All the better! Thanks for the correction.
I live in the world where this situation fits the legal definition of assault, plain and simple.
I donât think itâs outside the scope of normal for a woman to be frightened when confronted with a drunk male who is speaking graphically about a highly inappropriate subject, given the context of the situation.
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Nobody is attacking the OP. Theyâre (including me) just stating their opinions based on the information presented. I think everyone here agrees the guy was out of line, a complete jerk and should have been thrown out on his ass.
What I take issue with, is how it was handled, before, during and after the incident. Iâll venture to guess, based on the posts, that others feel the same.
Thereâs a lot to be learned from this post. What to do before (proper policies); during (donât let him in to begin with, and/or remove yourself from the threatening situation); and after (donât play the victim & blame everyone else).
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I spoke to Airbnb several times about this. I have written letters and emails to Brian Chesky. They brushed me off and blamed me. My city regulates these type of businesses and needs to know when something is possibly systematically wrong. Like I have said before, I am looking for better rules, communications and systems to deal with this problem before it occurs. If Airbnb choses to ignore me, the next stop is the city which has legal authority over these matters.
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It is ridiculous that so many posters are blaming the original poster for the scary ordeal she went through because she didnât refuse him entry as he wasnât the person on the reservation. He could just as easily have joined Airbnb, made the reservation and behaved in the same way. I have accepted many third party bookings with no real problems. It is not always possible to remove yourself from a threatening situation. If it was, there would be no crime. She is not playing the victim; she is the victim.
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Hi Ellen,
Iâve been reading this thread and usually I stay out of contentious comments. What sends up red flag to me about this poster is that she claims to have been a host for a long time, has hundreds of glowing reviews, is fully booked for the foreseeable future and is actively involved in the Airbnb community⌠and yet she also has almost no idea of the policies that Airbnb has available and she has reacted with multiple versions of her story. It feels off to me, and probably to others as well. It doesnât read like an experienced host. This is not the first time a brand-new poster has showed up on the forum with an over-the-top story where they want attention and sympathy, but their story has holes in it. Most of the ânegativeâ comments have poked at those holes.
The bit about cancellation policies is the weirdest - she doesnât say which one she has (donât we all know what our settings are?) but she insists that Airbnb refuses to give her a better one. I canât really understand this. Are they blocking her from using Moderate or Strict? Wouldnât there be a massive outcry if we were all forced into Flexible?
I think she wants better control to cancel guests, but her narrative is so confusing, jumbled and lacking in useful detail that I had to read through several times to get this. We do have the ability to cancel guests without penalty, but there are procedures to do this and she did not follow those procedures. Now she is getting outside parties - the local government - involved in an internal dispute with Airbnb and they wonât have any power to solve this particular issue either. But it will stir up tension between local government and Airbnb, which is already a big problem in some areas. Maybe other posters are smelling something funny here too.
The whole bit at the top of the thread where she demands info on how to shut it down just feels histrionic and attention-getting to me. If she really is booked up hard the next few months, then she stands to lose a lot more than $750 if she shuts down, plus all the penalties.
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The original poster seems to be saying that if a guest is breaking the rules or acting in a way that a normal host would find alarming that Airbnb should cancel the stay and pay the host in full. Before everyone piles on me, please note that I am not saying that this is my view. I am trying to clarify that this is the original posterâs view. A lot of people are a bit incoherent and what you call histrionic and I call scared when theyâve been through a frightening experience.
As far as her being an experienced host meaning that she would understand Airbnbâs policies isnât my experience. Iâve had several guests who have stayed at many Airbnb listings, yet they cannot figure out how to make a change to a reservation, cancel a reservation, make a reservation, etc. As a matter of fact, how many of the experienced hosts here have fully read Airbnbâs Terms of Service? How many experienced hosts here either misstate Airbnbâs mechanics and/or policies?
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and the fact she changed her screen name half way through the thread. What a weirdo.
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Well, I suppose if one plays on the highway theyâll eventually be the victim there too. I mean should she go to the city council about all the foul language being used by drunk people in all the dive bars in town. Think of all the victims there.
You first have a duty to remove yourself from harmâs way, or situations you might find offensive, but are in no way illegal.
Starting to think the original poster truly is a board troll.
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I believe the poster was truly flummoxed and surprised by the situation. As she stated, she thought this guy checking in was part of the registered party. By the times she had him in her house, she realized her mistake. Sometimes we all are not as careful as we could be. And yes, this guy was âverbally sexually assaultingâ the host, whether he touched her or not. Any single woman would be scared and freaked by that. Sometimes when we have the person right there threatening us, we get paralyzed with fear and indecision. If youâve never been a woman alone in that circumstance, especially in YOUR OWN HOME with a strange guy then you should reserve judgment. And if that is playing the âWoman Card, then deal me in!â 
As for Air not letting her change policies to strict, in fairness, we have heard this happening to some hosts here on the board. It could be you are simply locked into some default and canât change. We know Air is messing with things, and once on Flexible or Moderate you may never get to upgrade.
I would have first asked the guy to leave immediately. If there was resistance or additional confrontation I would have called the cops at that point, as well as Air. I wouldnât have called the government necessarily, but certainly the cops.
Even if this WAS the person on the registration, his behavior was vile and he needed to leave immediately. Air should have backed her on getting rid of a guest acting like this.
As for the lost $750, had she called Air immediately, and opened a case, she might have got to keep the cash while getting the guy out.
The OP is not a troll. Just a scared and confused woman.
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Maybe she wanted to delete the first one because it has her full nameâŚ(Kathleen, let a mod know if you would like the first account deactivated.) You need to stop calling people weirdos and trolls Colorado. Name calling is not allowed. Mods will remove posts with name calling.
As I learned from my favorite litigator at a law firm I once worked for:
âDonât assume facts that arenât in evidence.â
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Hi Ellen,
Not trying to pick a fight with you here⌠I just have my doubts about this poster. My reference to histrionic was about her behavior on this thread - responding to other posters with sarcasm and making dramatic statements. I looked up the dates for the event she mentioned and it was last weekend. She has had time to email Brian Chesky about it. I think that itâs been a frustrating week for her because no one has taken her side in the matter and she came here for sympathy. Sometimes you can get sympathy here - especially over ruined towels, because weâve all been there - but sometimes people donât like being manipulated to give a desired response.
As I type this I see sheâs deleting her comments (another red flag!).
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I believe you. I donât understand this piling on when you came to ask a question and vent about a situation you found frightening. The name calling of you from these forum members wonât be tolerated.
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Exactly. And on this the entire incident hinges and because of that some posters here arenât feeling very sympathetic.
What bothers me about this poster is that she is making a big song and dance about cancellation policies, when the situation is NOT about cancellation policies. As far I can see from the various (and changing) statements, nowhere did I see that she successfully evicted him. She got the $750. She complains that she âwould have lostâ the money, but even that is not necessarily true according to other posters who have had better results. Furthermore, the incident happened on the 3rd day of a 4 day stay, so even with flexible she would have been paid the full amount anyway. If any time in the last few years of hosting she had taken the time to read Airbnbâs terms of service, then she would have had enough information to make a better decision on that first night before letting him in the house.
If the guy was a properly registered guest and acted inappropriately then Airbnb would stand behind her (at least I hope so!). I want to be very clear here, I am not in any way accusing her of doing anything wrong when it comes to the guy being inappropriate; his behavior was completely out of bounds. That event was just the catalyst for her wanting to evict him (rightly so). If he had showed up 3rd party and nothing weird happened, then she would not be here complaining about cancellation policies.
The lesson for all of us to learn is to stay in the Airbnb system and follow the rules. Airbnb does not always side with the host (and again, we have sympathy for the other host when this happens), but it is very hard to feel sympathetic when someone doesnât follow the rules. Yes, we all do make mistakes and sometimes we get burned. But when you make a mistake, donât look around for someone else to blame and insist that all the rules be changed - the rules were there, you just didnât follow them.
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@Artemis Thank you for your post which totally robbed me (thankfully) of saying just about the same thing. It just follows the usual pattern: totally new poster, the facts keep âgrowingâ and get progressively more confusing, and become that much harder to logically fit together - and believe.
/Until the next âFantastic Storyâ, I remain a most loyal reader.
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Didnât she say it happened immediately upon letting him in?
It is clear that you havenât dealt with alcoholics and/or drug addicts. I have. With alcohol in particular often the only way to stay safe is to placate the alcoholic. This was not just foul language. This was a detailed verbal description of a sex act that probably is only in the fantasies of the âguestâ
What does playing on the highway have anything to do with this situation.
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Iâve lost track of the timing⌠but first night or third⌠this is repulsive behavior.
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I think you have to remember, this person WAS on the reservation as a member of a couple. The woman just wasnât ever planning to stay there, and committed a kind of scam since Kathleen would not have rented her room to a single man. Air should have been more helpful. I can guarantee you that Kathleen will call the police in the future. And will never let a single man, even one who is the number 2 of the 2 guests who reserved, into her house again.
I donât actually think that AirBNB has a policy that addresses this. Imagine. A couple makes the reservation, and the woman is the one with the account. They show up⌠but the woman leaves, and never returns. Now you have a man in your home, a home with a rule that no single men can stay there. What is the policy? Will AirBNB back you up in asking them to leave? Will they re-open the dates for you? And how do you regain the income from one of the most expensive set of nights in the year for a Cambridge AirBNB?
Once again, I am pondering what my risks are and how much I am willing to depend on this income.
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Thanks Mearns. I am always trying to follow the logic of the scenario. Why I wasted an hour of this beautiful day on the logic of this one is now starting to baffle me⌠I hope you enjoyed yours at least!
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