Why I stopped to be an host with Airbnb

Last year when i bought my new flat in North East of England , i decided to join Airbnb to rent one of my bedrooms .

I have used airbnb as a guest for several years while traveling around the world , and never had a problem , so i thought to rent one of my bedroom was a good idea to earn some money to pay the monthly bills .

Unfortunately i did not consider all the problems behind the bookings of this website .

The danger behind being a Superhost .

Airbnb team try to transform everyone in a superhost pushing people to avoid normal rules as safety and ID check.

For example i decided to accept immediate bookings thinking airbnb was doing a proper job in checking people , their ID and profile .

I decided to accept people with no negative references but airbnb do not say behind instant bookings you accept people who open in that same day a new profile .

Therefore if someone has a problem with airbnb he closes his old profile in order to open a new one with a new name and you risk to host the most dangerous guest to become a superhost .

In fact after one of the first bookings, i discovered people can use their profile to book other people so you are not sure who is arriving to your flat .

Dangerous self check in.

Quite often i was not at home during the check in so i decided to organise myself with a key box to allow a self check in but this created anxiety because i did not know who was in because airbnb is not checking properly their guests .

Moreover , because of this self check in ,people started to arrive also late in the night ( without advising me ) when i was already in bed and this made me feel uncomfortable and unsafe especially when i was going to the toilet in the middle of the night and an unknown man was in the other bedroom .

Most people do not care about your flat because they stay only for a few days and i can ‘ t count the times i found windows and main door open .

To stop this i decided to reduce the use of self check in and increase the price of the bedroom thinking to deal with more professional people.

The risks behind long term bookings

But airbnb pushed me even more suggesting the idea to offer my bedroom also for long term in order to become a superhost and get more bookings .

In the Uk if you rent your bedroom or the whole flat to someone you need to check People Id , credits , references of previous landlords, their jobs .

It is not an easy process and for many who can t reach positive credits through estate agents and long renting websites , aribnb can be a very easy solution .

Negative guests .

Recently I had a couple of people arrived from hot countries who booked my bedroom for almost 30 days with the excuse to wait for their new flat to be refurbished before their stay .

I decided no to check their documents because i believe airbnb was doing this for me but soon after their arrival i started to think they were lying .

I suspected they were arrived with just a touristic visa and were looking the way to stay in my flat more they could because there was no refurbished flat in their future life in the Uk .

Fortunately i decided no to take any other booking from these people and asked them to check their Id instead to see who they really were .

One of them did and but the name of the passport was not the name on airbnb profile . His excuse was airbnb had registered him wrongly.

The other one told me to respect his privacy even if he was in my flat sharing kitchen , bathroom , toilet paper , and pans with me .

I was very annoyed and was counting the day of their departures.

At the end of their stay one of them , the guy who did not show up his passport , asked me if he could pay in cash his stay in my flat for more days because he had not found any new bedroom ( no right credits through estate agents ) .

Obviously I told him to leave that same day because i had enough but he insisted to leave at least his heavy luggage in my sitting room.

I obviously asked him to take his luggage with him because airbnb insurance was ending that same day and could not risk to pay for him if he was falsely denouncing me for the lost of money or gold in my flat .

Conclusion

Airbnb is good for short stays if you deal with real tourists but for long stays can be very risky.

You can risk to host squatters that will try to stay more they can paying less possible or irregular people booked through their airbnb official friends or mad people .

Still remember a Japanese woman who reported me to airbnb because i asked to see her passport when she wanted to book my bedroom for three months and i denied her stay because again her name was not the same on airbnb and had a strange behaviour when at home .

She reported me to airbnb saying i had treated her like a terrorist !

My experience with airbnb as an host is switch off for ever .

If you wish to try , good luck !

by #lauraartist68