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.

Drunk Guest Scares Female Host -No Support from Airbnb!

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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!

Guests overflow bathroom with poo water

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I had some really nice guests staying in my downstairs room and everything was completely fine until I went to do the post stay cleaning and found that my guests had used the toilet brush to clean up their poo and didn’t wash it.  The brush holder was filled with poo liquid!  I noticed earlier that they took out the bathroom mat before they left and I asked them curiously why it was there.  They gave me a nervous laughter and now I know why. Not a big deal.  I’m not poo phobic or anything.  Just wish they told me.  I’m sure it was already embarrassing for them.

STAY AWAY FROM AIRBNB – NO SUPPORT FOR HOSTS

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We rented our beautiful condo for 30 days through Airbnb and at the end of the rental our condo smelled so badly with a rotten pungent odor that we had to spend over three times as much to clean and deodorize the upholstery, curtains, mattresses and pillows. Airbnb was absolutely useless in the resolution and determined that we could not prove that the odor wasn’t there before the renters arrived. Even though we could produce a written affidavit from the cleaning service we use and proof of the cleaning regiment and the many good comments on VRBO and Airbnb about the cleanliness of our property and the condition we keep it. It doesn’t matter, they just did not care. It is quite obvious that they only care about their fee and they are not there to support hosts. I wish I would have done more research before using this unfair operation. We will stick to VRBO from now on and once our last renter is gone from Airbnb will no longer use them and warn everyone we can to avoid them.

Foreign Guest from Hell -Host almost lost apartment

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I live over seas and rent out my property in the states. I needed to rent it out quick before I left the country this time around and someone responded to my ad that I had placed for a sublet. Long story short, I said let’s do it through airBNB since you are a foreign national and won’t be able to do a back ground check here with my Landlord. She wasn’t able to pay the amount airBNB wanted to charge with all fees and such so I thought it would be ok to have her pay me monthly instead of through airBNB. This guest ended up getting me nearly evicted from my apartment. She literally called 5 times a day to complain about little things, and then I get emails from the maintenance man that the guest slammed the door and yelled at him. Come to find out it’s someone else babysitting her child who speaks no English. I get an email after the guest had been there a month about how she needed to leave….the cops had been called out to my specific apartment 5 times and there were over 20 noise complaints and safety violations from her on my apartment. When I called airBNB to have her kicked out they got her out and then terminated my account because they said I violated the terms of service. What a great way to help someone out with the guest from hell. I make one mistake trying to help out a supposed nice woman and her child and you permanently ban me from the site. AirBNB is an awful company and the customer relations team is even worse. They won’t talk to you but send you emails at their convenience and won’t reply to your questions in those emails.

​ Securty deposit means NOTHING + Resolution Center Lies

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I had an issue with the heaters/wall in my flat during a guest’s Airbnb booking…

On jan 15, i received a message from Lily : Add file 1 Then i sent everything, the before/after photos, invoice, the phone numbers of the previous Airbnb customers just before the arrival of guest who made the trouble with the heaters. On January 25, i received this message : Lily is out of the office so I (Aidan) will be your case manager moving forward. He told me that my invoice is not accepted even if it’s was same work needed to be done by the company because when i bought the apartment the heaters was not fixed correctly on the wall. Anyway, i understood the point as the invoice was dated two months earlier. Normally, Aidan should have told me to send an estimates as mentioned before in Lyli’s message and Airbnb terms. It was the only missing piece to proceed the checking of the case… What’s coming next is Aidan responsibility and lies. In few words, he told me to pay for the work myself then send the invoice and proof of the payment of the company. All of this before the case manager’s decision! Securty deposit means NOTHING then ? This is unbelievable, if i did the work myself it means all apartment owners using Airbnb doesn’t have any protection from the deposit. Can you imagine ? If something happen in the apartment, the owner should pay for everything himself (and of course resolve it in less than 72 hours!). Only after that action the case manager examined the case and decide what to do with the deposit. This is totally crazy… Add files 2 and 3 and 4.
On jan 26, Aidan clearly refused the estimate that i was waiting for. It was the only missing piece, remember this is important.

On feb 3 I decided to send an email in French (via https://www.airbnb.com/help/contact_us) about our discussion with Aiden that i found really weird as he did not accept the estimates.

On feb 4, I got a call from a french representative (Oceane B). I told her about the invoice/payment receipt before the case decision. She confirmed me that i don’t need to pay anything before Airbnb leave his decision and she is totally right and following the terms. Then she said she wasn’t sure if she could accept my new estimate because it was already few days after Aidan last message with his 72H thing. Then she asked to another person in the office, probably a case manager… someone responsible for sure. I was waiting for few minutes on the line. She finally got the answer to me : “That’s ok We’ll wait for your estimate, please send it as soon as possible”. I also receive a email as proof : Add this file : https://www.dropbox.com/s/c2mw4dxf74m9g2q/Screenshot2016-02-0521.54.38.png?dl=0 “N’hésitez pas à nous envoyer le devis dès que vous le recevez.” = “Feel free to send us an estimate as soon as you receive it”. So i was finally relaxed, my case will finally be examined, i just need to send the estimate as soon as i receive it from the company. Add this file : https://www.dropbox.com/s/73w5h007v0z3r1t/Photo05-02-2016135401.png?dl=0 Later on, Aidan told me that he and Oceane are in the same office in Berlin, and he spoke to Oceane in person regarding my phone call.

On feb 5 (the day after), I received : Add file 5 I was shocked, Even more shocked as i get notified the day before by email that Airbnb will wait for the estimates. Wait a minute, did you remember he refused the new estimate i was waiting for on jan 26 ? Now he says i didn’t follow up providing any receipts or estimates. With the issue in my apartment, i have now another issue coming from the guy at the Resolution Center. – Asking the owner to pay for the work before Airbnb deposit decision is totally forbidden, i can complain not only in courts but also in the media and blog by sharing the previous proofs. – Not accepting the estimates and later saying i didn’t follow the terms is a lie. – No apologies. Please spread the news around you.

Even Airbnb SUPERHOSTS are treated like tools!

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Over the past 2 years of hosting. We’ve had our share of horror stories. Each time, Airbnb ONLY cares about their service fees. As long as they can keep that, they let the guests do whatever they want and will even cancel a guest with a full refund when the guest had no proof that anything was wrong. We hosted over 500 people in our units and are Superhosts, but Airbnb will take the word of guests with no reviews over ours. If there are any damages, good luck getting your deposit back! Oh, and your commitment rate goes down when THEY cancel a guest for no good reason, so you have to call and email them over the next few weeks to get them to fix it and hopefully keep your Superhost stats.

This is only 1 example of how they treat you as just a money-making tool, they have no regard for honesty or integrity: Recently, the guests asked for a refund AFTER their stay, claiming that they had only stayed there for a portion of the time, since their plans changed. They have no way of proving this and the situation really is not our responsibility. We told them no, and afterwards they apparently called Airbnb and they received a 50% refund just like that. We don’t know what they told Airbnb, but Airbnb didn’t even bother to contact us before making a decision. Oh, and the guest was still allowed to write a review after this ordeal! Because we denied the refund in the first place, they decided to get back at us and slander us with a bunch of false claims in the review. I called Airbnb and told them that there clearly was no indication of our unit being in bad condition and that it was apparent the only time things got ugly was after we denied the refund. Airbnb said they value people’s opinions and that the great thing about this community is that the reviews are not censored. I just really wanted to spill all kinds of profanities when I heard that. The thing is, I had called them before responding to the guests asking for Airbnb’s advice. I said that I was worried about bad reviews so I feel pressured to give in to demands. The rep ASSURED me that Airbnb will not allow unfair reviews. That if there is reason to believe the bad review was only because we denied the refund and if the message thread had no indication of any problems stated in the review, they would remove it. Low and behold, now that the guest actually went out to write a false review, they did NOTHING. I would understand if the guest wrote they were angry because they wanted a discount, but they wrote things like the place was dirty and in a bad location and did not look like the photos and gave 1 star reviews! How can this be true when we have over 500 reviews and 5 stars on all units?! Also, the guest had told us they were having a great time all throughout the stay!! Still Airbnb did not help.

Similar situations have happened more than a handful of times now. Where Airbnb would give us lip service when we asked for advice and assure we will get reviews removed if ____ and ___ happened or we will get our deposit back if _____ and ____ happened. When shit actually goes down, they do absolutely NOTHING for us. What is the point of us paying these service fees when no services are provided when we need them! I understand if they claim this is just an advertising fee for us to expose our units, however, then why do they CONTROL all the payments and deposits. Those people who actually got their host guarantee/damage deposits on social media or the news are just their publicity ploys! They will only help when they know that it could damage their reputation, I’ve never heard of any fellow host friends who was able to get any compensation. Many have similar stories to mine. In sum: THEY ARE ALL TALK AND NO WALK. THEY ONLY CARE ABOUT GETTING THEIR SERVICE FEES. THEY OUTRIGHT LIE TO THEIR HOSTS. THEY HIDE BEHIND THE PRETENSE OF A SHARING ECONOMY WHEN THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN BLOOD SUCKING CORPORATIONS WHO EXPLOIT OTHERS FOR PROFIT. When will something better come along so that we honest hosts, who are just trying to make some side money, can actually choose to host for a company that actually provides the services that they advertise?!

Airbnb Stole My Money After I Had to Evict Tenants

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We had to evict tenants that were destroying my home by calling the police. Airbnb penalized me and tried to withhold rental income off my next transaction. This is called a right of offset. I checked all of my documents and nowhere was this discussed. I cancelled my account and would never do business again with this unethical and illegal company.

CANCELED TO AVOID PSYCHO RENTER – AIRBNB TAKES $100!

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We accepted a booking from a young college student. Our rates are based upon number of occupants. Upon restating our occupancy rules in our acceptance email, the renter became rude. She wanted to know if we had cameras in the rooms or how else would we verify occupancy? She then stated in her next email that we were rude and had bad customer service skills. Well, that did it for me. If she was going to be that rude, pushy and obnoxious there was no way I would let someone like that into one of my properties. I sent her an email stating that we were not comfortable renting to her now and that she needed to cancel her reservation. She went ballistic after that. Airbnb penalizes the renter if they want to cancel and they penalize the owners $100 if they want to cancel. So, you see, no one wants to cancel their reservation. Even after I told her that I would refund her entire amount the lady refused to cancel. I told airbnb the situation and told them I WAS UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THE GUEST they charged me $100 and said it was my fault for wanting to cancel!!! Airbnb has you by the balls. They control the money. They control the payouts. They control the security deposit. They control the contact information. You have all of the risk and they make all of the money. What a scam!!!! I never go thru this with VRBO because I am in control.

ANOTHER WAY AIRBNB RIPS OFF HOSTS

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Airbnb charges owners who cancel a reservation $100 for each cancellation even when it is airbnb’s fault. We have four rental units and advertise on several sites. Airbnb is supposed to sync each calendar. We have accepted reservations and then checked our master calendar and the unit is booked. When we tried to resolve the issue we were charged each time when it was clearly the fault of airbnb. DO NOT USE INSTANT BOOKING or accept a reservation without checking your own calendar. DO NOT RELY ON THE AIRBNB CALENDAR. DO NOT US AIRBNB. Not only are they making 10-15% from the renters they are making a killing ripping owners off!!! We are very happy with VRBO and only fill in our calendar with airbnb. Also, airbnb clientele are not as good as VRBO clientele. They are price shoppers and budget travelers. We have found that the people that pay more are more respectful of your property.