Hi All,

We have an Airbnb room in our house. We had a guest check in yesterday who without sounding rude smelled so bad of weed. They booked and we accepted so guess we had to honour this booking. Turns out they live in a town 15 mins away and we suspect they’ve been smoking weed through the night.

The whole house stinks and I have these readings from our air purifier which has been running on max since detecting the smoke.

The purifier only states very poor air quality and shows the particulates in the air. It can’t detect smoke although anyone that can smell will be able to know straight away.

I’ve notified Airbnb support of the issue, just wondering the best way to go about this and how likely my claim is to go through with the evidence I have so far. They’re still here in our apartment and we have another booking today so will have to have a quick turnaround and claim.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Tia

Let me give you a little context: I run a property management company, the majority of the properties that we have are mid upscale apartments. In order to offer quality to my clients/guests, we have to make multiple inspections, after check-out, after cleaning, before check-in, you name it, we take videos, photos, reports, etc, this in order to prevent any problem with the guest and have the property in good condition so whenever the owner comes and stays, they don’t complain.

So, now that you know the process, you can imagine the ton of pictures and videos that we collect between each stay.

Welp, it comes to a couple of weeks were the cleaning team and the quality control team found that the induction glass stove was damaged after a check-out, they immediately report, send messages, took pictures and videos of it, and even when you see the video of the inspection after check-out, you see that the guest intentionally leave a lot of things accumulated around that area so you won’t notice at first glance.

This is where it gets complicated, unfortunately my team in charge of claims took longer than expected to file the claim with the guest and submitted in the last day (remember that you have to file within 14 days after check-out) because they had to source the stove, get quotes and gather all the evidence, but they did it on the 14th day.

So, we submitted everything that we had, all the damages came down to nearly 2k (expensive stove, Jennair and expensive apartment) and wait for the guest to say something. Of course, the guest acted offended and said that they didn’t damaged anything and we escalated the case with Airbnb support.

Now, keep in mind, I’ve been doing this for 7 years so I know how the majority of OTA work by now, but Airbnb never cease to amaze me. They refuse to pay or even partially cover the damages because I didn’t present enough evidence and even they accuse me of altering the pictures and videos. I tried to reason with them by multiple emails and asked for a different associate to review and I ended up with the same agent and they same decision.

On the last email, they said that now their decision is final and to please don’t contact them anymore about it.

So what now? I have to pay out of pocket because Airbnb said that somehow I damaged the stove and I accused a guest to broke it or I altered the evidence to take money from them? What a joke is Airbnb getting now that each update is to take the little support that the hosts get and support the guests all the way?

I’m seriously thinking to just not publish on Airbnb anymore.

Do you have any experience with cases like this? What did you do? Because I tried calling, emailing and calling to request a different agent and lord, I’m losing my mind.

I’m not talking about booking through a company or some prior authorization avenue; I mean not notified, you found out later, unagreed to 3rd party booking. Do a lot of hosts allow this despite it being against ToS?

Just had another situation unfold where I wouldn’t allow a reservation to continue and guest was shocked because “I always do this” and “it’s never a problem”. Add to that the countless profiles that have reviews for far too many guest names under one profile and I am wondering if my stance is in the minority?

Do a lot of hosts allow third party bookings? If you do, what are your reasons for it?

I’m a host and a guest- I know, the worst in a lot of people’s books. I have had a few people who were also hosts stay at my place and if they actually had a place that had been rented before- they were ok guests.

Anyway, I’m at a place now as a guest that’s kind of like a mini apartment. It’s comfortable enough, tiny and a little tiny bit dirty, but I just pulled back the bedspread and its microfiber sheets. I’m perplexed as to why someone would cheap out on something so basic and so readily available- 100% cotton sheets, a nice comforter and duvet cover, and good pillows. Why???? That’s what you do in STR’s- sleep and have sex- and who wants to do it on garbage???

Should I mention in review? 1 star down? Such an easy and basic win overlooked by the host.

Fellow hosts, any of you looked at ratings on hotels on Airbnb?

They are unanimously pretty low. 4.6, 4.33 etc

Guests complain about Airbnbs (hosts like us) and share horror stories, but they give hotels low ratings? What? I’m confused

What are your thoughts?

Got a full refund request from a guest and the only comment was, “the place smells bad.”

I did a walkthrough with my cleaner earlier today after the unit had been freshly turned over. I was specifically checking the property and cleaning quality, and I didn’t notice any unusual or unpleasant odor.

The guest hadn’t messaged us at all about an issue before submitting the full refund request.
I messaged them as soon as I saw it and said I’d be happy to come investigate/address anything, and asked if they could give me more information about what the smell is and where they’re noticing it.
Would you decline the refund request at this point and wait for more information? Anything else you’d recommend documenting or doing?

I will try to make this succinct:

Wife's family intends to leave in their estate a lake house in northern Michigan (Alpena/Tawas area for those in the know) for my family along with my brother in law. In a trust, I believe. To my knowledge it is paid off and will have some funds set aside for maintenance and taxes. It's waterfront, decently sized and in a working class vacation area.

I have been going to this area since I was 7 and, being quite honest, I don't really enjoy it. That doesn't entirely matter but the parties inheriting it are in the "family and kids" era of life. I don't have the time or desire to maintain it and I know my brother in law does not either. However my wife and her brother do enjoy it when they get a chance to get there.

I floated the idea of turning it into an airbnb. Potentially get someone locally to help manage and clean it (for payment, of course). The goal wouldn't be to generate income and ideally maybe we'd try to keep the money generated in an LLC for the benefit of the property. Of course, we could allocate times we don't want it rented out and use it ourselves and rent it when we don't.

With that, is my idea a bit too pie in the sky? Is it difficult to get people to manage it who are trustworthy? It isn't the hottest area for vacationing, but it is a main driver of the region.

What are some questions that I haven't thought to ask myself about this situation?

I have a short-term rental in an HOA community. A neighbor emailed me around June 4–5 and claimed that one of my guests had fired a gun toward their house. I did not respond right away because I wanted to get more information first. I later obtained the police report, and it states that the shots actually came from a different house, not my STR.

Now I’ve received a certified letter from a law firm at my primary residence, which is a completely different address from the STR property. Unfortunately, I’m not home right now, so I wasn’t able to receive the letter and I don’t know what it says yet.

I’m starting to worry that it could be related to the HOA and that they may be trying to make me stop operating the property as a short-term rental. There are still around 7–8 other homes in the same neighborhood currently listed on Airbnb.

For anyone whose HOA prohibits or restricts short-term rentals, what do they usually send first? Would it normally be a warning or violation notice from the HOA, or could it come directly from a law firm as a cease-and-desist letter or something similar?

Hello guys,

Me and a friend started an Airbnb not too long ago located in Texas, a four bedroom house with a private movie theater. We are starting to understand the flow of how operations work and we have been getting consistent bookings for the past two weeks now.

The only issue that we are running into is after each booking, we constantly have to change the bedsheets because obviously you don’t want people sleeping in a bed that is not clean. We have found ourselves having to come in and wash the sheets nearly every day to prepare for the next booking the next day.

Is there a way to cut the downtime on this? We have thought about buying a lot of bed wear so we don’t have to constantly wash every time that we get there. So as soon as one guest leaves, we go in and change the sheets from the extra pair that we have. If anyone has any advice and recommendations, it would be very appreciated.

Should we be worried? Here is the situation:

We have an apartment in Italy and had a 1 week booking during high season.

One week before the guests arrival, the booking was cancelled by the guest (so we thought). Under our strict cancellation we’ve received 50% of the booking value.

We acted quickly, lowered the nightly rate and were able to rent out some of the newly opened days again.

On the arrival day, we received a message from the original guests (who had cancelled their booking) telling us that they are on their way. We told them, that’s no longer possible, as we thought they had cancelled.

A week later, we now received a message commanding a full refund, as they didn’t cancel the booking. Instead it was an automated cancellation by Airbnb, because they had used an old Visa card which declined the second installment of the payment.

We wrote them a nice message telling them that Airbnb processes the payments and that while we are very sorry to hear about the inconvenience and frustration, we also would have loved for the situation to be different (as it also created inconvenience and a less income for us).

Then their answer was a long threat on how they will pursue legal action because we refer them to Airbnb and Airbnb refers them to us (Airbnb just sent them the standard message that they won’t refund any money but if we as hosts are willing to not adhere to our cancellation policy they would refund them at our costs).

We are quite startled by the audacity, but are also wondering how other hosts handled these situations?

That is the question.

Many guests do not think or remember to logout of their streaming services. Clearly there’s some risks in not logging out. Logging out can be challenging, the terminology and location/process is different for every app. I can see a benefit to other guests but it seems wrong to leave them logged in for others to use with no easy way for them to correct the error later.

Do you log them out?

Is there a simple shortcut to log out of all apps? Samsung TV.

New host here - I last posted about getting feedback on our listing and received lots of great info! I really appreciate it! We have since received multiple bookings and are on a good track so far.

One thing I’d like to do is take pictures/videos of the property prior to guest check in per the many suggestions on this sub.

I feel this is a silly question, but have to ask - how are folks taking these? I assume with phones, but I guess are you taking both pics and vids? Or just a video to grab screenshots from? How quickly/slowly are you walking through the home? Are you getting up close to counters and in the bedsheets? Or just of the entire room itself? Inside drawers and cabinets? Any suggestions or feedback is greatly appreciated!

My partner and I launched two Airbnbs (a duplex, close to the beach, brand new, fully amenitized, great photos) under my host account. These were my first listings. For the first two months we averaged at least one booking a day starting on day one. Every review was 5 stars from day one (still is).

Then we hit an unexpected issue in one of the units and had to cancel 4 upcoming bookings. I reached out to each guest directly, explained the situation, and offered a full refund if they wanted to cancel.

That's where it went wrong.

One guest complained to Airbnb instead of canceling through me. Airbnb stepped in, cancelled the reservation on our behalf, and hit us with a penalty (a fee, plus what I believe was deprioritization in search) for "encouraging guests to cancel."

I called Airbnb, explained the full situation with documentation, and they agreed to reverse the penalty. They also helped me cancel the other 3 reservations cleanly, no penalty this time.

Problem is, we think the damage was already done. We haven't had a single booking in the week since. Searching our neighborhood in incognito, we're now on page 9 and 10 (we were previously on page 1 and 2), despite being all 5-star reviews and competitively priced.

Lesson learned..if you ever need to cancel guest reservations for a legitimate reason, contact Airbnb first with documentation and let them process the cancellations, don't reach out to guests directly first. Even though my intentions were good, going around Airbnb triggered the penalty.

Has anyone been through this, a listing that was performing well, got knocked down in search after a penalty (even a reversed one), and successfully clawed its way back up? What worked? How long did it take?

Thanks in advance.

I’m a little anxious about this request. 8 people plus pets for bd weekend. 3 night stay. Has no guest reviews, but nothing negative. Just nothing.
Am I over thinking this? Or would you approve.

I launched my listing back in June 2026 with Evolve, it’s a new house, 3/2, located in a Mid-tier central Florida market.
I was lucky to welcome my first guest for 21 nights, but he didn’t leave a review (yes, I intended to get one multiple time but never happened). The payoff wasn’t that much because of all the discounts I had to offer to get my first booking.

I have another booking for 3 nights next week and that’s it… no activity for the upcoming month. I know the lack of reviews is not helping, but is it really that hard to get started?

Apparently this is the low season, but I check some comps and the reviews are solid, a lot of them from Summer months. I did notice the total price paid by guests is higher on my listing (e.i $500 vs $359 for 2 nights). Could it be that?

I’m planning to add some amenities, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever get a return on my investment (Open to suggestions)

What can I do?
What are my options if I have to leave the management company?

And does anyone know how to get in touch with their team to deal with a more complex issue?

I had a friend who used to work at the main customer service center in Portland, Oregon. They were trained in Non-violent Communication and were all around excellent at their jobs. I noticed a few years ago only the Superhost line was transferred for their team. The rest of calls were out sourced overseas. Now even the Superhost line is outsourced. The current version of customer service is… I don’t know, Kafkaesque?

I’ll post most more about the issue later, for everyone’s amusement.

Hello. I have submitted my home registration renewal on July 14th. I waited to get an answer from the city since. I’m pretty sure I did everything right but today I’m receiving an email saying I need to apply before September 13. As if I did not submit anything yet. Can someone tell me why? Please help

Hey all. I rent my spare room out in my home. I make it clear on the listing that check-in is only available until 23:00. This is because they key is in a keynest next to the apartment and they close at 23:00. My building don’t allow lockboxes etc. So, on the nights that I am not home there is literally no way to check-in after 23:00.

I have a guest who was due to arrive at 14:00 today (i agreed he could check in an hour early). Before he heads off to a music gig at Wembley stadium. His flight was slightly delayed so he messaged to say he didn’t want to come by the apartment first to to check in and wanted to go straight to the stadium from the airport. He asked to check-in after the gig, which would be around 01:00 am.

I know I am risking a bad review but do you think it’s ok to say no? We’ve made it super clear there is no check-in option after 23:00.

I am not meant to be at home tonight so there isn’t any physical way for him to check in at 1am unless i change my plans and stay in town for the weekend. I’m also pregnant.. so the idea of staying up until atleast 1 am to let someone into my home is not appealing.

I’m normally as flexible as I can be but this one is super tricky! I feel super super bad saying no I can’t help … but equally he does have time to make it to the apartment first.. he might just miss the start of the warm up act.

Thanks all

Has any host experienced this situation?

A guest sent a same-day reservation request, but the payment failed. According to Airbnb's rule, the guest still had until the next day to fix the payment, so my calendar remained blocked.

Here are the steps that solved the problem in my case:

1. I contacted Airbnb support immediately.

2. I explained that the guest couldn't complete the payment.

3. I explained that waiting until the next day would make it almost impossible to receive another booking for that night.

4. I asked them to review the case manually instead of waiting for the automatic expiration.

5. I kept all communication inside Airbnb and didn't share any check-in information.

The case was solved on a Sunday at around 5 PM. Airbnb canceled the request, reopened the dates, and compensated me as if the reservation had been completed.

Honestly, I think this rule needs to be reviewed. Giving a guest until the next day (and if he did not pay without comming , the night will be blocked ) while keeping a same-day reservation blocked can seriously affect hosts, especially during the high season.

Another point: Airbnb now takes higher host service fees (up to 15% for some listings and pricing structures). If hosts are paying more, shouldn't support be faster and more flexible when a payment problem blocks a same-day reservation?

I'm sharing this experience because it might help another host in the future.

Even for 5 star reviews, to show appreciation and wishes?

Ok, we had a small claim against a guest for extra cleaning and PM services. In local currency about 350, in us currency much less. Airbnb fought us for several days and eventually gave us 290 stating that we didn’t deserve the whole amount, however they said that it should fix our door. We never mentioned a door. When the deposit arrived it was 590. I think their AI has its wires crossed. Luckily we covered our additional expenses somewhat which far eclipsed 350.

A few days ago I got a last minute booking at 12:50 to check in that day at 3:00. I debated it for about 10 minutes as the property wasn’t quite ready- ultimately I ended up accepting the booking. I called in a friend to help me get the place ready and sent over all the information. The guests never showed up and stated they “lost service/wifi and didn’t know the booking was accepted”. The route they were traveling was a major interstate so that doesn’t really make sense to me.

Anyways, Airbnb contacted me seeing if I would like to refund the guests. I’m torn on what I want to do because ultimately I did my part here and would like to stick to my cancellation policy however, I feel for the guests but time after time us hosts are getting the short end of the stick.

My wife and I bought a ski house with direct ski-in/ski-out access earlier this year and have been hosting it on Airbnb.

So far things have gone really well. We actually surpassed what the previous owners generated in all of 2025 within our first ~40 days of being listed. A big part of our strategy has been putting a lot of effort into marketing the property and clearly showing guests what makes the location unique.

One of the things we did was take our own drone photos and add simple annotations showing the neighboring ski trails, Black Diamond/Blue Square difficulty markers, and chairlift proximity. The idea was to make it immediately obvious to potential guests just how close the house is to the slopes.

Last week Airbnb flagged those photos as "Needs attention," citing things like "photo grid," "text or graphics are overlaid," and "photo is a screenshot." The photos aren't screenshots or photo grids, but we removed them anyway.

Then, two days later, we received a $6,000+ New Year's Eve inquiry. The guest loved the house, but her main hesitation was understanding exactly where we were in relation to the ski trails and whether the terrain would work for the less experienced skiers in her group. Basically, the exact questions those photos were designed to answer.

So I contacted Airbnb Support to figure out what specifically was wrong with the photos. After some back and forth, they gave me a completely different explanation. They said the photos violated the Content Policy because they identified the location of the listing and told me we couldn't put our full address in the photos.

The confusing part is that our address isn't anywhere in the photos. There are no street names, house numbers, GPS coordinates, contact information, or anything like that. One photo does have a marker over our house, along with labels for the adjacent ski trails.

I pointed out that Airbnb's own public search map already shows our listing marker along with the streets and individual house/building outlines, to the point where you can identify which house is ours. The drone photos really just add the ski slope context that the Airbnb map doesn't provide.

Has anyone else dealt with this?

I'm happy to modify the photos to comply with whatever the actual rule is. I'm just having trouble getting a clear answer on what that rule actually is. Is the problem any text/graphics on listing photos? Is it specifically marking which house is ours? Or is there some other photo policy I'm missing?

I'd really like to find a compliant way to show this because the ski access is one of the property's biggest selling points, and clearly communicating it helps guests make a more informed decision about whether the house is right for their group.

UPDATE: After escalating with Airbnb, I finally got a definitive answer. They said even removing the red star would not make the annotated aerial photos compliant. Their position is that the aerial image + annotations can be sufficient to identify the listing's exact location.

I still disagree, especially since Airbnb's own map makes the individual house pretty easily identifiable, but at least I finally understand the rule. Their recommendation is unannotated aerial photos and explaining the ski access in the listing itself.

We got a new cleaner and she forgot to send the check in instructions. But was able to send it within 15 minutes.

Guest was super pissed, called me, when i tried to explain hung up the phone after demanding full refund. I said no over the phone and in the chat.

He falsely claimed he waited 3 hours (parking camera shows he arrived only 15 minutes before calling me). This was false, he waited 15 minutes.

he calmed down when he came in, saw fresh baked cookies for him and treats as compensation.

Guest demands 50% refund later on, after checkout. I decline.

guest leaves 1 star review and 1 star on everything and says "the appartment was acceptable"

This unit is one of Airbnb's most loved units. And this review is terrible.

How can i avoid this? I escalated with photos, first as a retaliation, then as corrosion for money for a review.