Nightmare Hosting — Real Life Events
The most terrible guests that you just never want to see again & the popular third parties sites that let hosts down!
I’ve read many reviews from guests about their nightmare experiences such as fake accounts, cancellations on the day, doors being kicked in, a host sleeping in the kitchen and timetabling bathroom usage. As terrible as these are, there are Super Hosts or hosts that work so damn hard to provide a perfect stay from home and are met with experiences that make them want to close the door on hosting.
Hosting tourists/guests can be a rewarding yet a draining business! Hosts usually use a third party site to advertise their listing in order to accommodate potential guests while paying a service fee (ranging from 5%-15%) e.g. on popular sites such as Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO, Trip Advisor etc.
In March 2020, my husband & I joined host communities to see if some of the experiences we had faced as hosts were that of others, to no surprise many hosts had many disturbing experiences and some gave it up especially on Airbnb.
As hosts you need to organise accounts, arrange cleaning, sort policies, message guests, write reviews, check-in/check-out guests and in times of problems raise a resolution to get money back for damages etc.
In this article we are going to go through the horrors discovered during hosting some guests, are you ready…? Let’s jump in!
Unhygienic Guests
Hygiene is one of the most important parts of hosting an apartment. Everything from bed linen, towels, dishes, silverware, the bathroom and so on needs to be thoroughly cleansed several times over to ensure cleaning standards and no risk of illnesses/dissatisfaction. Imagine the amount of hair picking that goes along with this as some humans shed a lot of hair!
Now there are many stories that could be shared yet I have chosen the worst ones to highlight how disgusting some of the experiences really are!
Guest A
Guest A was a friendly individual. He arrived during the first lockdown and requested a 10 day stay which turned into a 5 week staycation. With everything going on in the world with Covid-19 we were grateful to have a guest staying after many cancellations. On the day of his check-out we were gobsmacked with the complete disaster that faced us. Firstly, the place smelt very musty even though there’s large balcony doors and windows that can let air in. The bathroom was full of flies and the shower was full of mould, the shower floor was full of stagnant remnants and it was clearly not ventilated as the window was shut (bear in mind this is in a hot country). The toilet bleach when opened had the most rancid smell of urine which the imagination suddenly went to an image of him urinating in the tiny hole of the bottle. Absolutely disgusting! We noticed that the sheets had to be thrown away due to cigarette burnt holes (against our policy, there’s an ashtray on the balcony table) and on top he had stolen items. It took 5 days to get the apartment back to its beautiful state.
Airbnb’s response: They offer a host guarantee yet make hosts fight for months to claim back expenses. Customer Service advisors say they will call you back or better yet a manager will yet rarely do and ignore a lot of emails, yet hosts are scored on response rates and need to timely submit resolutions, yet they can do f**k all!
Guest B
Guest B was a last minute booking for one night. Upon booking they said they’d be at the apartment in 10 minutes yet an hour later of waiting they finally showed up. Guest B and her partner appeared charming, interesting and talkative. The day of their check-out the guests had taken the ironic pleasure of leaving tissue with faeces in the toilet bin instead of flushing them down the toilet, they stole over five items and left the place in a complete mess.
Airbnb’s response: They don’t offer money for cleaning products or sanitary products stolen and they make you fight for any money back. Apparently guests can steal 3 brand new cleaning products, a full set of bin bags and a full bag of toilet roll.
Guest C
This was a returning guest who we thought was previously friendly and we were glad to have her and her partner back. To our horror, this guest damaged our cooker, left blood stained sheets and damaged a feature wall which had to be repainted and the sheets replaced as well as a new cooker bought. This one night stay cost us the equivalent of £350. What is the benefit of hosting a one night stay for more then you would get from a weekly guest?
Airbnb’s response: They penalise hosts for their Resolution Centre not working in order to avoid paying any money to Super Hosts. They ignore video evidence of the site not working and send generic messages. By the way guests, perhaps some hosts cancel on the day due to Airbnb’s policy of submitting resolution claims before the next guest arrives, we didn’t do this but Airbnb suggest this otherwise hosts must be prepared to lose money.
Guest D
Guest D ignored our messages about her time of her arrival for 6 weeks. On the day of her arrival, the island had a power cut due to some sort of explosion so there was no mobile/Wi-Fi service or electricity working, Sod’s law! Thankfully once all went back to normal we received a message requesting to check-in at 7pm. Phew it was only 5pm! We had already prepared the apartment and decided to go to run some errands and get back for 6.30pm. In the middle of this, we received messages asking where we were, bearing in mind this was at 5.50pm. We arrived back at 6.15pm to find her shouting at the receptionist and then she ignored our greetings. My blood was boiling, firstly there was no agreement to meet her over an hour earlier and I can’t stand people shouting at workers who have nothing to do with the situation. The problem of waiting for 25 minutes was due to her lack of communication which she didn’t take responsibility for. As we walked her to the apartment, one of the neighbours greeted her and told her she had lovely hosts (gracias abuela- we call her this as she is as sweet as a grandmother). This guest snapped at her and lied saying she had waited for an hour! Very embarrassing! Upon her check-out we were horrified to discover that she had urinated on the bed sheets (we threw these away!) and left the place like a dump.
Booking.com’s response: Contact the guest for compensation, which we did but of course she ignored the message and we had to replace the sheets with zero help from Booking.com.
Guests who just book & don’t read anything
On a third party platform such as Airbnb, hosts provide pictures, policies and messages to make clear what the guest is booking. There are times when guests simply see the first image, book and then ask questions that have already been highlighted.
Guest E
Guest E booked for a business stay and then upon arrival complimented the apartment but then asked questions such as “Where is the other room?” Erm on Airbnb you’d see that this is a studio apartment not a 2 bedroom! Or “Is this shared?” Well no, you have the whole apartment to yourself! “Is there internet?” Okay, we have a picture of this, the password is sent to you upon booking and the Wi-Fi box is right in front of you!
This type of guest is just annoying to say the least. They bombard hosts with answered questions and as patient as we are, it feels like a waste of time writing descriptions, listing amenities and adding pictures.
Guests who turn up hours late
There are times that guests are running late which can be fine when it’s under half an hour and communicated but there are guests who ignore messages and turn up hours later!
Guests F
Guests F were cycling and planned to arrive within an hour and a half. We arrived 30 minutes earlier than the expected time of arrival in case they turned up early. We messaged several times as they were 30 minutes late which then turned into 4 hours late… all messages were ignored. We were worried that something may have happened. They turned up unapologetically and this is just beyond jarring. If a host left guests waiting for 4 hours can you imagine the complaints, refund requests and negative reviews but us hosts get nothing in return, we are left twiddling our thumbs and having to cancel plans in order to uphold Airbnb’s values, keep our Super Host rating… It just doesn’t quite feel fair.
Conclusion
No matter what business somebody runs, I advise all to think about the impact of their actions to the staff involved. Money doesn’t give you the right to treat others/their property/service like rubbish.
Third party sites, consider your policies so both your hosts and guests are satisfied. No one is using your site(s) to lose money, get stressed or stolen from.
Apart from the terrible guest experiences we are thankful to our 80+ guests who have been absolutely amazing and to those who wrote fantastic reviews.
Never let a business go because of idiots, always remember why you started and what your future goals are. In all experiences, learn from mistakes and treat each individual as you’d expect to be treated.
