Airbnb “vetted” a group of people to stay in our home for one month. When their stay was over, the cleaning people refused to clean after them. I went in to clean. I found bags of drugs (pot, etc.), broken lamps, broken bar stools, and broken chairs at the dining table. The furniture had been moved around and was broken (bed frame, book shelves). There were four 55-gallon trash bags full of liquor bottles and beer bottles in the house. The refrigerator had not been emptied. It was stuffed full which had to be thrown away by me. The inside lamps had been taken outside and plugged in. They were damaged from the rain, and could have caused a fire.
Airbnb’s response was that we would have to buy new stuff and turn in the receipt in 14 days, or we could not be reimbursed for our damages. How do you replace a bar stool in a matching set? How do you match a chair in a matching set, if it’s no longer made? I truly hope Airbnb reads this post. My lake home is special to me, and I just wanted to share it with others so they could have a positive experience.
These people (and many others who weren’t as bad) were not vetted. Animals would have been preferable to these “things” in my home. Also, Airbnb won’t allow you to charge an upfront deposit fee to take care of damages. Airbnb and I are about to be done. I hope Airbnb loses many customers, and I highly caution anyone thinking about doing this to consider other options. I’m about to. Thank you for allowing me to vent.
“My lake home is special to me, and I just wanted to share it with others so they could have a positive experience.”
Yeah, I’m not buying this. If you would feel this way, you’d share your house with friends for no fee or a minimal fee, not rent it out to total strangers for actual money. You just wanted to make money off of property you apparently aren’t fully using and you got burned because you area dealing with people you do not know. What did you expect? I’d never let people I don’t know stay in my house, even if they paid me.
The only way being a ‘host’ on AirBnB works out is if you rent out rooms in the property you live in yourself so you are present most times, or if you rent out a property that doesn’t have sentimental value/fancy decoration so that if people to trash it, it’s not such a big deal.