Young guests under 21

If we are remote, how do we verify the ages of guests at our house? I know the person booking has to be 18. I had a guest ask how old they need to be to book and when I asked age she said 20 and then I asked how old are other guests. at that point she said they were 3 guests plus her and all were 20. Then she gets back to me ask if she can add another guest and tells me the ages are 20, 20, 19, 19, and 18. Is there a way I can verify the ages of the other guests? I did preapprove them but when I asked about if they are able to provide ID, crickets
 In the future how do I handle this. My husband and I go back and forth on whether to rent to “youngsters” or not. Can I ask that the provide copies of ID prior to booking? Can I ask that all guests have an Airbnb profile??

I was just wondering what your reasons are for not wanting younger guests?

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Just worried about underage activities, for example a 21 y/o traveling with guests under 20 and drinking. Not responsible, etc.

What is your goal with respect to age? E.g., nobody under 18? What do you believe it will accomplish?

Another question: How do you differentiate between a family with teenage children and a group of “youngsters” that happen to have one or two under 18 and the rest over 18, etc.?

I’ve read that some hosts require ID’s of their guests, but I’ve also read that Airbnb’s policy is that you can’t request copies unless your local government requires it. That means you or your cohost will have to be there to check them rather than the guest sending the copy to you.

Asking all guests to have an Airbnb profile (I assume with verified government ID) will be problematic since Airbnb does not require it. At best, you would get bookings where you are constantly chasing guests to add their profiles. At worst, your decline and cancellation rate will go up if you stick to your rules.

Also, if you ask for all guest IDs or you require all guest to have Airbnb profiles, you better turn off instant book.

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I personally will not accept anyone younger than 25 after college kids trashed my house;condoms on the floor, yellow nail polish on my brand new dining table, blue sex gel on sheets that stained them, broken chair, sticky floors (spilled Piña Colas and Margaritas), broken washing machine, etc. I’m not on IB so that I can try to assess age of person wanting to book. Follow your gut instinct on this one!

I find that my most annoying guests have been in their forties. :slight_smile: But that doesn’t stop me hosting them. It’s like one time when I figured out at the car lot that we sold more red cars than any other colour. I was quite pleased with myself for this piece of detective work and ‘deduction’ until I realised that the reason was that the inventory had more red cars than any other colour. There are always factors to take into consideration.

But Airbnb says (my italics) that hosts must not:

discriminate against or harass anyone on the basis of race, national origin, religion, gender, gender identity, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, age or sexual orientation

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To that note, our worst guests to date have been a family and there was soda spilled all over cabinets, trash left all over the place, dirty diaper in bedroom trash
 We have had young guests, and they have left the house in great shape
 just makes me nervous. But reading that I cannot discriminate due to age and also potentially would probably decrease bookings.

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Josie, I promise you that every time I’ve had teenage guests they’ve been great. Other hosts here have found the same too. I don’t know why people have the idea that teenagers are rowdy and want to party and get drunk etc. I have a teenage nephew, teenage nieces and a teenage granddaughter and I’m more likely to be rowdy, party and get drunk than they are. :wine_glass:

They are usually very polite and respectful of the property. They care more than many older people about recycling and reducing energy usage too.

But the main thing is to check with your STR insurance to make sure that you’re covered for teenagers. If your insurance company says that all guests must be over 21, for example, then you can state this in your listing. Although I’d check with Airbnb if I were you. Our insurance covers 18 + so I’ve never had to check. Best to be on the safe side. :slight_smile:

Yeah, my messiest and least responsible guests have, overall, been women in their 60s.
:laughing: The second worst group is women who are late 20s/early 30s.

I encourage the youngest guests and all of my under-25s have been exemplary guests.

I’m sorry, @jaquo, but strictly speaking this isn’t really true. Age and familial status are not protected by Airbnb in the same way as the other protected groups. Airbnb specifically says that you cannot discriminate against age and familial status where prohibited by law . And it generally isn’t prohibited by law for short-term rentals and even long-term rentals if you are owner-occupied and have 4 or less units.

So, if your insurance prohibits it, it shouldn’t be a problem to restrict it.

That being said, I think hosts would really miss out if they eliminate everyone under 25, as these have become my very favorite guests. I think they know that hosts are tentative about them and so they tend to go above and beyond. Also, IMO, this particular generation of youngsters is quite different than the one before them. They almost always leave a handwritten thank-you note!

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I agree wholeheartedly. In fact, I suspect that there are several hosts who go a little overboard when restricting potential guests to certain categories, ages and so on. So they can’t complain if they’re not getting enough bookings. :rofl:

The above was a direct quote from Airbnb’s TOS. This is it in more detail. It starts:

You are solely responsible for compliance with any and all laws, rules, regulations, and Tax obligations that may apply to your use of the Airbnb Platform. In connection with your use of the Airbnb Platform, you will not and will not assist or enable others to:

Then various bullet points including:

discriminate against or harass anyone on the basis of race, national origin, religion, gender, gender identity, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, age or sexual orientation, or otherwise engage in any violent, harmful, abusive or disruptive behavior;

in the TOS it doesn’t actually mention the ‘prohibited by law’ thing.

Open to interpretation?

https://www.airbnb.com/terms#sec201910_19

I think we all know that the TOS are always up for interpretation :rofl:

However, I have had CS consistently back me up on not having to host children and infants because it is legal for me to discriminate in that manner.

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What does TOS mean??

I don’t discriminate based on age. I will take a young person’s money just as fast as father time. My STR is bullet proof against man or beast.

It’s the Airbnb terms of service. It’s long but every host should read it as all members (hosts and guests) agree to abide by their TOS when we join up.

https://www.airbnb.com/terms

dumb me, after I posted my question I realized what it meant LOL!!

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It isn’t the age of guests that necessarily should throw up red flags, but the nature of the listing (a big place, with a pool or a hot tub, an off-site host, a new, inexperienced host, self-check-in, no security cameras, etc), how close the host lives to the property (are the guest aware that you can be there promptly should anything go amiss or are they under the impression that their behavior won’t be monitored). Those looking to throw a party tend to shy away from places where the host lives on site or nearby, meets and greets the guests and often target new listings because they are aware that green hosts are unfamiliar with how to vet their guests.
I know many wonderful young people who would certainly never trash anyone’s home, aren’t into getting wildly drunk or showing disrespect. But it’s also true that those who have never lived on their own, had to buy furniture, repair things, or replace a broken washing machine on their own dime may be cluelessly uncareful. But that could apply to those of any age who have only just rented and called the landlord to repair or replace whatever was broken. Or those who just don’t care.
Also many young people don’t have much sense of what constitutes “clean” or know how to clean, because they’ve never been required to help out with that at home, Mom does it all. A friend told me that when she was 19, she moved away from home and shared a large house with several of her young friends. Her mom had been strict, so my friend had been brought up having many cleaning chores at home. So she ended up being the only one who ever cleaned the bathroom in the communal house. One day she’d had enough and threw a fit, saying next time, it was someone else’s turn to scrub the toilet. One of her friends looked at her, with a pitying look on her face, and said "Silly, no one cleans toilets". Her friend was under the impression that toilets were self-cleaning, never realizing that her mother had been cleaning it for the 18 years she lived at home.

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We have had some great young guests. We only turned away one young couple with a new profile only because they were very local - about 6-7 miles away.

The people we regret hosting have been much older - and new to airbnb or never gave host reviews.

Probably because they know the children of friends or neighbors who are NOT responsible.

True. What a shame to miss out just because of those experiences.

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