Travel Tales Podcast
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As a frequent traveler, the advent of private home and ride-sharing sites like Uber and AirBnB have been a godsend. The technologies have allowed customers like me to save a lot of money by challenging the stranglehold hotels and taxis had on our pricing options around the world.
In 2014, I used AirBnB for the first time, staying as a guest in two different cities in Croatia. It worked out great, and I gave and received two positive reviews. This year, with another trip coming up and a spare bedroom of my own, I decided to try my hand at being a host.
I figured I could make some extra pre-trip cash while paying it forward to fellow travelers looking for a clean, safe place to stay in an expensive city like Los Angeles. A win-win for all.
I live alone in a 3-bedroom apartment on the upper floor of a duplex. My office and bedroom take up the two main bedrooms near the only bathroom. Guests would be using the small bedroom off the living room on the opposite side of the house. Since most of my time is spent in my bedroom and office (where I have my own TV) guests have full use of the large living room and their own TV. Despite the shared bathroom, everything is pretty well divided and guests have privacy.
After taking the requisite photos and filling out a full listing on AirBnB, I checked the pricing for comparable listings in my area for private rooms in homes such as mine. As per AirBnB’s recommendation, I priced mine a bit lower at first to generate guests and build up reviews – the more positive reviews received, the more popular the listing, and the price goes up – capitalism at its finest.
Working against my price was a shared bathroom and the fact that people would be living in a spare room in my house, and not a private unit with outside access. Still, I priced it to move: $50 per night midweek and $60 on the weekends for up to two guests, plus a $50 cleaning fee per stay. It got immediate response, and two days later my first guests arrived – a young Australian couple in their early 20’s, finishing a nine-week tour of the US with a few nights in LA before flying home.
The AirBnB profile was in the woman’s name and she only had a couple of reviews, though both were positive. We communicated a bit through e-mail, and I took a chance. She and her boyfriend arrived and were great: never obtrusive, neat and always friendly. We even had a barbecue and shared a few beers on the first night. Everything went fine, and they were gone after three days. We traded positive reviews, and that was that.
After cleaning the apartment, I listed it for the following weekend. I again got multiple inquiries, and some looked promising. Two people I responded to had already booked other places by the time I saw their posts. Several others didn’t return my mails when I asked them questions about their arrival times, etc.
Then there was “Sid” (names have been changed to protect the guilty.) On Wednesday of that week, I received a 5-night booking request for him and his girlfriend to start the next day and check out Tuesday. Five nights was a little longer than I wanted for guests, but my schedule could allow it that particular week and with my trip looming, the extra cash was appealing. If they were half as nice as the Aussie couple, it would be smooth sailing.
I checked Sid’s profile and he had only started as a member this year and had no reviews – not a good sign, but I’d been in that Catch-22 just a year earlier.
How are you supposed to build up positive reviews if you can’t rent a place because you have no reviews?
Someone took a chance on me once, and coming off the wholly positive Aussie couple experience, I decided to give Sid a chance.
We communicated thru e-mail a couple of times before I accepted the booking. He said he was a 27-year-old “restaurant consultant” who traveled all the time. He was based out of LA, but was gone so much he didn’t want to pay exhorbitant LA rent on a place he wasn’t using. He said he and his girlfriend “Nancy” had driven all night from San Francisco, and would be getting to my place Thursday afternoon. I accepted the booking.
When they arrived, my Spidey Senses immediately started tingling. Sid was a tall, lanky native Californian with shaggy blond hair who did all the talking. I mentioned Croatia and he said he was of Croatian descent and his parents still have a house there. He named a small town that I had actually visited. All the while, Nancy kept her sunglasses on, walked slowly and deliberately, and sipped a straw from a giant plastic Starbucks cup. She was around 5-foot-3, clutching an oversized purse with her hair sloppily tied up. At the very least, she seemed intensely hung over.
Nevertheless, I gave them the tour and the key to the front door and told them if they had any questions, to let me know. Thursday and Friday passed mostly without incident. They were either gone or in their room with the door closed, spending little to no time in the common areas and only emerging to use the bathroom. Fine by me – your business is not my business. As long as someone is quiet and respectful, I give them space.
On Saturday morning, I get a knock on my office door from Nancy (my first evidence that she could actually speak), asking if she could do laundry and wash the sheets. I said OK, and I later noticed she did two giant loads of laundry consisting of not only the sheets and towels, but her clothes as well. A couple hours later, she told me Sid was going to be gone for the day, and he took the key. She asked if she could have one as well until he came back. I had no plans to leave for the day, but I gave her a spare key. She left by 1 pm. and I barely heard her slink out the door.
Two hours later, Sid returned with an early twenty-something blonde woman and proclaimed that he and Nancy broke up the night before, and that Nancy had cheated on him. He can’t believe it, how could she do this, blah blah blah. I tell him I’m sorry, but my main concern is that Nancy has a key to my place, and I need it back ASAP. I also reminded him that for security reasons, he can’t bring a parade of new people into my house. He said OK, and that this girl was just a friend who gave him a ride and just wanted to support him.
They disappeared into his room for an hour or so, and the woman left, never to be heard from again.
Before Sid left early that Saturday evening, he said he was going to get the key back. I said I’d appreciate it. The next morning, I found Nancy’s key waiting for me on the dining room table. I then entered the kitchen to find a piece of broken glass on the floor, and splatters of what turned out to be melted ice cream on the counters and floor.
Sid soon appeared from his room and said he had placed a bottle of water in the freezer to cool it, forgot about it, and it shattered. He thought he had cleaned it all up. I asked him to clean the rest of the sticky ice cream residue (pints of Haagen Dasz are the only things I saw him eat), and he did, apologizing and saying he was going through a rough time right now.
It was at this point I asked him if he had ever been in any kind of recovery program.
He said he had done AA. I told him if he was going through a tough time, maybe he should call his sponsor just to be safe, and if he needed me to call anyone I could do it for him. He said thanks and that he had already called.
He also mentioned that he had lost his phone, and he thought Nancy had taken it. “So you went and saw her last night after you broke up?” I asked. He said he did. He said he would get another one, but needed me to call a cab for him because without his phone he couldn’t call Lyft or Uber. I called him a cab and didn’t see him until early Sunday evening, when he returned with a new phone. He then went out for the night.
In my defense, it didn’t take long for me to take extra precautions around the house since Sid and Nancy’s arrival. I was careful to take notice if anything was missing, though I did find myself hiding the liquor bottles after the first day. None of my furniture, artwork, dishes, etc. are particularly valuable, or I wouldn’t be hosting at all, so I didn’t really care. The real valuable items: financial and personal info, credit cards, etc., were locked away in a safe. My desktop computer was password protected, and I was home far more than Sid, who generally seemed more scared of me, than the reverse. That being said, I never entered his bedroom since they arrived.
Come Monday, I was over it. Just one more day, I thought. Sid appeared late that morning at my office door, saying he had lost his phone again, and could he use mine. He then launched into a ramble of how he met Nancy at a motel, some guys came over and caused $1,300 of damage, the room was on his credit card, how could he trust people, etc. etc. He then started crying. By this time, I’d heard it all. I was not moved in the least. I said if he had to go somewhere, I’d call him a cab. He said OK, and the cab arrived 20 minutes later.
It was clear that this guy had some serious problems, but I was unsure of what my options were. Other than a piece of glass and some spilled ice cream, nothing was damaged or taken from the house. He was quiet as a church mouse since arrival, and was mostly gone anyway. He had already paid for the five nights through AirBnB, and I had received the full amount. If I could last one more night, he would be gone in the morning. As a precaution, I made an appointment with a locksmith to change the front door lock at 1 PM on Tuesday – checkout day.
Monday night he came to me again and asked to call one more cab so he could see his sponsor, because he didn’t feel like it was good for him to be alone tonight. I called the cab and reminded him that he had to be out the next morning by 11 AM. He said that was fine, and if he didn’t get back tonight he would be back in the morning to get his things. He left, and didn’t return by the time I went to sleep.
Tuesday – the blessed day had arrived. I stayed in my office most of the morning while his door remained closed. At 11 AM sharp, I knocked on his door. No answer. I opened it to find clothes, bags and suitcases strewn about, but no sign of Sid. He clearly hadn’t come home from the night before. I threw on my rubber toilet-scrubbing gloves, and set upon gathering his crap to put outside.
What clothes and shoes I couldn’t fit into his suitcases and small bags, I threw into Hefty bags. The room was messy, but not a sticky, ice-cream-splattered disaster. All sheets and towels immediately went into the wash.
Once the clothes and clutter were tackled, all that was left was the nightstand. I opened the three drawers – and entered into a scene right out of “Trainspotting.”
I found dozens of hypodermic needles, a cooked spoon, crack pipes, elastic bands, and what appeared to be a powdery white substance in plastic wrap.
I was furious. I really didn’t care if Sid lived or died on the street, but bringing serious narcotics into my home? That was it. If he showed his face I would have beaten the crap out of him. But he was nowhere to be found, and not knowing what to do and with understandable reluctance to go anywhere near needles, I called 911 at 11:24 AM.
I told the LAPD dispatcher that I had a someone renting a room in my house (she had never even heard of AirBnB!) and they were supposed to leave today but I found needles and what appeared to be drugs in his room. I said I was going to start putting his stuff on the street, but I wanted the someone around in case Sid came back and started trouble. “So this is an eviction case?”, she asked. She didn’t get it, but she said would tell the police and they will send someone over.
I didn’t want Sid to set foot in my house again, so his belongings had to go ASAP. I continued to gather his things and put them outside on the porch, until the only thing left was the cheap black Ikea nightstand and its illicit contents. I picked up the whole thing and set it outside with the rest of his belongings.
With my place free of Sid’s junk, I cleaned like I’ve never cleaned before. Every surface was sprayed, mopped, scrubbed and Fabrezed. Promptly at 1 PM, the locksmith came and changed the lock. Now Sid’s key was useless, and I could relax. Still no sign of either him nor, for that matter, the police.
By 2 PM, my frustration had turned toward the cops. In my 40-plus years on Earth, and living my entire adult life in in the major US metropolises of Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles, I’ve never called 911 once. Not once. The one time I call, I don’t hear from them for hours. I was done waiting.
God help me if Sid showed up high on bath salts wanting to chew my face off.
I took one of my large garbage cans used for street pickup, wheeled it to the porch, removed the nightstand drawers and dumped the contents into the bin. I wheeled it to the curb, and that was that. I took my nighstand back upstairs, scrubbed it down like it had never been scrubbed, and just like that, every trace of Sid and Nancy was gone.
By 3 pm, when the last bit of cleaning was done, and I took a break for lunch. While in the kitchen, I heard a car pull up. I went to the window to see Sid and two other young men loading his belongings into the car, drop the now useless key into the mailbox, and drive off. Sid was never to be heard from again.
At roughly 3:30 PM, the LAPD called, asking if I still needed assistance. I said I needed them four hours ago when I called, and that I didn’t anymore. Thanks for nothing, LAPD, I feel safer than ever. I neglected to tell them a junkie with no car got here quicker than the police did after a 911 call.
In the four hours I waited for the cops, I did see three parking officials drive by ready to write tickets since it was street-sweeping day. Perhaps I should call them next time I have an emergency. Those guys are everywhere.
It should be stated however, that I contacted AirBnB through their website on Tuesday when I discovered Sid’s drug bounty. They informed me that I should call the police if they thought something illegal was going on. I said I did, but what should I tell them when they get here? Where do I stand legally, since the contract and money goes through AirBnB? Am I considered the landlord and AirBnB the management company? What about insurance? Legal representation? Can you refund someone’s money and kick them out for merely being uncomfortable around them? What is the recourse?
I was told by AirBnB that someone would be contacting me about specifics. I heard nothing from them until Sunday morning – five days later. I had heard from other hosts that AirBnB customer service was slow, but they made the LAPD look lightning efficient.
AirBnB apologized in their e-mail for the slow response, as it was the summer busy season. I asked them all the questions I posed above, and a few more. They said someone would be contacting me shortly.
At 5PM Sunday, I received a phone call from a nice AirBnB rep named Dennis, who apologized and informed me they would credit my account for the costs of the lock change ($60) and the dry cleaning of the comforter ($45).
We chatted for a bit, and he was very apologetic, not only for my experience but for the slow response time from AirBnB. Shortly thereafter, he sent a detailed e-mail, answering each of my questions:
Hello Mike,
Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. We’re terribly sorry that you’ve had this experience and please know that you have our full support. If there’s anything additional we can do to further to assist you, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
As discussed, I’ve attached answers to your inquiry directly to this message.
Mike: What is the Air BnB policy on removal of guests? Since the full amount is pre-paid to the guest’s credit card, could I have asked him to leave after the third day even though he paid for five? What kind of proof or reasoning would I have to show? Can I evict a guest if I merely feel uncomfortable around them?
Airbnb:
If a host or guest is uncomfortable with the other party, we always advise to discuss solutions together and initiate an official alteration of the reservation (see https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/50) if both parties are in agreement. Failing agreement, the case can be escalated to the Airbnb Customer Experience team for further mediation. Each case is different, but rest assured we would work directly with you and your guest to reach an amicable resolution. In either scenario, the safety and security of our community supersedes all policy and our dedicated Trust and Safety team is available to assist.
Mike: If I ever host on Air BnB again, which is up in the air, I would never accept anyone into my home who has no review history. How many times can I reject offers before it affects my rankings or status?
Airbnb:
We have a number of tools available to assist hosts and guests in having a safe and secure experience on our site. User reviews, Verified ID, user messaging, and a secure payment system are a few of the features user can utilize to ensure a safe experience. In addition, Hosts can set reservation requirements (see https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/272). Reservation Requirements demand that potential guests complete our Verified ID process. In order to require Verified ID, you must first verify your own ID.
Mike: The 911 operator, who amazingly never heard of Air BnB, kept asking if this was a landlord-tenant dispute. I told her it was not like that, as Sid has no lease and all paperwork went through Air BnB. If the cops had shown up, filled out a report, or even arrested Sid, what if I had been called into court to testify? Would Air BnB get involved or would I be on my own?
Airbnb:
Unfortunately, Airbnb is unable to offer legal advice to our hosts.
In regard to the police involvement, our law enforcement liaison is available to assist in any ongoing investigation consistent with our privacy policy. Our law enforcement liaison can be reached at leoinfo@airbnb.com and works as part of our Trust and Safety department to provide full support to Host and Guests.
Mike: I wrote a scathing review of Sid on AirBnB to warn others. Is it true that if he does not write one for me, nobody will see it? I’d hate for others to go through what I did.
Airbnb:
Rest assured, the actions of this Guest are not tolerated in our community and the account has been deactivated.
Hosts and Guests are not required to write a review however, we feel it’s critically important to the trust of our community. In your scenario, after the 14-day review window expires, your review would automatically be posted and the Guest would forfeit the opportunity to review his experience if they had not written a review within the allotted timeframe. Please see https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/568 for more information and http://blog.airbnb.com/building-trust-new-review-system/ for a blog post on our revamped review system and the rationale behind it.
Mike: What could/should I have done differently? I never felt in danger- he actually seemed more scared of me than the other way around, but if I did feel threatened, what could I have done? Contact you and the police? And if there is police involvement, again – does Air BnB get involved legally?
Airbnb:
Situations such as the event described are incredibly rare however, we take these matters very seriously. If you ever feel like your safety is compromised, we recommend first getting to a safe place and contacting the local authorities. Our law enforcement liaison (leoinfo@airbnbcom) will assist law enforcement in the investigation and our dedicated Trust and Safety team is available to provide a path to resolution within our system.
Mike:
Finally, it took five days for Air BnB to respond to me. I thought I would never hear from you. What is your official statement on the delay?
Airbnb:
We sincerely apologize for the delayed reply in regard to this scenario. Our Customer Experience team is working daily during our busy summer holiday travel season to ensure our response time does not fall behind a desired service level. We understand this wasn’t the case in your scenario and we will complete an audit of our processes to ensure prompt support moving forward. Our customer experience and trust and safety teams are available by phone to answer any immediate concerns at US toll free: +1-855-424-7262 or US local: +1-415-800-5959.
Thank you for your kind cooperation regarding this matter and please don’t hesitate to reply directly to this message with any additional concerns.
Best,
Dennis
Believe it or not, I have not given up completely the idea of hosting again.
Most people who use AirBnB have an overall positive experience on both sides of the transaction. I am about to embark on a trip through Europe, and will likely stay in a few AirBnB’s along the way, albeit as an overly considerate guest (having been to the dark side).
If I did host again, however, I would definitely do things differently. First and foremost, I would not rent to anyone without references. Sorry, Newbies, let somebody else break you in. If I have to share my home and common living space with you, I need to see some history. I wrote the aforementioned scathing review of Sid, but, as stated in Dennis’ response above, it won’t show up on his profile for 14 days unless he reviews me back. I would hate for someone to make the same mistake I did in that time.
Secondly, I would raise my asking price. When you’re charging a rate that’s cheaper per night than a run-down, fleabag motel (the classic locale for a four-day heroin binge), then chances are you’ll attract more than a few people who can’t afford anything better. I have a nice home if I do say so myself, and next time I’d ask for more. If people don’t want to pay, then the hell with ’em. I don’t need the money that badly.
To put it in baseball terms, I’m hitting .500 as an AirBnB host – my first at-bat was a triple, but the second was a straight-up whiff, with a little chin music thrown at me for good measure.
Time will tell if I’m ready to step up to the plate again.