Why is telling the truth SO HARD!? Correction: Totally deserved to be put on blast!

Just a note. Even though there is a lot of stuff that they did that annoys you, the fire hazard and the cutting of an electrical cord should be your go-to when you report.

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Best I could do after the factā€¦.I called AirBNB and they attached this info to his account.

The escalation agent (from US no less) said he thought Tanner could not IB any longer (hope not as I said would not host again but he has recommends from other hosts - so who prevails?).

And, if something happens other agents will see heā€™s been reported on previously and will take harsher action if something else occurs. Wish I could know how this really ends up.

I feel like I let his future stays down. I hope other hosts will read my review, although not nearly harsh enough, and reject him.

Hey, yā€™all - has anyone ever reached out to a previous host before accepting a booking?

Did you rate him 1-star across the board?

I told Air EVERYTHING and offered up the pics (they didnā€™t want, just took my word but Iā€™m keeping them).

Sadly, I didnā€™t @Jefferson their dumb a$$es (should be a phrase like ā€œMunsonedā€ :laughing:) because I wasnā€™t certain theyā€™d smoked inside.

See my rating above - should average to a 3.6 when it needed to be a 0.0! Iā€™m so mad at myself! In the review I said his group was trouble but it needed to be way more harsh in stars and words.

The super pungent odor was clearly emanating from the bowls in the dishwasher and the throw, which I dumbly assumed they had taken outside. Now I think they likely used it as a tent or something (it reeked that badly).

I did all my mitigation and then thought I smelled residual in one area of my couch but cannot be sure.

Please, I hope the next guest is not impacted :worried:. I return again tomorrow to do last minute touches and Iā€™ll check again. Sigh.

Well, speaking as a non-IB host, we arenā€™t privy to guestsā€™ star ratings at all, so the written reviews are all we have to go on anyway. And if you said something negative, Iā€™d certainly take that into serious consideration.

And I donā€™t know about IB hosts, but I should think that 3* ratings would give them serious pause.

Unreal that they thought it was okay to destroy your extension cord, regardless of what they were smoking.

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Iā€™m IB now but not always. I donā€™t know if this is a valid test, but I looked back at some inquiries and some IBs. I can see only theyā€™re average star rating and not what each host gave.

This dude still shows 5.0 across the board as they clearly are rounding him up while Iā€™ve been dragging the published 4.9X forever due to my first horrible stay that gave me the retaliation 4.0 rating.

In case anyone ever doubts where the platform loyalty lies.,with the person paying the billā€¦you know, for our hard work! Sigh.

Good luck with it! And please try to vet guests more carefully with communication after each booking long before check-in.
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Donā€™t rush to review each guest so quickly. You have 14 days and time to really check your place up and down. Hopefully this will be an isolated incident. Smoking inside is a really bad one.

If you donā€™t have it yet, get the AIRREVIEW extension for your browser. Itā€™s free and gives great insights.

I got it in the past few week. Love it! The issue with this person is he has all outstanding reviews 5.0 star average w/ 1 of 9 saying his friends did something (doesnā€™t say what) and his attitude/actions made it so right such that the host says they gave him 5-stars. So it actually made him look ā€œbetterā€. Then heā€™d written detailed and articulate reviews for his hosts. He was super polite when he booked & at our first exchange. &, he was here for a business trip! It was a 6-day stay. No ā€œpartyā€ flags at all.

The only flag for us is he is 21 (we require 25 & wonā€™t waiver from that again!) & I would normally turn him down but he was a just shy of perfect on ā€œpaperā€ (and one of the group members was 27, so that also swayed us).

Iā€™ve gotten pretty good at vetting, actually. This really caught me by surprise. Iā€™d bet my last $ that unless anyone else here has the >25 rule, heā€™d have been accepted w/o hesitation by most here.

If I hadnā€™t come across the vandalized cord and the product container & @JJD hadnā€™t found that article, Iā€™d still not have been 100% certain they smoked inside (just certain some still smoky smelling items were in the house & those items were pungent & there was evidence of outdoor smoking, which we allow; weā€™ll not anymore).

I never would have thought when we all were trying to guess what they took the cord for that it would come to this. I really considered my turnover done (w/ the exception of removing all the extension cords) when I sent his review last night. But I hear you. Thanks.

A lot of table lamp mfrs are adding USB outlets in the base. If I have enough business this winter that will be one of my upgrades before next summerā€™s season.

I think that even hosts who are really experienced at vetting can get someone who manages to get past all your filters.

I know 18 year olds who are super responsible and wouldnā€™t dream of chopping someone elseā€™s extension cord, and I had housesitters from hell once, a 35 year old woman and her 44 year old friend who managed to destroy a ton of stuff in my house in the 9 weeks I was away.

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Talk about adding insult to injury if they are there supposedly to TAKE CARE OF YOUR HOUSE! People can be such a trip. Iā€™ll never quite grasp it, especially when weā€™re talking about what should be a mature adult. What in the world did you do when you returned & found them out @muddy?

It was a bad situation all around. My daughter who lives in another part of Mexico had recommended them- one was a friend of hers. She said they house sat for other people where she lived and they wanted to come spend time in my area.

I was going to Canada to spruce up my house there, which Iā€™d been renting out long term and put it on the market. So I didnā€™t have a definite return date, but told them Iā€™d be away for no more than 9 weeks amd the deal was they had to stay until I returned, which they said was fine.

I had left lots of instructions, and went over things with them the day before I left. But they were both stoners, so werenā€™t really absorbing the info.

One of the instructions, since they said they loved dogs, and were supposed to look after mine, was that this was my dogā€™s territory, and they werenā€™t to adopt or foster any other dogs. Then my neighbor emailed me, near the end of my trip, saying she couldnā€™t sleep because every dog in the neighborhood was living in my yard and it was a bark fest all night long.

So I right away emailed them saying I didnā€™t understand how they had let such a situation develop, but it had to end immediately. Their response was to tell me they were leaving, so I had to frantically contact other friends to see who could look after my dog for a week until I got back.

I came home to my water system all screwed up, five full garbage bags sitting on top of my car, my brand new tile floors with gouges out of them, chips in the countertop tiles, a broken off shower head, a scratched up stove top, they had let rain run under my bedroom door so my wooden wardrobe was all warped, they had gone into my pantry and helped themselves to unopened bottles of olive oil, tamari, etc,
missing silverware and dishes, and they had apparently used my brand new Indian print bedspreads as beach blankets, so they were all faded out and had holes in them.

My house was new! It was only a year old. I was so upset. This was years ago- I think I emailed them and they wrote some snotty reply about how miserable they were here and how hard it was to look after my place. When I told my daughter never to recommend them to anyone again, she was defensive of them at first, until I sent her the list of damages I had come back to.

Exactly. @aelilya , I donā€™t think itā€™s fair to blame this on age. My worst guests ever covered everything in olive oil (I know it was olive oil because they emptied a full bottle and left the empty bottle on the counter) and a bunch of wax on the walls, floors, furniture, linens and even in the toilet bowl. They were in their early 70s. All of my annoying guests have been 30+, none of my youngest guests were anything but awesome. I think the age is a coincidence. FWIW.

Also, there is no reason to ban extension cords because of one weird incidence. I mean, we all know and admit that itā€™s odd and unexpected (friggin bizarre, really), which also means that is highly unlikely to ever happen again. I am sure you are stirred up from this experience, it is understandable, we all would be, but maybe it might be worth letting it sit for a minute before you ban everyone under 25 and extension cords.

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Wow, thatā€™s terrible. I get it, though. I talked about my LTR a while back, but having someone look you in your face and make commitments and then do you dirty takes some nerve. My LTR was brand new and in less than a year theyā€™d trashed it (punched in door, dog chewing and urine on baseboards throughout, clawed up walls, vomit dried into the carpet, dust/dog hair/dirt - filthy everywhere, wax on walls, marijuana smell throughout, oil-stained driveway and garage, etc.). I have never been so glad to see someoneā€™s backside on the way out (hard not to put a foot in it! :laughing:). Like this kid at the STR, I want to ā€œMom him upā€ so badly. He made articulate and convincing promises of how he and his business partners would take such great care of my home, blah, blah, blah. And, he didnā€™t even apologize or proactively say a word. I want to totally mom-shame him. But I wonā€™t (just in my daydreams).

You know how it goes. Personal experience thus far. I added that age rule after one-too-many issues with folks < 25.

I turn them down a lot depending upon their trip purpose. If itā€™s to celebrate their bday on Dirty 6th - nope! Attend a family wedding - we can chat. I definitely have had adults do dirty deeds also. I just, for the life of me, cannot figure out how I could have weeded this one out aside from the overall age of the group. But he kept calling them his business partners (rather than friends). Slippery and convincing, like my lovable 18 year old. I bitā€¦hook, line and sinker. At least it was good money and not issues collecting, so thereā€™s that.

I donā€™t even think any amount of questioning would have given clues as to what was coming. What they did and how they tried to cover it up had all the hallmarks of immaturity and folly. If there is going to be a first time, maybe I was his first major fail.

For now, Iā€™m going to stick with ā€œthe booker has to be 25+ā€ because it gives me a way out if I donā€™t feel comfortable with booking, & while I am sure I will make exceptions in the future, itā€™s going to be a minute. You are right, Iā€™m still a tad salty :smirk:

:grin:

"6th"if youā€™re local. Dirty 6th if youā€™re a tourist or money from DFW/Houston ruthlessly getting in on the gentrification. Where did you grow up?

Not here, lol. I had always heard it called just 6th until a couple of years ago. I picked ā€œDirtyā€ up from time spent serving (ministry to ladies in the chapel :wink:) in the Travis County jail. I guess a lot of the ā€œguestsā€ there are not local either.

It is not an amusing situation

No itā€™s not, but I think people would be surprised how much joy and happiness, and yes, laughter, you can bring someone in a situation like that, just by showing up and letting them know someone cares. Itā€™s quite powerful and definitely puts a smile on my face. I miss them (they kicked us out due to Covid).