Airbnb is Craigslist with Nicer Window Dressing

Posted on July 24, 2018

I am a landlord. Before you jump down my throat, because I know Airbnb likes to foment class resentment in their advertising (i.e. we just help the little people pay their housing costs), let me tell you what kind of landlord I was.

I never raised the rent more than 2%. I would ask my tenant (my only tenant of 5.5 years) if his financial situation could withstand a rent increase before raising the rent. Any time there was an issue with an appliance or utility, I responded immediately. There was an antique stove with a burner that wasn’t lighting, so I bought a new $2000 stove. The LG dishwasher, which was brand new, didn’t handle hard water well, so I bought a new KitchenAid one. There was a pipe to the washer/dryer that would freeze on the coldest days, so I paid for a plumber to come put pipe tape on it.

I loved this house like my own, because it had been my own. I lived there for five years after a gut renovation. Everything was new and beautiful, and yet I charged rent that was 25% below market at least. I just wanted a stable and happy tenant to love my home too.

My tenant, let’s call him Jack, was a real estate broker. When he moved to my house, he had just gotten a divorce, and had three kids in high school. I figured he would live there while his last kid finished up school, and maybe a few years thereafter, but that he would surely move somewhere cheaper or more fun for a bachelor after a few years.

Two years ago, I decided I probably wanted to sell the house, because I had gotten pregnant with my own child, and my husband and I were buying a different house; we didn’t want or need two houses. When you’re young, maybe you don’t mind losing money every year on an emotional investment, but as soon as you have your own babies, you think about making more money for a college fund one day.

I told Jack that I wanted to sell the house, and I asked him whether he may want to buy it himself or move out first, as I did not want to disturb him with constant showing appointments. Jack told me that he was working on getting his broker certification in New York State (previously he was licensed in Connecticut only), and he could list the house for me. I thought that would be a great idea.

Most tenants have nothing to gain when you sell your house, so they are notorious for trying to scuttle a sale; but in this case, a tenant with a commission to gain might be incentivized to keep the house clean and tidy, and sing its praises. I thought Jack was at a phase in his life where I would lose him as a tenant soon anyway. His youngest child was in her last year of college… I felt now would be a good time to get a sale done, rather than search for a new tenant.

I told Jack I would wait for him to pass his NYS broker examination, which took him several tries ultimately, and I waited for about nine months. Finally, we went to list the house for sale. I asked him around that time whether there was anything pressing that he thought I should alter or repair to improve the chances of a sale. The house is from 1780, and the upstairs has original door frames that are only 6′ tall; he said that these door-frames are charming, but they could limit the pool of buyers.

He also told me he though the roof might be leaking in a studio, which is attached to the garage. I paid for a carpenter to take a look, and he actually said the leak had been going on for years perhaps and it was bad. I paid him to tear out the sheetrock and insulation, and reroof. This delayed the listing by about six weeks, and I thought it was odd that Jack never mentioned this in the nine months that I waited for him.

When the carpenter came to do the work, Jack had not moved any of his items stored in that studio, which I found to be a little non-cooperative, but maybe he was busy. After the roof repairs, we listed the house. Jack sent me pictures that he staged. The pictures looked great. He hosted a brokers open house, and he said the open house went well. However, he didn’t send me any questions, comments or negative feedback from the brokers.

Months went by. Jack forwarded me an email from a buyer who was going to make an offer. The buyer’s agent said the buyer loved the house, but was concerned about water in the basement. Jack told me he lost the sale. In hindsight, that email was maybe an inducement for a credit or for a proposed solution, but Jack didn’t suggest either.

More months passed. A buyer made a cash offer, which I accepted. After an inspection, the buyer wanted a credit for water in the basement. I thought this was very odd, because in the five years that I lived there, water only entered the basement during torrential hurricane rains or heavy snow melting. I told Jack to tell the buyer that I am going to fix the water issue myself and sell to someone else. I didn’t hear from this buyer again.

While storm drainage in a basement isn’t ideal, I experienced it as a minor nuisance that occurred a few times a year, and the sump pump would eventually take care of. I decided to take a look and get some quotes from masons to fix the drainage. When I got to the house, the basement looked like a horror movie. There were cobwebs absolutely everywhere. Jack had removed the smoke detector down there and thrown it on the floor. The battery was next to it.

I found that the water pressure tank valve was leaking. It’s a steady leak. There’s a blanket on the floor and a bunch of junk scattered about. Jack never mentioned that the basement was consistently wet. He claimed that he “never goes down there,” which the smoke detector on the floor seems to belie.

I vaguely remember that years ago he told me that every time one smoke detector went off, they all went off. I tell him this was intentional, as the system is a modern system and all the detectors are wired together. I told him that when the battery dies, the detector has a specific alarm. I told him how to replace the battery and to hold down the test button. I realize that he must have ripped the detector off in frustration at some point because it was chirping to notify him the back-up battery was low. I would have bought him an endless supply of batteries, but he never asked.

In any case, I paid for a plumber to replace the water pressure tank. I inspected the house soon thereafter. The basement was dry, but still looked like crap because of the cobwebs. At least the issue was contained. I continued to get quotes from masons to fix the storm drainage. I asked Jack whether I shouldn’t just take the listing down until the storm drainage is fixed. Jack started talking about a spring in the driveway, where he thought the water was coming from.

I was like, “What?”

“Yes,” Jack said, “Didn’t you say there was a spring in the driveway?”

I said, “No, what I said was the bedrock formation around the house creates a dry stream in the basement, which just means that rain water flows into the basement during a storm.”

Jack continued to adhere to the idea that there was a spring. I told him that the driveway, which is paved with stone, is dry except after heavy rain. If there were a spring, there would be a little lake there. I asked him to desist from telling people about his spring theory, because it’s crazy, though I tried to be more amicable.

Then I spoke to the real estate attorney, who was helping my husband and me with the purchase of another home (as I mentioned). My attorney told me that storm drainage is like oil tanks. It’s a basic problem that any agent worth his credentials would advise a seller to resolve prior to listing the property. I started to get a sick feeling about Jack.

I got various quotes back for the storm drainage, and decided that the original cash buyer was actually not a bad offer. It was a bit low, but it would save me the headache of managing a $20,000 waterproofing and excavation job. I know the buyer’s name because he had reached out to my father on LinkedIn around the time he made his offer. My father is on the title but is a minority stakeholder, so he didn’t really respond in detail to the buyer except to congratulate him for the accepted offer.

I found the guy on LinkedIn and told him that we were fine with paying him the credit. At this time, the buyer told me he was super disappointed because he was in contract for a house that he didn’t like as much as my house. He told me that Jack was very reluctant to admit that he lived at the house. He told me Jack had a weird theory about a spring in the driveway, that Jack stonewalled him for information about the house, and that when the inspection was conducted, the bathrooms and kitchen were beyond disgusting, and that he found my house as a listing on Airbnb.

I was appalled. I immediately contacted Airbnb. I told them that I could furnish a copy of my deed, and I would like the rental records for Jack’s rentals. There were two reviews on Jack’s profile for rentals of several months-long guests, during prime selling months, during our listing agreement. Jack’s tenancy also prevented long term guests (over two weeks) without expressed written consent.

I told Airbnb I could furnish a copy of Jack’s lease as well. Airbnb simply told me that I should work things out with Jack. At this point, I was considering suing Jack; I was definitely evicting him, so I wanted proof of how long he rented out the place. It’s my freaking house, so I felt I was entitled to a rent roll for my house. Airbnb told me they will release this information with a court order. Meaning, it’s incumbent upon me to sue Jack.

I ask Airbnb whether they require hosts to upload their deed or lease agreement, and they said “We care to the utmost and we require hosts to represent that they are legally entitled to list the property.” I asked the child attorney writing me this email from Airbnb whether HR called their law school to verify their law degree, or whether they were allowed to simply “represent” that they had a law degree.

Then I realized that Airbnb isn’t a real service. From a legal standpoint, they don’t care whether they are facilitating fraud and theft. They don’t care, and their response will always be “just sue me.” Eventually they will be sued by enough people, because what they do is wrong. My tenant would never have been able to violate his lease/listing agreement like this without the ready infrastructure that Airbnb provides. Section 230 means that Airbnb doesn’t have to care about fraudulent listings.

They are, after all, merely selling individuals the ability to publish, and they have no interest in the content, right? Except that they collect a fee. Except that they have “customer service” to make people feel good and comfortable about listing, when in fact their customer service, from a legal standpoint, is just a goodwill gesture, and not a regulated activity that can be held to any standards. People need to stop thinking about Airbnb as a housing service. It is not. It is Craigslist with window dressing.

Case Closed, Reopened, and Cleaning Fees Deducted

Posted on July 17, 2018

My Airbnb guest arrived and found the house to be “beautiful.” Three days later she decided to leave. She complained about crumbs in the toaster. I offered eight separate times to send up the housekeeper but she refused. She stayed another four days. She wanted a refund for the last three days. A claim was made and the cleanliness issue was not found in favour of the guest as under the guest refund policy it states very clearly that the guest must try to resolve the problem. She refused to have the kitchen re-cleaned so under no circumstances did she try to do this. The case was closed. Two weeks later it was reopened and £500 was deducted from my account for a “cleanliness issue”. Airbnb meanwhile paid $900 to the guest. I sent in all of the texts with the guest as additional proof that she failed to comply. There has been no response from the case manager. The case has been closed. Four other Airbnb case managers have failed to provide an independent review. I suspect fraud.

Account Cancelled After Guest Makes False Claims

Posted on June 9, 2018

I have been an Airbnb Host for about five years. My reviews were mostly five stars. Even when they were less they were always good to outstanding reviews. I made Superhost twice. About two months ago I was warned that my listing was not conforming to discrimination rules. I was not permitted to limit single women to a maximum of three nights (or lose my girlfriend). I was not permitted to limit people who were heavily medicated or using drugs. I was not permitted to state that my place was not a good fit for handicapped people. I fixed all that and then they reactivated my listing. I was also warned that if I had one more violation that I would be barred from using Airbnb and never be able to reactivate or list again. I booked several guest and had five-star reviews from all in the next two months.

Then I booked three guests, two of which I had booked at an earlier date for three or four nights and had given them a very good review, stating they were trustworthy and clean. The three guests were booked for four nights. They did smoke (often in their car). They tried to hook up the living room TV with the HDMI for a PlayStation. Before I went out for the evening I noted that they left the TV on with unknown source. I turned it off for them and went out for the evening. The next morning the TV was in internet mode. The guest had tried to pull the TV off the wall which is not possible because of the custom mounting. The cables for the sound bar and TV were in wrong places. Of course the TV and sound bar would not work. I could not find the controllers and so pulled the power plug to turn it off until I could get help to remove the TV, check it out, and cable it properly and then do the required setups. After two hours it was working fine.

The guests violated house rules by not closing their window and turning off their intake fan in the daytime. They could have been violating the no-smoking house rule. On the third day I was out and about most of the day and returned to find the house unlocked. A short while later, the guest returned and parked in my neighbor’s parking space. I called them to move the car. I was then confronted with one of the guests. He said that my place was full of rodents and insects. I said that was impossible unless they brought them.

He then screamed racial slurs at me. I asked them to leave and he stated that they were on the way out. I called the police who arrived shortly after they left. The officer and I checked the room for rodents. There was something on the sink and a few leaves and sticky spots on the floor. Nothing had been stolen. I noticed that a computer desk caster was broken and called the next day to make a claim.

Airbnb told me that the guest had submitted images of rodents and insects everywhere. I wanted to see the pictures since I said they had to be planted by the guests. I lived here since 2004 and my sister was here ten years before that. There was never a single mouse. Insects were not welcome and well under control. I noted that several extra washcloths were used. Probably to catch all the mice and remove them from the house. They were all gone.

I purchased glue traps and other traps to make sure since I had a guest coming in two days. That guest was an Airbnb host. I told her about the three guests and the rodent pictures. She had never placed a claim with Airbnb. I tried to place a claim and had pictures taken of the broken desk; they kept up a non-response procedure.

They refunded one day’s stay to the guest. I questioned that and then the fee was restored since the first Airbnb person had not consulted with me. A second Airbnb person had overruled the first since they had not followed Airbnb procedures. Then the broken desk claim still needed to be processed. That became impossible, since about five days after the guest left, my account was cancelled.

I was able to book one guest on another site. He emailed me to say his stay had been cancelled. I had not recorded the contact information of the other guests – my mistake. At one time in the past Airbnb had cancelled one of my guest for some issue. When he showed up, he wanted his money back and called his friend for help. The friend burst out laughing.

However, if I had not been home, that guest who had the keypad code could have been in my house. Then what? My general feeling with Airbnb over the years is that they tend to keep changing their rules. Sometimes, I feel that they tend to be very nasty. I have listed my place on VBRO and had my first booking within five days. It seems like most of the places are higher priced. Not so with Airbnb.

Generally, hosts should not expect too much from Airbnb if you ever have to file a claim. Airbnb prevents you from writing a bad review for a guest when your account is cancelled. The fraudulent guest at my place had three okay reviews and one was from me. Any guest can do the same fraud or similar schemes. They do it against many companies. It’s a lot to consider if you host. I think the best thing is to raise your prices high enough for any strangers that you are willing to host. Don’t expect Airbnb, who got too big too fast, to really care about losing you as a host.

Renter was a Scam Artist and Possibly Crazy

Posted on May 24, 2018

So I had been renting out my motorhome on Airbnb for over 18 months and had never had a problem with a client. All my feedback was 100% positive and absolutely great comments. I had rented it out approximately nine times.

After selling the motorhome I decided to rent out the spare bedroom in my home. The second customer I had filed some sort of complaint about me. I didn’t know what it was about. I got a call from Airbnb and they wanted to know about what happened during the incident at my home. I said I had no idea what they were talking about and didn’t even know their was an incident. They said the renter filed a complaint but could not tell me anything about it and I would have to wait until their investigation had been completed.

Then next thing I knew I got an email from Airbnb stating my account had been deactivated and I could no longer rent or use Airbnb: no explanation, no reason. I still have no idea what the complaint was about. All they kept saying when I called or emailed was for privacy purposes they could not tell me anything. What a crock.

I have no idea what this woman complained about and now I can no longer rent out my space. After my account was deactivated, I tried to contact the customer, but she refused to respond. I left a message on her phone and sent her a text. No response. Airbnb does not give a crap about the renters; they believe everything the customer says. There is no way of even fighting something like this because they will no longer respond after their final decision is made without even the courtesy of telling you what was wrong in the first place.

She Reserved for Two but Eight Showed up…

Posted on May 14, 2018

I do like children. They are cute… like puppies, you know. However, I am allergic to pets, so needless to say I don’t have the kid-friendly option selected on my Airbnb listings. I prefer adults; that works best for me.

A lady intending to reserve my space wanted to know if she could reserve for her and her eight-month-old “baby boy”. I said to myself: “Okay, I can make a exception since the thing doesn’t walk….”

I went downstairs to open the door (I always meet folks outside of the house ) and saw a car full of people, some sitting on others’ laps and the “baby boy” was a little girl instead, about 6-7 years old. I said, “Oh f&*king s#$t. Let me play it cool. I am going to be home too, so this is going to be good.”

Two guys helped her with one piece of luggage up to the house. One guy was easily about 450 lbs and the other was an older male. I followed them in and they just stared right back at me. In the house, she said, “So who is going to be here?” Red flags went up.

I said, “Just you, me, and your baby.” I went to sit down. All the people that were in the car were let inside by the fat guy and they all tried to hide in the bedroom. Their problem was I did not have a lock on the bedroom and they couldn’t fit at all. They could not hide; I could open the door any time and see seven folks in one room.

Ten minutes later, they finally left. The noise of a herd of elephants was minimal compared to that foot traffic storming out my house. In the end I got to keep the money. It was only a miracle it ended with just the biggest scare of my life, instead of well… my life.

Airbnb Believes Lying Guests With No Proof

Posted on April 4, 2018

I am a Superhost and have 12 properties on Airbnb. I had a couple arrive one hour late and so they had to wait for me for 15 minutes because I was fixing a plumbing leak. I greeted them and offered to help them carry their bags but they were nasty. I usually go in and walk them through the entire place. I sat down and opened up my instruction book and they made it clear they wanted me out of there. The husband was rude and negative about anything I tried to say.

I left and sent them an email apologizing, asked if the place was okay, and to let me know if they needed anything. I was in a condo on the same property two minutes away. I never heard from them. If they saw me and I said hello, they said nothing. Now I have asked if anything is wrong and they didn’t care to tell me.

The couch has an old sofa bed and I don’t advertise it as a sofa bed. I say the unit comes with a queen bed. Well, as I suspected, they reviewed me on Airbnb saying that the dishes were dirty, the floors were dirty, the sofa bed was uncomfortable (they were husband and wife), and there was pee by the toilet. When I walked in with them none of this was there that I was aware of. The same day I asked if there were any issues and they didn’t respond.

How does Airbnb allow reviews like this when I clearly communicated with them the very first day but they refused to talk to me? There needs to be a policy where Airbnb tells the guests that they must first communicate with the host immediately with any issues. Allowing them to post lies should actually be considered slander. Airbnb is ruining our reputation and eventually this will be a big problem. They also had the nerve to send out these automated messages telling me that my place has been rated a 3.5 which could be a problem for me.

“We can no longer continue our relationship with you.”

Posted on March 26, 2018

Up until last week, I was a proud Airbnb Superhost in Georgia. In 36 months my nephew and I had hosted 660 families who have written over 500 great reviews about us. This week, I find myself the victim of both defamation and discrimination at the hands of a would-be guest who had been given a platform for outrageous hate speech by an Airbnb case manager who stopped any illusion of treating us fairly the minute we disclosed that we were gay.

In fact his very next email which came as his response read: “…we can no longer continue our relationship with you.” With that he published the most discriminatory paragraph I believe I have ever read. Here it is:

“John, whose appearance reminds one of the sad stature and appearance of Danny Devito (except John has glitter on him for god knows what reason), then offered to be our “lifeguard” in the bathtub. The man gives off an awfully uncomfortable vibe and is inappropriate on numerous levels. This felt more like a strange man inviting us into his really old house. It was creepy to the point that we were so afraid to even tell him we were leaving, as he was just overall eery, that we had to literally run and escape through the back and speed away. Needless to say, if your into the kinky weird old man shit, John’s place is the place for you.”

Did you identify all the personal attacks, marginalizing techniques, isolating and esteem reducing comments that come with discrimination? Sad stature – height and weight discrimination; Danny Devito – racial slur against Italian Americans; glitter – sarcastic; emasculating and gay bashing “lifeguard” is an attempt to mislead the reader into believing the subject is a sexual predator instead of just middle aged.

The man/awful uncomfortable sexist and ageist, was unafraid of discrimination and used a false sense of danger technique to spread prejudice by fostering community mistrust, especially as three police cars were right out on the avenue responding to a car accident. Eery – disparaging older people; escape – assigning subject a false predator status while claiming victim status even while aggressively defaming the subject. “The back” in the review referred to the short cut path to their car parked on the next block.

Kinky – equating older people with who knows what only that it’s sure to be someone who deserves to be cast out. Older does not mean predator. Weird – an attempt to further marginalize old men – can somebody say inappropriate? Ageism. There are a lot of ways to say the n-word and this is all coded language especially in the subgroup in which this non-guest identifies.

I was fired from Airbnb for failing to react properly to this review which never should have been allowed by a non-guest who fabricated nearly all of this hate speech. The case manager on the safety and risk team chose to ignore this following our disclosure of our sexual orientation. His homophobia placed us in a lose-lose situation where women and guests are de-facto victims and men are proven guilty for failing to read minds or worse for being gay.

Questions for Airbnb’s anti-discrimination team: there are clearly 14 concrete examples of discriminatory hate speech by this guest meant to stop my ability to attract guests basically because I’m older, shorter, Italian and – in her eyes – creepy. There was no explanation of what the numerous levels where I was said to be inappropriate actually were. How is it permissible for a guest to make such a claim without specific support?

Why was I asked to react to a review which I was never given a copy of if this were meant to be a real process? What was the event specifically that the case manager wished to discuss? How come all polite conversation and information sharing abruptly stopped when we disclosed our sexual orientation? Why were the rules suspended so this hate speech could be added to the platform and what kind of training does the case manager have that he can’t identify prejudice, bias, bigotry, discrimination and stereotyping when he is staring right at them?

If you are serious about pursuing discrimination in the Airbnb community, that means not discriminating against hosts. We have never turned down a person of color who requested a reservation. However, there are guests who discriminate against certain hosts using their ratings and reviews as weapons to hurt those they dislike. Until Airbnb confronts this along with the tendency of case managers to show predisposition to favor one group over another to the point where the ability to be a reasonably fair arbiter is not possible.

If you’d like to hear the backstory, you should and I should be allowed to give it in a mature and fully informed way. During Hurricane Irma, we received a reservation request from a young woman who was almost pleading for a room with us, saying she was nearly out of gas, had been on her way back to Florida from South Carolina and “was not having an easy time of it”. She asked for a room in which a tree limb had crashed through the window which we could not make available due to safety concerns but we were able to offer her our most popular room, the Eudora.

She booked the room and seemed happy to have it. She arrived in the middle of a very serious car accident in front of the house caused by the storm conditions but seemed to hold us accountable for not having access to the driveway. It was odd but we invited them straight in and offered them soft drinks. We then walked them through our five-minute safety tour and showed them to their room. We told them we’d be back in ten minutes with warm towels and their keys so they could sign for them and finish checking in.

We promised to help them with their luggage but when we came back with the keys and warm towels, they were gone. That us it. A four-minute tour and less than eighteen minutes in the house. Everything else was the wild imaginings dreamed up to deflect the issue we raised about their leaving without a word after it appeared the bed had been used. This is the same welcome and check in procedure we have done with over 600 other guests without a hitch. These are the only guests who skipped out after we left to get them their key.

My nephew noticed that the bed had looked used. Thinking this was highly unusual, we contacted Airbnb to report this and the unexplained departure. Later we learned the guest was allowed to cancel yet leave a review without ever completing our check in, a violation of Airbnb policy. The reason given for our dismissal apparently centers around inappropriate communication with the guests. The case manager used a false accusation without ever substantiating the case. Two lies don’t make a truth and to assume women don’t lie and men are always in the wrong is sexist on his part. Saying a person is inappropriate on many different levels does not prove anything. Ignoring 14 separate overt discriminatory comments published in the public domain is just enabling bigotry and female bullying.

On September 21st, we were informed via email of an “incident that occurred during a recent reservation…” We were in the dark as to what the case manager was talking about. We still don’t know. No one chased these people around the house. There were police and first responders all over the front yard. This fake impending danger that the guest said caused them to ‘run out the back’ is unfounded and is meant, like her defamatory comments about me, to create a world of childish hyperbole free from amy grounding in the reality of her actual brief visit here. The very likelihood that she actually experienced her ‘teen horror flick’ fantasy is very remote.

A quick check of my last ten reviews would show you one less than satisfied Pakistani family and nine other incredibly happy families, yet no guest in 500 describes the Vincent Price imaginings this one does. With less than 0.2% of guests reporting, what was said here. It is safe to say that statistically this is an extreme outlier (nearly five sigmas). That means another 4,291 reservations would have to come and go before receiving another such report like this, which would take 19.5 years.

The case manager has bought into this fabrication at a level that he is confident no further pledge full cooperation. He also signed the next email which asked us to, “explain (our) side of the story on the review.” We replied that we hadn’t seen the review but would respond with ‘our side of the story’ as soon as he sent us a copy of the review. We asked two more times and did not ever receive the document of whose contents we were ordered to respond.

With the 72 hours we were given to respond quickly fading away, we decided to make a desperate guess as to what this might be about. We thought that this might have something to do with the false accusation that somehow we had sexually harassed a visiting sports team in April 2016. In each case there was no incident and we were never alone with the women raising these charges. We made no attempt to engage them and we pointed out that we were not of the heterosexual persuasion; as gay men we had no incentive to make that kind of advance in either case.

What they were asserting was not supported across the over 500 positive reviews from men and women alike. Coming out to someone is a very emotional step which we don’t take lightly as it causes great trepidation, fear and pain. Airbnb’s refusal to give us the information we needed to face an accusation properly forced us to relive this most painful of experiences. Furthermore, he created an atmosphere of terror as each of us underwent brutal abuse when we told our families we were gay. We were savagely beaten and thrown out of our homes. Airbnb never responded to what we had written.

The case manager never allowed us a fair opportunity to tell our side in an informed way. Instead, they learned we were gay and closed the case, throwing us out of our jobs, our home, and our vocation, telling us never to return. His email said he was shutting down our relationship at Airbnb and the pretext were two fabricated lies made up by sexist individuals who made incorrect assumptions about us and got their story completely wrong.

It didn’t matter to this case manager. He inflicted extraordinary pain on us as without explanation. We were forced to relive the most horrific moments of our lives because of his own prejudicial reaction. The pain, the humiliation, the loss of shelter, and the lack of money for basic food and necessities all has come flooding back as if it were 1979 all over again. He probably hasn’t given it a second thought but this is an unfolding horror story that actually began around Christmas when we were forced from our home.

Thoughts of self loathing, suicide and impending homelessness have filled our days with tears after the exhaustion of working round the clock to assist hurricane victims. We suffered real damage in that storm, losing a portion of the roof and watching the water pour in, but that was nothing compared to what the guest actually wrote.

Yesterday, we finally got to see her review. Though it is the single most blatant, hateful, discriminatory attack on another individual we have ever read, Airbnb published it. Though the guest never stayed a single night in our home, received her keys, brought in her luggage or completed her check in, Airbnb gave her a platform. Though she was allowed to cancel with just 18 minutes here, Airbnb waived the rules and gave her a microphone. In return, the guest gave us the most hateful discriminatory paragraph I believe I’ve ever read about a single human being.

When we read it we were in disbelief at the raw bigotry and blatant discriminatory things said. There was overt ageism, obvious sexism and defamatory words about Italian Americans. There was clearly a pattern of using body shaming and dysmorphia in an attempt to achieve a sense if superiority. A woman was using words out of context to paint this gay and committed gentleman into some grotesque freak. Despite a commitment to anti-discrimination, not only did Airbnb not take steps to stop it, members of the Airbnb Trust & Safety team purposely hid it from us then actively took steps to publish obvious hate speech and call it a legitimate review.

By firing us, the case manager blamed the whole thing on us, the victims. We have dedicated our lives, this place and our work to women authors, women in history and women’s genealogy, yet we have been painted unfairly and falsely as misogynistic leeches. I don’t think we’ve ever seen a more terrorizing example of systematic bigotry condoned and promoted across so many parts of our constitutionally protected classes and heaped it upon one innocent individual who was just trying to help. The only thing Airbnb and this guest didn’t do is lynch me. I don’t feel very grateful for that because here on the Airbnb plantation, we are still allowing haters to grow strange fruit and there is still no justice in that.

Airbnb Guests Can Lie About Noise, Damages

Posted on March 26, 2018

Out of 30+ rentals I have had two issues with guests. The first issue was when a guest did some minor damage to the property and left an extraordinary mess for me to clean up and organize professionals to come to the house with cleaning equipment. For the extra four hours of work, I decided to charge $65. If this was a regular rental situation that money would have come out of the security deposit, no questions asked. Airbnb decided to modify the contract and I ended up getting $5, plus $165 which was reimbursed against the receipts of repairs made supported by pictures of damages.

The second guest had sent Airbnb eight videos about “my house” because they were complaining about a train noise and not being able to sleep. They also claimed the train went by every 30 minutes during the night (easy to check, not true). Three of those videos were not from my house. Out of the remaining five, one was at night time and the rest were during the day with the windows open because you could hear birds and the neighbor’s dog. Out of 30+ guests nobody has ever complained about the train before.

Airbnb decided to give the guests a refund against the contract when they would have only been entitled to 50%. If they would have spent any time checking the facts or called me prior to making a decision the facts could have been set straight. Airbnb is habitually taking money out of hosts’ pockets and expects them to work for free based on the decisions of some teenager in a call center. The first guest was a first time Airbnb user and the second guest had two prior reviews.

Airbnb Unfairly Listens to Guests Over Superhosts

Posted on January 19, 2018

I rent out a room and have never had a bad review until these guests arrived. We had a typhoon hitting the island the day before, causing some damage to the roof. It was December 24th, 2017. The guests arrived angry because the airline lost their bags. They were well informed about the small hole in the cogoon roof (grass roof) because of the typhoon. We didnt notice a problem and the next day we had someone fixing it.

Consider: it was December 25th. We were lucky enough to find someone. In the evening of the second day, I found a message on Airbnb, stating that they cancelled the reservation on the guests’ behalf because of an outstanding situation. I called Airbnb and asked to speak to someone. I just wanted to understand what happened as I had no idea. The guests were gone too.

Basically Airbnb made the decision to cancel without even consulting the host and see what we could have done, and I had no idea what was the outstanding situation was. I lost all the money from their stay, and was not even consulted. I am also a Superhost.

I called Airbnb five times and wrote emails but no one took care of my case. After a few requests, someone forwarded me the guests’ photos. There were towels on the floor to collect water, mouse shit, and dirty corners… clearly orchestrated by the guests. The worst part is that Airbnb never consulted with me or asked me anything.

Airbnb Guests Cause over $10k in Damage, Still Refunded

Posted on December 18, 2017

The only reason I’m reaching out is that I would like to make sure I explore all avenues at Airbnb available to me before I obtain counsel and have to go that route. This guest contacted us and requested our home for one month for himself and his two colleagues for a work trip. We let the guest know that we actually would not have the house ready in time for his original request which was November 8th because we would not be finished remodeling the kitchen. We were remodeling the entire house and putting in new furniture (of which we have all receipts). He wrote back and said he really wanted to stay at our house, requesting from November 15th on. We agreed to this and the booking went through.

What ensued was much worse and different. A woman came to the house with the guest to whom he referred as his ‘daughter’ but he had told me two work colleagues. We came to learn that this was someone he was having sexual relations with (she stayed at another host’s house and told her he paid for their Airbnb’s all the time and that she had ‘snagged her a good one’). Besides this third party booking that occurre, the number of people that moved in were not three but eleven. Seven Children from teenagers (2) down to toddlers (5). Several were babies not much older than two.

We continued to call Airbnb and let them know that there were all these people living in our house. Our case manager told me we didn’t have any ‘proof’ but my gardener had seen all the children, I had seen them, I recorded audio of them playing, and my friend who came to watch the property (there are two houses on the lot as there are two subdivided lots on the property) had seen them. He told me they would be refunded if we decided to cancel on them because we didn’t have the proof to say they were violating the agreement even though an entirely different set of people were living in the house then who booked and more than we agreed to.

From November 19th-26th we went out of town for Thanksgiving and my friend kept an eye on the property. She said they had kids there staying overnight the entire time. When I got back on the evening of the 26th I heard the children. The next day I heard them in the morning. I also saw different men coming and going and none of them were the official guests.

On the 28th I saw a review posted on their account which wasn’t there before from a Superhost. She stated all of the things I was telling Airbnb – there were people who were not the guest staying at the listing, it was a 3rd party booking, and they brought several children. She also said they moved her stuff all over the place and trashed her guesthouse.

I called Airbnb immediately. The representative looked at the review. He realized something was wrong and said I could cancel the reservation (penalty free and not refund the guest, as it was apparent the guest had violated the agreement in every way). He canceled the reservation. The guest would not leave for eight hours. I called Airbnb several times. They told me to call the police but we could have had a scene on our street.

I went to the house twice to ask the guest to leave and she did not. She also refused my cleaning service woman. I was on the phone with her and could hear her refusing her access to parts of the house. We learned later she was keeping five children in one of the bedrooms we could access. Finally at 8:30 PM I went into the house and told her I wasn’t leaving and she had to go. The house was completely trashed. Our description is on their review page but there was not a surface on the house that didn’t have food, poop, urine, weed, juice, or some unknown sticky substance on it.

Short list of broken items:

– Faucet broken and it was brand new and newly installed
– Mattress, covered in urine and poop
– The floors were scratched up badly because she dragged wooden pallets from outside into the house and across the floor and moved all of our furniture around.
– All the linens were covered in severe urine stains and poop
– Poop on our leather sofa
– Floors covered in poop and trash
– Weed butts
– Dirty diapers on the floor
– New stone counters covered in dirt and muck. juice stains, food stains
– Robes missing, linens missing, pillows smelled of urine and had to be replaced.
– Rugs were rolled up and thrown out by the trash

We submitted damage claims totally over $7000 and then it was $2400 for the extra persons fee for 12 days (eight people over the reservation). Since that submission, no one from Airbnb has spoken to me or returned my calls. I get nothing but the run around from every person I talk to when I call. I submitted all receipts and repair bids; I could not get any real response except today when Airbnb refunded the guest the entire amount. They paid $2997 out of my future payout and will not respond to me, my calls, or anything I say.

At this point the guest does not have rights to that and forewent rights when they broke our agreement. For Airbnb to reimburse them for even the nights they did stay is unfathomable for me. We cannot get any response other than being shoved off so have to resort to legal action and speaking to members of the press (of which I thankfully know several). I am writing because I hope you read your email or your assistant scans them and sees this is a serious issue.

There are several hosts like me that have experienced vandalism at the hands of these guests and nothing is being done. We are hoping for a real response and that Airbnb delivers on the promise given to us as I cried uncontrollably over the phone to Airbnb about how bad this was. Their promise was that Airbnb would take care of us and would not leave us high and dry and here we are – high and dry.