What a joke! Airbnb offers hosts a “house manual”, but I recently discovered that once a guest has paid, they can do, say, or wear anything they wish. I put everything in my house rules – which the guest apparently chose not to read – and he got cozy with the neighbors (after I asked him not to), didn’t clean up after himself, did about 20 loads of laundry (in 12 days), took three showers a day, and bitched that I didn’t have sports on my TV. In addition, he told me stories about his crazy ex-girlfriend. He finally had to go, but I found damage to my computer desk (I took photos beforehand showing no damage), my house reeks of cheap cologne, and my neighbors know things about me that I didn’t share.
Wow! You are not a very good host. If a guest wants to shower 3 times per day, talk to the neighbors, and do several loads of laundry, then so be it. You are a host, not a dictatorship. Did your house rules explicitly forbid all these things? I sure wouldn’t rent from you with so many rules like that. Being an AirBnB host is not compatible with being a total control freak. Glasses break, people wear cheap cologne, and and renters tend to talk to the neighbors. You can’t in your right mind think you can control all of that. The guest probably has more of a right to post in this forum than you do. I can see the headline: “Hortible contolling host blames me for braking cheap computer desk.” Do the Airbnb community a favor and stop hosting, please.
Yes Guests can do whatever they want on Airbnb and many criminals use airbnb to hide behind them. Make sure to get a valid drivers license and I would get cameras like a doorbell camera so when they say there’s 4 people but in reality there’s 6 you have proof. I had a guest open the only outside door 80 times between 12am and 4am and I ask how could they do this without making any noise. I asked them what they were doing that they had to open the door so often and their response was to watch wildlife and I was like really “in the parking lot or where because you opened the door every 2 minutes.” Airbnb was no help and of course the guest left me a bad review after I called them outright liars.
The “House Manual” is not available to the guest until after he/she books the property and, as far as I know, is intended for things like — how to use the washing machine, where to find the fire extinguisher, etc. The “House Rules” are where rules should be listed as they appear on your page, and your post suggests you did that. I rented from a woman who used the manual as the house rules and said I agreed to everything in the manual when I booked, which I did not as I couldn’t access them until she had my money. It was a nightmare (posted on this site), and she was so mean that we had Airbnb find us a different place. I am also a host and, yes, I have had a couple of groups that left my place a mess so I left them bad reviews. What I have learned — don’t host to groups of unrelated 20 or 30-somethings as they all blame each other when something goes wrong (like my second group who put a cigarette burn in my brand new sofa).