The night before carnival, I was supposed to host a guest from New Zealand. On the photo he seemed friendly and well-traveled but he didn’t have any sense of direction and ended up in different parts of town even though I always give very precise directions from the airport and the main station to my guests. So he started sending me messages saying he’s upset, confused and lost, and that I should pick him up. By that time it was around 10 pm. As a solo-female host I did not consider this a serious option for security reasons and I told him to take a taxi. He also called me several times and spoke to me very unclearly and sounded a bit aggressive in his voice.
Luckily I was with an English friend who also listened to the guest’s tone of voice, his mumbling words and confirmed that the guest must have been drunk or on drugs to speak that way. When he made me talk to a German bartender, I told her that I felt uncomfortable hosting this guest and asked her if my reservations had any grounds or not. She confirmed and said she would not host him! So I cancelled the reservation on the airbnb site, on the phone with airbnb, and then as demanded by airbnb, in a descriptive email. This took several hours.
The next day I got an email from airbnb saying that they were not going to “punish” me this time and that they of course cannot pay me for this booking. To the second part, I can agree even if this guest caused quite a bit of trouble for me, to the first part, however, I don’t agree at all and would expect a different reaction than that!
So now I’m hesitant about future bookings through airbnb because I feel unsafe and abandoned if something bad happens!