my front door open and someone enter. I wasn’t expecting anyone (my front door is often unlocked and my friends just come on in without ringing the bell) so I hoist myself off the floor and look up to see a young couple I don’t know holding a coffee and a bag of something. “Can I help you?” I asked. “Oh, we are looking for Rob’s Airbnb.” The female of the pair turned and literally put her hand in front of her face and walked out. I told the fellow, “oh, it’s next door, just go out front and it’s the door with the Airbnb sign to the right as you go out.” As I walked them out I saw my guests were at their door looking for their friends. The woman intruder pushed right past them, hot with embarrassment. We had a chuckle and I went back to my work.

I thought it was amusing and I enjoy telling the story but in some parts of Texas their lives would be endangered if they did that.

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When I was about 8 years old, we lived on a block which had 3 styles of houses- ranchers, 2 stories, or split levels. All the houses of each style looked quite similar.

One day I was riding my bike up and down the street and something happened that I was excited about, I can’t remember what, that I wanted to go tell my family about, and rushed all out of breath into the house to find a couple I didn’t know, sitting in their living room, reading the newspaper. It was a house 3 doors up from mine.

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There was a post in the CC that got deleted by the moderators, where a host posted about almost shooting an Airbnb guest.

She lived in Houston, and the house next to her was also an Airbnb. She hated that host, said the yard was an eyesore and the host didn’t give proper directions to his guests, so guests were often showing up at her door by mistake.

This guest was looking for the house next door and had entered her back gate, and was in her yard. She heard something and got her loaded gun.

The other hosts who responded to the post were shocked and asked why, if this was an ongoing problem, she didn’t just put a sign on her back gate indicating the Airbnb next door.

She totally defended her “right” to shoot an innocent person who would wander into her yard by mistake, and her intransigence in not simply putting a sign up, because she “shouldn’t have to”, and couldn’t see anything wrong with her attitude.

Nothing surprising in that story.

One thing I don’t think gets emphasized enough is that killing people messes with your head (if you aren’t a psychopath like Derek Chauvin.) People who are trained to kill criminals and enemies like law enforcement and military, get PTSD. Just seeing someone get shot will traumatize the witness. And if you shoot someone, there is a whole lot of legal mess and a chance of being sued, regardless of the fact that it’s legal.

So instead of stoutly defending her right to shoot someone she should be mortified that it even got to the point of her getting her gun. She should realize that 99 times out of 100 her life will be ruined if she shoots someone.

I certainly don’t want to stay with any hosts like that and if I were Airbnb I’d be removing her from the platform.

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When I lived in San Diego, we had friends who lived in one of those cookie-cutter gated HOA communities where all the houses look exactly alike, the HOA requires approval of all yard decorations, so everyone has the same ones. Ex and I drive to this fairly new area and go down a street - exact same cars, basketball hoops, etc., park and walk up the drive. We see a man with bags and say “Hey, how do you know so-and-so and what did you bring to the potluck?” He looks at us and says “This is my house!”

We were one block away and he didn’t know any of the neighboring street names so we had to drive off and figure it out.

I’d never find my way home! :wink:

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Did he think it was funny?? It is!

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I had guests arrived at my property in France and were angry because it was nothing like the description. They walked through the house and described each room and it didn’t sound right. They had entered the house by pinching in the key code, no problem.

Eventually they mentioned that to begin with they couldn’t find the house and had asked a local if they knew where it was. The local said that they knew a house that was owned by English people and took them to the house.

Unfortunately, I manage 2 houses in the village, both owned by English people and both USED to have the same code. A lesson learned.

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I know- the title of her post was “I almost shot a guest!” and of course everyone clicked on it, expecting to read about how totally freaked out and mortified she was. But instead, it was all about her bad Airbnb host neighbor, who didn’t upkeep his property and put his guests at risk of being justifiably (:scream:) killed because he didn’t give them proper directions.

I wish I’d made a note of her listing to see if it’s still up. I would want her banned as well and wonder if the CC moderators, who deleted the whole thread, and other hosts who were incredulous and disgusted, brought it to Airbnb’s attention. If that’s not a case for the Trust and Safety dept., I don’t know what is.

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I hope they saw the humor in it! At least they knew what their booked property was supposed to look like from the photos. My guests kicked back and got in the pool that wasn’t even my house, haha!

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I had guests arrived at my property in France and were angry because it was nothing like the description. They walked through the house and described each room and it didn’t sound right. They had entered the house by pinching in the key code, no problem.

Eventually they mentioned that to begin with they couldn’t find the house and had asked a local if they knew where it was. The local said that they knew a house that was owned by English people and took them to the house.

Unfortunately, I manage 2 houses in the village, both owned by English people and both USED to have the same code. A lesson learned.

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I had just gotten a new/used Subaru that was way fancier than the usual rustbuckets I buy on Craigslist for cash. I got in and noticed how nice the wood was - a beautiful burled golden brown. I wondered why I never noticed that before! And then I tried the key and realized that this was not my car. Bummer.

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YES!!! I own a 2010 light blue Honda CRV, and here in South Florida, it is a very common SUV. I guess people leave their doors open because I have literally opened the car, sat down, only to realize the car won’t start and it’s not my car :slight_smile: This has happened to me at least six times!

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Thank you for this laugh!!!

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