When you open your house up to strangers, you don't always know what you're getting. These people share their worst AirBnB guests.
A Secret (And Destructive) Wedding
“They had an Indian wedding without telling us. The place was trashed. They left a hot iron on the kitchen table and left a burn mark. There was pizza face down and smashed into the carpet of the kid’s room. Garbage in the pool. Trash all over the yard. Never again.”
She Blew Up Over A Small Rule
“Old lady who wouldn’t comply with one of our clearly listed rules about no outdoor shoes in the house. First, she tried to make us think we were gonna lose a potential valuable guest because she was ‘really considering staying long term.’ She got upset that ‘kids’ not half her age were telling her what she can and cannot do. She sent me a wall of text of her complaints, all of which were nonexistent before the shoe issue. Eventually, she called to tell me my family was stupid for not knowing our place in life. She threatened me with ‘trouble’ if I was gonna cause trouble in her life then followed up by saying this is not a threat.
I told her she was no longer welcome to stay with us.”
His Guests Drove Him Insane
“I’ve been renting out for about 18 months now. I’ve had about 48 different stays for roughly 90 nights and made $4k. Nothing special, but money for our own vacations.
Anyway, it was the last weekend of 2015 and we needed 10 stays to become Superhosts (a status that sticks out and helps bump up our price). It was three people — I thought they would be dudes for some reason, but they were women. They were students visiting from China and heir communication was pretty bad.
The whole thing started off terrible. One girl was deathly afraid of dogs and cats… we had a dog and two cats. They are excellent pets; my girlfriend is a dog trainer. She wouldn’t even come inside. We finally convinced her to come in. She keeps her back to the wall her entire stay and asks in broken, mumbling English if the dog or cats were in the area so she could walk up and down the hallway from the kitchen to the bedroom.
Speaking of the bedroom, we had two rooms available, but they picked just one and all three slept in the queen bed. They cooked one meal a day and would stand in the kitchen and eat from the bowl. The never sat down, relaxed or enjoyed any part of the house.
Day 2 got weird. I started noticing one girl constantly pacing up and down the hallway. She would stomp-walk all over the house while she paced. She also would open and close (slam) the bedroom door 10-15 times in a row in quick succession.
I’m getting angry at the dog girl because she SPRINTS up and down the hallway because our dog normally just sleeps on the couch. This was offensive to me because this dog is a saint.
Then New Year’s Eve comes and they stay inside. They yelled and argued from 10 pm to 12:30 am when I finally knocked on the door. They apologized immediately so they knew they were loud, but it was yelling for 2+ hours.
It just got to the point they were incredibly annoying. When they left, they left our front window wide open and the door unlocked.
I just…it sucked. We increased the price per night, being the cheapest in the area just brought the worst people trying to save a $1. Even bumping up our price $5 or $10 kept them at bay and gave us better people.”
“He Freaked Me And My Partner Out So Bad”
“We hosted a guy in our spare room who had night terrors. He would thrash and scream in the middle of the night, and freak me and my partner out so bad. It seriously sounded like he was being hit by demons — howling, yelling, thrashing. He stayed with us a few days and would get up and leave for work really early in the morning before us so I never was able to confront him to ask, ‘Uh, you know, you were screaming and thrashing last night, are you alright?’ I also didn’t feel it was right to mention it in his review — what good would that have done? Otherwise, he seemed completely normal.”
She Has Only Written One Negative Review…
“I rent out my boyfriend’s vacation house on a very expensive Greek island. The worst guests we ever had were a couple from California. They ruined all of our pots and pans (burning it to such a degree that we had to throw them away), hid garbage anywhere that they could, painted on the floor in black paint, called the lovely friend of ours who was helping with the booking at all hours SHRIEKING about literally everything.
The next day when they were supposed to check out, they harass me and the other girl helping, saying that they wanted to stay and refused to leave. After they finally left I found the woman on LinkedIn and one of her jobs is a snake dancing therapist… I wrote them my only scathing review because I sincerely hope that no one rents to them ever again. By the way, after I wrote them that review they never contacted me to apologize for all the damage they did or rude stuff they said. We have a very serious screening policy with Californians now…”
She Couldn’t Understand Why She Got A Bad Review
“I own a house that has two apartments, upstairs and down. We live upstairs. When my tenants moved out I turned downstairs into a vacation rental. 95% of my business comes from Airbnb.
A lady stayed over Christmas with her two kids. She spilled jellied grease all over the gas stove top, high enough to clog the igniter, and left it there. Her kids smeared chocolate all over the couch pillow. The place was left a mess. I took pictures and left her a bad review. She started texting me the next day, saying shame on me. I simply replied with the pictures, especially the measuring cup full of the jelly we pulled off the stove. She said, ‘So you want to make sure nobody ever rents to us again over a dirty stove?!!!’ I didn’t answer but I mean… yes. Exactly. I wouldn’t rent to you again, so why would I let other hosts find that out?”
“Some Beefs Never Die”
“Not my story, but I saw this in my local newspaper and this happened about two miles from where I live. A man rented out his mansion for a weekend to a couple on the understanding they wanted to ‘live in luxury’ for a few days. Turns out, these 35-year-olds decided to have a ‘high school reunion’ at the place. A couple of guys who had some longstanding fight going on showed up.
Some beefs never die, but people do.”
This Experience Made Him Stop Hosting
“It was a pair of 18-year-old boys. One of them, it was his dad who made the arrangements on Airbnb because the kids’ flight was canceled or something and they were stuck in Atlanta for a few days (me and my housemate live five minutes from the airport).
Anyway, it was a last-second booking and it was late when the guys got in. There’s only one queen-size bed but it was obvious they were hung up on sharing it because one guy was going to sleep on the sofa we had in the room. Nice guy that I am, I bring up my air mattress, hand pump, a set of my own sheets, my spare blanket, and two pillows. Then I brought them a couple burritos and cans of pop so they didn’t go to bed hungry.
These little brats were loud and obnoxious. They were up half the night cranking up the television and their music. They texted me one afternoon to ask if their female friend could also stay. As I was typing out a reply I saw them walking up the driveway with a girl between them. My housemate was livid. I had to explain to them why she couldn’t stay, that it was against the Airbnb rules and we could lose our account. They tried to offer cash and I kept saying no because if she got hurt on the property Airbnb’s insurance wouldn’t cover it and we could’ve been sued.
I think they stayed four nights. When they checked out I went to clean the room and it was TRASHED. Rubbish bin was overflowing, litter everywhere, some pink sticky substance on the bed and wood floor (80-year-old house, by the way). The microwave interior was covered in spattered food. They didn’t even bother to pull the plug on the air mattress. Normally it takes 30-45 minutes for me to clean the room, but it took three hours this time and our cleaning fee was only $20. We stopped hosting after that and I was tempted to send the father a lengthy note about how terrible his kid was.”
“They Had Their Revenge…”
” I had a young couple want to start their booking a night earlier and promised to pay cash upon their arrival that night. Upon arrival, they refused to pay the next three nights after their booking started. They only came up with the cash once I reminded them that they had actually stayed longer than their booking dates and I was quite within my rights as a host to have them leave before their last night.
They got their own revenge on me by leaving fleas in the room. How can people carry fleas in their clothes and luggage and not do anything about it? Disgusting!”