We have rented our house out for several years and recently had a party of guests who left the house in a complete mess, requiring an extra five hours of cleaning: burnt pans, broken kettle, damaged lights and kitchen utensils. Even worse, they had some sort of candles burning on the mantlepiece (we don’t allow candles) which caused significant smoke damage to the wall and ceiling which they tried to clean off, making even more of a mess. They broke every single house rule and then tried to claim the house was dirty when they arrived (I am a superhost and my house has always received five-star reviews) We contacted Airbnb with photos of the damage and after two weeks of going backwards and forwards with photos of items we need to replace and estimates for the cost of replacing them, they have come back and said they will not allow us to claim any of the security deposit to cover the costs of these things. I think this is disgusting and disrespectful and weighted far too heavily towards the guest. I used to think Airbnb was a great way of staying somewhere and we have always had no issues as guests. Actually our Airbnb guests have usually been better than those on other sites, but I will remove my house from their site now because they have confirmed that they don’t care what happens to my house; they won’t cover any damage.
Category Archives: Airbnb Host Stories
These are real, uncensored stories from Airbnb Hosts. We encourage our site visitors to read and share their Airbnb Host Stories to help warn others of the dangers of using Airbnb, and consider using alternative options in the sharing economy.
Washington DC Guest Steals Electronics… and more
For my first experience hosting with Airbnb, I hosted a gentleman from the UK for the inauguration weekend and Women’s March in Washington DC. When I arrived home, I discovered he had taken every item that may have been indicative of someone other than him living there (photos, art, my guitar) and stuffed them into our closets – thus, damaging the items – that my roommate and I explicitly stated in our rules not to go into. He also stole both of my Amazon fire sticks from the TVs. The next morning, I also discovered he had stolen all of my underwear. It’s been two weeks and even though I immediately provided photos and receipts to Airbnb, not only are they completely unresponsive but they withheld his payment of $800 to me until I held their feet to the fire. At that point they explained they were holding the funds because of an “issue with the user account.” When I asked if he complained, they stated that it was “more than that,” whatever that means. I have called and emailed multiple times and not only has nobody been in touch with us, but they haven’t refunded what I’ve had to spend to replace the items. They keep telling me they hope this doesn’t discourage us from hosting in the future. Thanks, but after I get my place swept for bugs, I’ll absolutely never be using Airbnb’s horrible hosting service again.
Forcing Airbnb Hosts to Turn On Instant Booking
In early January 2016, I received an email from Airbnb that explained that since most guests preferred Instant Booking over talking to a prospective host, Airbnb would not list my home under guest searches. This is despite me usually getting great ratings from my Airbnb guests. Can you see how this could be seen as an aggressive attempt to make people offer Instant Booking when that feature does not work for their situation? Now, if Airbnb had sent me an email suggesting that I take more photos, I would do that. However, if I turn on Instant Booking, and/or offer a price considered below average for my area, I’ll lose money. My rate is already below average for my area. What will help me immensely is when Airbnb stops omitting my home from suggested places to stay. I had one guest in December 2016 and no guests in January 2017.
I have been very loyal to Airbnb and have advocated for their business in writing. I wrote a letter to the NYC Public Advocate in response to her scathing opinion of Airbnb. How do you think NYC Public Advocate Letitia James, NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio, and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams would react to NYC homeowners being forced to offer Instant Booking? Please share your thoughts.
First-Timer Stunned After Airbnb Suspended his Account
I’m not yet a host yet but I have been trying. I became a member of Airbnb last November and got an inquiry for a booking in the first week of January 2017. I was on vacation and just received the last reminder from Airbnb to respond to a guest inquiry about our place in Kalimpong. As bad luck would have it, the network was pure hell where I was, so in the midst of a communication with the guest, I was cut off and sadly could not restore it again even though I tried my best. Hence, I missed my first guest. Whenever I could connect to Airbnb, I did try to explain the prevailing problem with the network and they were very cooperative in extending help. Subsequently, I came back from my vacation and was waiting for some kind of activity to happen and it did… Airbnb said my account was suspended temporarily due to protection. I was stunned; I know I can offer a beautiful homestay for guests and they will be truly happy but I do not have control over the internet which is intermittent at best. The hills in India are beautifully quaint but not up to coping with the efficiency and skill needed to interact with Airbnb. I must say it was fun while it lasted but anyone is welcome to come here and enjoy the stay with or without Airbnb. It’s time to look for other platforms. Thanks for your time and interest.
Airbnb Guest Invites Strangers, Trashes House
A guest booked 12 people for two nights. I asked them to read our house description and rules and pay attention to our quiet time (10:30 PM) being announced there. The first night they were up and loud till 3:00 AM. I texted them and my messages were ignored. The second night they were up and screaming until 2:00 AM. After my messages were ignored, I went to their door to see what was their problem. First they didn’t open the door, then finally they let me in and I saw there were 16 people drunk and loud. I asked for the person who booked the property and he was not there. I called Airbnb, reporting there were four extra unpaid guests on our property, the person who booked is not among them, and they are so loud past our quiet time that he agreed to through the Airbnb reservation system; the trace of the message is there.
Airbnb did absolutely nothing. The guests were screaming after that until 4:30 AM and this lengthy phone call with Airbnb was just a waste of time. The guests left us furniture damage that Airbnb didn’t resolve through the resolution centre, as the guests lied and denied everything. Instead Airbnb closed my account, cancelled my upcoming reservations, and said my review of the guests qualified as racism. In reality the review had nothing to do with the guest’s ethnicity or nationality at all. My case was so unfair and poorly handled. The Airbnb founder, Bryan Chesky, who talks about trust and safety doesn’t realize that he himself abused the trust of his landlord at some time to sublet it to others as a short term and has no idea what trust is. It’s no wonder in my own case I don’t see any trace of trust or safety at all. Airbnb is his true child – like father like son.
Scammed by Guests, Airbnb Denies me Due Process
Hello fellow Airbnbers. I’m a superhost with more than 100 five-star reviews, and although I’m new to this forum, I’ve certainly had plenty of experience with Airbnb bookings. I just had the most obvious scam pulled by a guest on MLK weekend (I’ve experienced this sort of fraud only once before, and Airbnb mediated, agreed, and ruled in my favor) and amazingly, Airbnb refused to pay me out for the booking (about $950). Things have really changed in Airbnb customer service. I’m an attorney and pride myself on being reasonable, but they totally denied me the opportunity to inspect my property, respond in full, and go after the $300 damage deposit when the scammers left the place trashed.
To make a long story short: I had guests who wanted to stay only one night, when my minimum is two (and on holiday weekends it is a three-day minimum). I had several requests for two-day stays, which I turned down when this scammer changed her mind and agreed to the three-day stay. She asked tons of questions which were fully addressed in the house manual I had sent her in advance. I have an old stone lake house – very charming but quirky in terms of small details – so my house manual is very thorough. The scammer kept trying to book it for one person so I pressed her for an exact number (I charge for extra guests after four since it involves a lot more cleaning). She finally told me it was going to be four.
I approved her request for three days; she then asked if she could arrive early on Friday since they needed to get ready for an event (her son’s concert at West Point). I agreed to let them arrive early since the house was empty. I also told her that I was in Australia that weekend and on long flights, and reiterated many times that if she had any questions or problems she should try me first, and if she couldn’t reach me, she should contact my professional cleaner/Airbnb manager or my handyman. Take note: she knew I was overseas and on my way back to the US that weekend and would be hard to reach. She counted on this.
The scammer and her family arrived (yes, more than four people as confirmed by my CCTV system) and fully used the house: all four beds were slept in, every towel was used and soiled, the entire kitchen was used for cooking a big greasy meal, my cast iron cookware was burned black beyond salvage and hidden away in a different place, glasses were broken, and the toilet was clogged and overflowing. They obviously went to their event Friday night, enjoyed the house until Saturday morning (which was all they had originally wanted) and then called Airbnb just shy of the 24-hour mark required before the payment is released, and filed a 100% premeditated and fraudulent claim that the place was dirty. To be clear, I have a consistent 4.9-star cleanliness rating with more than 100 reviews, and the house is always professionally cleaned before every guest.
Airbnb stopped the payout and sent me an email asking me to contact them. They included some photos in huge files (so big I couldn’t open them on my smart phone at all) of a cobweb in the skylight and some dust in a corner behind a big speaker. They even pulled up an area rug and took a photo of dust in a nonworking heating vent and some 20-year old microscopic paint splatter under the rug. They included a photo of water splatter on the bathroom mirror which was obviously caused by them. She also threw in non-verifiable (non-photographable) complaints about no hot water and no wifi. Both the hot water tank and wifi were working perfectly when inspected by my cleaner/manager an hour after they departed. This email arrived at 1:00 AM Australia time, so I was asleep. A full warning came through at 4:00 AM (three hours later) telling me that I had one hour to respond, and luckily I was awake to see it and call Airbnb (long distance, from Australia) to see what was going on. Airbnb could see I was in Australia because I had booked all of my stays there through them so it was obvious I wasn’t anywhere near my home in the US.
I was so freaked out to hear that the guest had abandoned the house that I thought something awful must have happened (like my cleaner forgot to prepare the house). I couldn’t see the photos on my phone, and the representative I spoke to, “Colleen”, chastised me and said that spiders don’t spin webs overnight (actually, yes they do) so the house clearly was filthy enough to give her a refund. I asked why she didn’t just turn around and leave upon arrival the day before if the place was so filthy, and Colleen had no answer for me. Colleen was so adamantly pro-guest and anti-host that if you told me that the scammer was her mother, that would be the only explanation for her bias that would make sense. Mind you, the scammer never called me, texted, or emailed me, my cleaner (who lives nearby), or my handyman at any time. This is how you know she is a scammer; she had no legitimate complaint and she didn’t want to give anyone a chance to inspect or remedy anything that might be a genuine complaint.
The scammer simply got online with her huge photo files and just lodged her complaint with Airbnb knowing they would not be able to reach me, and then left after that since they were obviously done with their one-day stay. I had my cleaner run over to the house to see if she could be of help. She was freaked out, obviously – she had to rouse her sick son from bed and bring him with her to run there. We really thought something horrible had happened. There was nothing wrong at all except the mess they had made and the destruction they had caused. The cleaner was so upset she didn’t want to work for me anymore because she’s afraid she will be blamed when scammers succeed with their false cleaning complaints. By the time my plane landed, before I had a chance to even get home and inspect my house myself for any damage and investigate fully their complaints (again, I couldn’t open the photos until I got to a computer), Colleen had issued the scammer a full refund and removed the listing completely from my roster. Not canceled. It has fully disappeared from my Airbnb history.
This is infuriating because I don’t even know the amount that I was supposed to receive, I have no way of asking for verification information on the scammer, and I have no ability to file a counter-complaint for all the cleaning and damages left behind. It’s now been more than two weeks. I have called and left multiple messages for Colleen, or preferably a supervisor, to review the case and get back to me about their frustration of my contract and denial of my due process rights to go after a guest for the damage deposit. Each time I call, the “system is down” so they can only send Colleen a message. They reassure me she will get back to me. The new representative I get each time puts notes on my ticket, and that’s all they can do. Colleen never has called me back even though I’m told the “ticket is still open.” This is baffling and infuriating – every time I have dealt with the customer service team in the past they have been thoughtful, thorough, reasonable, and communicative; it’s all in my history. I’m the sort who always pays people partial refunds if they have even a minor complaint, and Airbnb knows that.
I have sent at least five detailed emails, including photos of the damage and filth left behind in my house. I have received no response. Their method is clear: they hope they will just wear me down by frustration and attrition, never responding to my very reasonable observations supporting my claim that my guest was a premeditated scammer. For what it is worth, last year I brought in more than $100K in Airbnb bookings, and Airbnb happily kept 15% of that ($15K) plus all the interest on the credit card pre-booking payments they sit on. I cannot believe they would treat a three-year proven superhost this way. They just refuse to respond. Isn’t it reasonable that they at least explain how they came to their decision, even if they refuse to modify it? On principle, I’m ready to go to arbitration because my only other choice if I’m able to sleep at night is to completely divest myself of my Airbnb listings and go to Homeaway. Obviously, I want to do this as a last resort, so I’ll take all the advice you other hosts can offer.
I’m Not Even a User and I Can’t Stand Airbnb
I’m not even an Airbnb user and I absolutely can’t stand them anyway. So many people in my building rent their flats to tourists who get insanely drunk, shout like crazy day and night, make a mess of our shared toilets, and won’t go to sleep cause they’re too busy shouting or taking drugs and yelling (I live in Amsterdam). This is a sort of mixed industrial area, and our walls and ceilings are pretty thin. There’s no isolation so since the whole Airbnb hype started, life has become so much less enjoyable, more like a living hell. Our building has now suffered from so many incidents: things get stolen, Airbnb people ring your doorbell at night because of course they have no idea which doorbell to ring when they’re so drunk and drugged.
Can anyone just sue Airbnb? The world was a better place without it. The worst part is that my “friends” don’t ever have space in their house for me anymore because they’re all renting their spare rooms to Airbnb users. When I’ve needed a place to stay, everyone says no because they have Airbnb guests. Honestly, that means those “friends” suck, but it’s also creepy that everyone is letting strangers stay in their houses. From what I hear, this site is way more expensive than most hotels anyway. Why not stay at a nice hotel where you’re provided privacy and security? People are weird.
Airbnb Refuses to Pay for Damages for Guest Party
My roommate and I had a guest staying at our apartment for December break, since we were home visiting our parents. One guest in particular stayed on the 27th of December and decided to host a party. When I say party, I mean that the police were called multiple times, and we reached home two weeks later to find an eviction notice slapped to our front door due to multiple noise complaints. Since the maid service who had cleaned our apartment in between guests had only told us about damages in the apartment and the mess that it was left in, we were shocked to say the least. We went to the building manager to sort things out, and we were met with another surprise. The party that the guest had was not only loud and noisy, but her attendees were throwing things off the balcony, had broken the entry door as not all of them had the access key, and – here’s the kicker – pooped on the stairwell outside our apartment.
Airbnb had been contacted after the guests’ stay as the maid service had informed us about extra cleaning charges, and so we emailed them again telling them the new information. They gave us a two-day extension to provide us with an invoice for the damages. For those of you who have never had to live in an apartment building with a highly bureaucratic administration, you’re so lucky. For us, any little thing that has to be fixed or replaced has to be reported to management, who then has to file a maintenance order for it, report it to their office who will then call a company to take a look at the damage or assess repairs, and then they will call another company to do the actual repairs. The delay between each of these communications is at least two days.
Added to this chain, there is a legal team who is currently handling our file, as they are trying to review what has to be paid for and if we should pay for it. This team is not reachable by our building office or by us; communication has to go through the manager who will then ask them. This adds another few days. I explained this to Airbnb and they gave me another extension of another two days. This went on for a week. Finally, they emailed me saying I have 48 hours and no more extensions. I have repeatedly gone to the office and explained to them that I need the invoice asap, but my urgency was probably not conveyed to the legal team. When I emailed the case manager and told him this he replied saying that this is their protocol and he cannot change it. He refused to connect me to a manager and said that there is no customer care helpline I can connect with (I checked, there is).
Airbnb knows that we are helpless and is using that to get out of paying for the damages caused by that guest. The manager told me that including the cleanup and everything, the damages would amount to approximately $800, maybe more. We cannot pay for this ourselves. We’re students; we were just trying to make up a portion of our rent for the month that were away. Most of it went towards a maid service who cleaned the apartment between visits. Airbnb has turned a blind eye to us, and emails to the CEO have gone unanswered. We cannot pay the amount in damages, and we are at our wits end, missing classes to go talk to the building manager, and staying up looking for other channels of communication since our case manager has shut the door in our face. We cannot afford to start off a term like this, just as we cannot afford to pay an insane amount for absurd damages. Airbnb said that they would commit to better service after their 2011 situation. But everything they had promised isn’t being held up by their representatives, and I don’t know what to do.
Airbnb Million Dollar Warranty is Fake
Friday evening my guests texted me with photo evidence that they broke our keys in the door lock. We are in Milan. I knew from experience that it would cost at least 500-600 euro to fix the issue. Forgetting about our evening plans, my husband and I rushed to the place with some tools, hoping we could fix it ourselves. There was no chance; the guests used the wrong key (even though we had explained during check-in which key was used for which lock) and they forced it in a way that the metal key had broken, leaving part of it deep inside the door lock.
The guests were a nice couple from Slovakia. They were terrified and felt guilty as there were five of us (together with the neighbour, who couldn’t get in as the door they broke was actually the common one) witnessing that it was their fault. It was as obvious as 2+2=4. Everybody agreed; there was no discussion there. We called a 24-hour locksmith. They said they would arrive in half an hour and make a determination as to whether the lock needed to be changed completely. It would cost 400 euro without a receipt and around 600 euro with a receipt. The guests were shocked and almost crying. The neighbour needed to be let in; he had already waited outside of his home for an hour. The locksmiths were pushing us, saying that they had a 94-year-old lady waiting for them and that we needed to make up our minds.
We called Airbnb and explained the issue. They suggested we pay and then claim the money back from the guest through the problem solving center. If the guests refused, they would get involved. Everything is protected under the one million dollar warranty. So, we went for the official option and my husband paid the 600 euro. I wasn’t nervous about reimbursement as it was very obvious whose fault it was. We finally got back home at 2:00 AM, but our Friday evening was ruined. The next morning I started the process according to the rules of Airbnb. After a few weeks I received an answer: “We’ve carefully reviewed the claim you submitted and unfortunately, we’re unable to fulfill your request because we do not believe that the guest can be held wholly responsible for the damages caused.”
After a series of messages from my side, they answer was that we could not get a cent back for what we have paid for another person’s mistake hoping for the support of intermediate. Not even the deposit of 80 euro. Nothing. No explanation why, no references to the Terms and Conditions. They simply did not believe me. This was the final decision and end of the conversation. I am really disappointed. Does anyone have any ideas about what can we do in this situation? What lessons can I learn from this? Thank you to everyone who has read this until the end and for your comments.
Tenants Rented out Home for Super Bowl
I am a realtor and was selling a home for a client. Since the home was vacant, the seller elected to have a home tending service put tenants in the home (it helps owners with utility expenses and whatnot in exchange for a tenant staying for reduced rent paid to the home tending company). We found a buyer and are under contract, and gave the home tenders their 30 days’ notice to vacate. The buyer’s agent emailed me to say the buyer saw the home listed in Houston for the Super Bowl at $2000/night (which occurs before their 30 days is up). The home tender obviously did this (the owner didn’t). I called Airbnb to report this. They refused to even tell me whether the home was rented (we can’t find the listing now because it was likely rented out). They just would not help me, with the representative telling me they didn’t know who I was. I asked if they would like the owner of the home to call them, and they said they wouldn’t help there, either. They are just allowing fraud. The representative was insanely rude and told me to call the police. With what proof since the listing is gone? I honestly can’t believe they do business this way. I used to use them myself. Never again.