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We just had our guests check in and after working in the garage for a bit stepped in the house and could smell potent cannabis smoke. Now, I’m not opposed to folks smoking cannabis, but even I don’t smoke inside.
So what do we do? The listing is a separate basement space labeled as a guest suite. Waited ten minutes to talk to someone at air, and the call ended when it actually started ringing, and now we have to wait to talk to someone again.
What are we within our rights to do? Our house rules state no smoking inside or out.
What a quiet night. Perhaps this is a touchy subject or has already been discussed at length? Feel free to remove the post if so.
We’ve been in touch with air nd have sent them a recording of one guest saying they rolled a blunt in the house and smoked it outside. Hopefully that’s evidence enough for them, and hopefully it will air out before our next turn over. It’s Stroooong.
I have no problem with people smoking a joint, or anything, outside but I make it clear they are not to smoke sitting or standing in open doorways so if there is any smell they can’t just say they were smoking outside and it must have drifted in. I’d throw the book at them. I smoke in my part of the closed off house upstairs but keep the guest accommodation smoke free as that is how it is advertised.
I did once have some guests who kept disappearing into the bush across the road and I told them it was okay to smoke a joint on the terrace. I may even have shared one with them, I can’t possible say.
If they had asked if they could smoke outside, I would most likely be comfortable with it. But my entire living area (separated from the guest suite by a door that has a draft stopper) reeks of weed. That, I feel, is completely crossing the line. They said that they only had the bag inside, and that the baggie must have been cracked and the smell came through the vents.
Their stay is a few more days. The smell hasn’t gone away. We have guests checking in the day they check out (4 hours later) and it won’t be aired out by then.
We contacted Air and have sent them the video. We want them to leave, but don’t want them to have the ability to leave a negative review since our listing is quite new. Hopefully Air will help us out with getting them out of here.
You can ask them to leave but they will still be able to leave you a review.
I think it is fair enough to say to Airbnb that you feel uncomfortable with the guests as they broke your house rules.
Leaving a bag of cannabis in a room wouldn’t make another room smell of weed, nor come through the vents. They must have been smoking inside for this to happen.
Say to Airbnb that you also need to have time to try and clear your place of the smell of weed before the next guests arrive.
As a host you should never be fearful of doing the right thing for you and your listing because of a bad review.
By the way @WandaStarshine this is an international forum and we are all in different time zones, so in response to your earlier comments, you may not always get a response right away.
Certainly not a touchy subject - if you search the forums you will see it has been discussed at length.
Hosts here are giving you free help in their own time. If something is urgent you can always call Airbnb directly and get an answer straight away
I’m not sure what will happen about them being able to leave you a review, but don’t let that worry you. Airbnb may be able to remove it, or worse case scenario you leave a short response explaining that they smoked against your house rules. Then any future guests will clearly see you’re not at fault!
Sorry, but I was sleeping on UK time! Plus a bit over as it’s Saturday and no guests to get up for.
You’ve had some really helpful responses below and I hope all is sorted for you. Just to emphasise, both Helsi and Gardenhost are absolutely correct about not worrying about a negative review. People will see through it and as said, simply respond with the dope smoking and lies.
Stop worrying about reviews. They came, they stayed, they can review. If they give you a bad review, they you should politely respond:
“Guest XX broke our house rules by smoking indoors, and by smoking pot – which is not allowed in city state/region. Cannot recommend them as guests to anyone.”
Call Air and tell them you are NOT comfortable with pot smokers who violate house rules.
Change your house rule to NO SMOKING ANYWHERE ON THE PROPERTY.
I just posted about a young couple whose strong smelling something, maybe weed, and incense took the better part of the day to clear out. It’s not a young couple moving to Seattle in a uHaul truck is it?
I just wanted to chime in that we had a guest who left a very strong smoke smell after a stay. As previously suggested, we changed our rules to specify no smoking anywhere on property. We also found a cleaning product that worked well for us—OdoBan. I think it is often used by vets/kennels for pet odors. You can get a large container for a reasonable price at a home improvement center or on Amazon. We cleaned throughly with the OdoBan, and we also used it for the couch cushions, couch covers, etc… It has a bit of a weird after odor, but it did a great job on the lingering smoke odors. Hope that helps a bit!
Thank you everyone for the support. It’s helped ease our minds. Sorry for the delay in response, it’s been a busy day!
@Helsi I understand how time differences can have an effect on response time. I wasn’t complaining, mostly we were just going mad between waiting to talk to someone at Abnb and started questioning ourselves and worrying that we were being too dramatic/harsh with our guests! I appreciate the time and effort of everyone who has offered their advice and support.
@cabinhost Yes, smell was in our living space which is upstairs. The guest suite is a separate basement unit. We did not go into their space. When we called air they told us that we needed photo evidence (expected) but advised us to stay out of the unit. The only thing we could think of was to talk with them and record the conversation to get them to admitting to smoking on the property (because they denied smoking in the house even though we could smell it throughout our space). I really wish I had heard this advice before hand! Sounds like a reasonable way to get into the unit with their permission and to scope out the situation.
We will be updating the house rules. They were informed by AirBnb that their reservation was cancelled and they checked out this morning. Off to leave their review!
Quick question regarding reviews in these circumstances. If one party doesn’t leave a review and one does, isn’t it the case that neither review will be published??? So if, as a host, you think someone might write a bad review for any reason, legit or otherwise, can’t you protect yourself from the fall-out by simply not giving them a review?
No. Reviews post after 14 days regardless of whether both parties write a review. Many members here advise leaving a review at the last minute to avoid provoking the guest into also leaving a review that might be negative. This is because they get a notification that says “see what xx wrote.” If they slam you in a review and you didn’t leave them one there is nothing you can do other than respond to the review which now makes their entire review visible and possibly makes you look petty and defensive.
Oh dear @ClaireHL it sounds like you haven’t had the time to become familiar with how Airbnb works, before setting up your listing. This can be a dangerous approach, as it can lead to misconceptions, such as thinking you can block guests from leaving reviews by not leaving your own.
Do wander over to Airbnb’s Help Centre. It covers most of the common FAQs around hosting. Pay special attention to reviews, cancellations, extenuating circumstances and making a claim on Airbnb’s host guarantee and liability insurance.
If you could simply block a review by not publishing it, don’t you think the majority of guests or hosts who have had behaved badly, would do this to stop the other party leaving a review?
As an old timer here, telling stories from my rocking chair, let me say that is how Air used to work. Back in the day when reviews were no big deal. Thing was, everyone usually was nice and when you read the nice words someone left you left your own nice words. Now that there’s tension around the review process, you are less inclined to leave something nice because you just don’t know what they will say in theirs. I sort of feel like that anyway.
I don’t leave a review unless someone was really bad or really great and I have confirmed with them that we will each leave each other five stars.
