Tag Archives: airbnb attack

On My Way to Arbitration After Airbnb Assault

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I was an Airbnb host for several years. In December, I was assaulted by Airbnb guests from Canada overstaying at my rental home. I called 911, and police officers photographed my injuries at the station. My Airbnb account was closed, and the reservations were canceled.

The guest contacted me via text message about my account being closed before Airbnb sent me an email deactivating my account. I was coping with my husband’s loss and to be attacked inside of my own home was very difficult for me. Airbnb indicated that they would open a claim for my property damage loss. To this date, no such claim has been opened.

The sheriff’s investigator contacted Airbnb’s Law Enforcement Department, who refused her request for the guests’ identity. She indicated that she attempted to search for the guest’s name using department resources and did not get a return. She noted that the Airbnb guests used false information to make the booking.

Airbnb denied me the right to seek justice with my claim by refusing to provide the guests’ identity to law enforcement, who would have conducted a proper investigation. It seems Airbnb was afraid of an impartial third-party investigation. I am on my way to arbitration, and you will hear about this matter in the press very soon.

Airbnb Guest Attacked my Dog, Deleted from Airbnb

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I’ve rented a few locations in Prague on Airbnb in the past two years. I had 107 four-star reviews, until a frat group from Israel arrived to get me kicked off the platform. Due to manners I greeted the guests in person at the place. They booked for seven days. I showed them everything.

Within the first five minutes, I got called “ata homo” multiple times  which I think is Hebrew for “you f%g”. I’m not the kind of guy who receives much disrespect unless people are of the utterly stupid kind, so I told them in English that I do understand them and they should show some manners. We got along great from that point on. It was fine when they were noisy or caused minor damage. They are young; they lack the respect that comes with responsibility. Not everyone has basic manners that are the basics of my life.

I live in the same district as the Airbnb. One Saturday night I walked my dog, seeing the group in front of the place. I walked by, asked if all was well with them, and if there were any issues. Suddenly one of the guys started to call me a racist (they were all just as white as me), saying that “people like you kill Jews” to which I replied with “my great grandfather actually served at Waffen-SS as a officer but those days are over, or else we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.”

This resulted in them leaving to a Vietnamese shop nearby. I was just thinking “holy crap, these f-ing tourists”. Right next to the place is one great Pizza place (and Russian food). I stopped by there, and talked with them for a bit. My dog got free food and some water… all good.

Then I heard a bottle smash into the wall next to me; the frat boys from hell threw it, shouting English and Hebrew gibberish from across the street. I just told them to be quiet – normal people live here too. They crossed the street, and some highly aggressive talking starts from them. I had no idea what was up with them.

One of them kicked my dog who was just standing beside me not giving much a s&%t about whats going on. Like he actually kicked a dog in the chest. I replied “attack” and the dog defended himself by attacking the attacker. What an absolute mess: the pizza place owner came out of his joint and threatened us with the police. The guys tried to hit him and instead earned some fists.

The police arrived, took the guy who attacked my dog to the hospital – he lost two fingers. One other guy had a mildly broken nose, nothing too bad in my opinion. All were arrested but let go the next day. I immediately contacted Airbnb over this incident and wanted them to cancel the stay of these idiots. No. I was supposed to host them a few more days until they left.

Instead, the next morning before they left the police station, I went into the apartment to pack their stuff together. A legal person (a student lawyer of my lawyers) was around to provide “neutral opinion of the situation” so nothing got stolen or anything. I bagged everything and placed it in front of the door.

The place was not really damaged but a lot of the furniture was ruined. The total costs for repairs was 427,000 CZK, almost 20,000 Euro.

The guys arrived, picked up their stuff without any issue, and left to go somewhere else. I wrote them a long one-star rating, which after five days disappeared. Airbnb deleted my account within three days, after some s&%tchat with support over three months. They sent me a letter that I am not allowed to discuss this matter anywhere else.

Now I think I will sue them, because after all, Airbnb is involved in heavy tax avoidance schemes here in Czechia. Hosts never have to pay taxes unless they do so on their own accord. Airbnb never pays taxes to the city around here because hosts are supposed to pay taxes, but Airbnb won’t even forward them to the cities in which they are renting.

Sure, it is an easy way of making money, but the people are deteriorating fast. Other hosts I know of also complain more and more that people are an utter disgrace to society. It makes one wonder: how are we supposed to get a sense of society when scum and scams never get punished?

Sexually Assaulted at Owner-Occupied Airbnb

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Has anyone else been sexually accosted and verbally harassed in an Airbnb by their hosts? I am a single, professional executive female who travels domestically (US) and internationally extensively. I recently stayed in an owner-occupied Airbnb in Denver. This was my first time sharing a residence, though have been renting “entire place” Airbnbs for 5-6 years now.

In Denver, it’s now apparently illegal to short-term rent your space (it’s a felony) unless you – the owner – live inside the home as your primary residence. This made me a bit nervous, to share a residence with a stranger, as a single woman traveling alone, so I specifically looked for either woman-owned or couple-owned places. I found one owned by a male and female together. I was able to Google them based on their info on Airbnb and discovered the woman was an elected official in Denver, so felt even more comfortable renting a room there.

The first night I showed up, only the male owner and his male nephew were there. I arrived about 7:30 PM on a weeknight, only to find the owner seemingly very drunk (8-10 beer bottles on the kitchen counter). He showed me to my private room (note: in the listing, they do not say that they rent out up to three bedrooms at a time in their home, and all guests – so up to six – share one small bathroom) and when I came back downstairs to make some food in the shared kitchen, found the owner smoking pot (which is legal here in CO, and they do note in their listing that they are “420-friendly.”)

He began asking me about my kids, asked to see photos of my gay sons and said he’d like to “eat something as delicious as your boys sound.” Sadly, things got much worse from there. The female owner was out of town for the first half of my stay, and when I mentioned on my second day there that I needed to do a load of laundry (access to W/D is in their listing), I was told I “better hurry and get it done before [female owner] gets back home – she doesn’t like people in the basement and doesn’t like people using her things. Just do the laundry now and don’t tell her you did it.”

The female owner did return from her travels. I barely met her for a few minutes as I was not comfortable in the home, so was staying in my rented bedroom with the door locked most of the time (there were huge festivals and conventions in Denver that week, so nowhere else to move/rent).

One night when I knew the owners were out, I came downstairs to make some food and work on my laptop. The female owner came home while I was cooking, and had clearly been drinking. She continued to drink, began insulting me for being a single mother, asked why I had so many kids, how I got so many gay kids (implying I’d done something “wrong” to have this outcome), etc.

I was doing my best to exit the conversation and go back to my bedroom when the female owner got into my personal space, said “I’m going to kiss you now,” and before anything even registered, she grabbed my face with both her hands and kissed me full-on on the lips, then began crying. I made an escape to my room, very shaken.

I left their property less than 36 hours later for good (as soon as I could), but not before the male owner (fiance of the female owner) apologized for her behavior, asked if I’d sit and talk with her and said she had just begun trauma counseling – that was why she was blackout drunk, put her hands (and lips) on me and had said so many inappropriate, discriminatory things.

I did report them to Airbnb as soon as I left. They assigned a case manager to me, and I explained how traumatizing the whole experience is, as I am a sexual assault survivor from an incident with a work colleague in 2015. All Airbnb did was to refund my stay, say they’d look into it, and then cut off all communications with me. Both my attorney and I have repeatedly tried to reach Airbnb via email and phone and cannot get anyone to address my continued issues. It’s been two months now since the incident. If anyone has any advice based on similar experiences with Airbnb, please do share.

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Airbnb Host Abusing Power as Police Officer

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The story begins in December 2018. I booked a four-week stay in an annex attached to a house in an area I had spent part of my childhood, with my four-month pregnant wife. The host lived overseas and was co-hosted by a family who were quite noisy and very closed off.

We arrived at the beginning of the month and for two weeks every night was full of disturbances and parties. Then one evening, on a Saturday, the co-host had a party. I wrote a message on WhatsApp to ask him to keep the noise down. As you will see the situation escalated from there with antisemitic abuse to my wife and me, as well as anti-Muslim rhetoric.

The next day the situation became worse. They used the police to intimidate us, by falsely arresting my wife (the charges later dropped). My wife was assaulted in the police station, as the co-host was (as I later found out) a police officer who even harasses people who live on the street on which the property was located.

The message I sent to Airbnb is below. Nothing has been rectified. Multiple complaints and lawsuits were filed to the police and they covered up the incident. My wife, upon returning home, miscarried, on top of the fractured wrist and leg, multiple lacerations, and the continued antisemitic abuse she she suffered while in custody by the police. I attached multiple photos of her injuries and the abusive messages the co-host sent.

As you will see above, in regards to the actions taken by the co-host and his family and using the police to harass and assault my pregnant Jewish wife, find attached the racist messages received the day before from the co-host after I requested some peace and quiet, and also the photos of the beating by the police on my wife, this has gone far more now than just a simple civil disagreement. As it was explained to you the constant intrusion by the co-host and his family for the period we were resident in the property, my wife miscarried and lost our child, and under the laws of her home country, and that of the EU, this will be deemed a criminal offence committed by Airbnb and the co-host as well as the police officer who was sequestered by the co-host to cause harm to a pregnant woman.

Airbnb Host Trying to Drug and Rape me

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Please be super alert. I checked into an Airbnb listing without any special indications or suspicions. The host invited me for a drink. I kindly took it and the drink tasted salty somehow. The next thing I realized, the host was putting a comforter over me… and I couldn’t remember anything in between.

I tried to jumped out of the bed, but I couldn’t; I felt quite dizzy. Therefore I said nonstop: “Please get out of my room.” The host somehow left, and I checked my underpants. They looked and felt weird. It felt like someone had cleaned them, since they smelled new, but I had been wearing them the whole day and waking around. They should have smelled sweaty but they didn’t.

Therefore I called the police straight away and they took me to the local hospital. Somehow they told me they didn’t find anything strange nor signs of sexual penetration, and they couldn’t identify any medication or drug if the host ever used one on me. The police took the host for questioning, held him for less than 48 hours, and then let him go. No charges or anything was filed since they told me there was not enough evidence to hold the Airbnb host.

I also called Airbnb. They obviously tried to deny and evade this topic. Soon I found I couldn’t access the profile page of the host, nor could I access the messages or whatever information there was about this Airbnb host. Airbnb told me the host delisted his profile and I had no right to see it. If I knew that, I would have taken screenshots.

I’m really at shock what to do. The host took a copy of my driver’s license and other family address information. Later, Airbnb told me the hosts do have the right to collect my information if it’s in accordance with local laws.

Anyway, I still couldn’t figure out what’s going on…. I’m super angry, pissed, and lost as to what to do. I tried to kill myself a few times due to this situation knowing I was raped and that but couldn’t get Airbnb to help. My consultant told me to share the information and here I am. Hope it helps.

Arrogant Airbnb Host in The Netherlands

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I stayed for ten days in a spare room at a house in Heemstede, which is close to Haarlem in Noord Holland. I had nothing to complain about; the house and facilities were very nice and my host and her family were personable enough. I fully intended to return. I was too busy to post a review until about ten days after I left.

My review was entirely positive and I made no remarks about personalities or individual differences. I don’t consider it valid material for a review unless they’re very extreme. At that point I read the review the host had left. It was positive and even included the wish that I would return one day.

They used one word to describe me which I thought was much too personal and was wide open to interpretation by English speakers, a negative which could actually be seen by a total stranger as a layman’s remark about my mental health. The very brief review did read like a peculiar mixed message. It rather spoiled the experience for me.

I was concerned about this remark and I contacted the host thirteen days after my departure to express my concern about it. If the host had merely said that they understood my concern, that would have been the end of the matter. Instead I was accused of exaggerating. I was given the positive Dutch definition of the word (which I do happen to know) as proof.

There then followed recriminations about a lost bike key, which I had placed with the front door key, on a key ring, on a hook behind my bedroom door. The host could have phoned, sent an SMS, or emailed me in the intervening thirteen days if I had caused a problem. I had mentioned in my email to the host that it would have been rather more helpful if they had mentioned some practical things such as the fact that I had done the bed laundry before I left.

This was countered by a blunt statement that this was expected by the host, although they had said nothing to about this during my stay and there was nothing about this in the written house rules. The host said that I had ruined an expensive bed cover by washing it with all the other bed clothes. This was not true as I had cold-washed it separately because it appeared to be made of wool. I offered financial compensation and this was refused with significant bad grace.

The host also took the opportunity to make a pseudo-diagnosis of me by saying that I needed more ‘space and more attention’ than the other guests and also said that she had used the word she had used in the review to warn future hosts. I was then told it was time to end the conversation and she ended it by wishing me well before ending communication.

She had denied everything I said, made counter-accusations, and expressed herself in a very arrogant way, when all that was required was a brief and normal conversation. The experience for me was exactly like being spoken to, not to mention lied to, like an employee. It is an unfortunate Dutch stereotype, though only true of a small minority of people in The Netherlands, that if you are merely polite and personable with them, then they will presume you to be lacking in basic intelligence.

This particular host has, in the words of other Airbnb users, left feedback as a guest which is ‘borderline rude’ and ‘very arrogant.’ If you stay with this host then probably nothing bad will actually happen, but my experience was that things got quite unpleasant when I was no longer present, when I complained about something and when the exchange was not visible to other people.

The feedback you see on Airbnb does not always give an accurate representation of the stay and what the host says in private may be completely different. I think that this host might be very resentful of having to host strangers in her nice house and that the veneer of tolerance and courtesy is quite thin.

Airbnb urgently needs to address the level of assistance it gives hosts and guests. The last time I had to complain was when I was stranded by a host who did not meet me as arranged. That was in 2015 and the online support was very fast and good. They seem to have replaced that with operatives which are hard to distinguish from an artificial intelligence application. Nothing is resolved and they often shut down the ticket before you can make a reply. Airbnb used to respond by email if you wrote in by letter, but not anymore.

————- Editor note added 2/26/2020————-

This host has been offline from airbnb for some time, but has recently created a new listing:

Host attacked and beaten by airbnb guest

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Help,
I have no news for over 24 hours from airbnb.
Yesterday some very strange behavior form a married couple who reserved to stay in my home over 4 months ago.
They broke almost every house rule and i didn’t know what to do, so i wrote airbnb for some advice.

They never responded.

The next morning, the guests arrived home screaming and shout profanity from outside the window (i didn’t know they were out all night long), the door was open but the husband was too hysterical to try opening the door.

So stupid me, i let him in so he could collect their things and instead he punched me, then kicked me, then grabbed my throat… i had just woken up in PJ’s and did all i could to retreat to my room and fight him off to lock my bedroom door.

They eventually left after causing much damage.
What was I to do at such an unexpected human behavior?
What happened to them during the entire evening out in the city?

So i wrote airbnb… still no news of the official complaint of these guests.

I also went to the police and hospital, my friend took photos of everything.
Still no news from airbnb.

I have been an excellent host, and my profile (and life for that matter), show exactly what kind of man i am.
It is a huge embarassement that airbnb has still not taken this matter seriously to connect with me.

I am very dissapointed. (tired, frustrated, traumatized really)

Just trying to breathe… and relax…n i feel awful (and i’m not talking about the bad neck, marks, bruises), just feel violated.

Really, like what neanderthal does that?
And his wife did nothing?
What the hell happened to these people and why did they take it out on me?????

I haven’t been in a fight since grade 4 !!!
And it was obvious that he is a well seasoned physical abuser… no wonder the wife was the way she was.

Can anybody help?

No, i guess better to write this down and let it all go… bye bye