I posted my spare bedroom in my “Rustic Basic Ecohome” on Saturday, April 22nd. Apparently I got a booking around noon the next day. The guest claims she drove to my house at around 3:00 PM and tried to call me. I was at home, sleeping with my phone off due to working the night shift. She got flustered when she called my Google voice number and heard my nickname rather than my legal name, the one that appeared on the listing. She never rang the doorbell. When I woke up, I tried to contact her for hours; apparently she was in some conference or meeting. She cancelled the booking and Airbnb incorrectly assumed I cancelled it. Up to this point, I felt okay with the situation; perhaps my guest was a bit skittish, so it’s probably better she found another place where she hopefully felt more comfortable.
Then Airbnb said they will not allow other bookings for the duration of the cancelled booking (two days) and admonished me for cancelling (which I did not do – rather, the guest gave up and perhaps pinned the blame on me to get her payment back). In the days to follow, I received no bookings. My listing showed up when I went on the site from my computer. Finally, after 13 days, when a friend tried to go online and vouch for my character, he got a broken link message. I asked him to look for my listing and he could not see it. I called Airbnb and they saw it as a “technical issue”. They started a case and referred me to the Trust & Safety Team, who only communicates via email. The tech support representative sent me an email that said “Ghosted”.
I think their temporary block for duration of the cancelled booking somehow wasn’t removed after two days. As of today, May 10th (17 days since the cancellation), my listing apparently remains non-operational with no explanation from Airbnb. I had originally planed to remodel a bathroom to give my guests their own suite. I’m so glad that I started with an existing bathroom and bedroom, considering how haphazard the process has been so far. I just put a listing up on Wimdu. Hopefully that process will go smoother than Airbnb.