Horror stories of Airbnb

Horror stories – there are so many of them on Facebook and other places. Normally I don’t like to dwell on them for this blog as I don’t think that is very useful or productive but I don’t want to ignore that this happens from time to time. There is always something to learn when you’ve had less than a stellar guest – however rare. So here is one of my recent horror stories of Airbnb.

If you didn’t notice, there was no blog post last week. There was a reason. I was dealing with an issue in one of my Tokyo Family Stays houses – The Samurai House. It was a bit of a nightmare if I am honest. But before I give you the gory details, some background information will be useful – especially if you’re new to this blog. (Hi and welcome if this is you. *waves*)

Back story

My STR homes are in Tokyo. Japan doesn’t have a strong domestic demand for home based vacation rentals. Most Japanese stay in hotels or ryokans or onsen resorts for their holidays. This has been a tradition for around 600 years and so there are many established businesses to choose from. 

So my ideal guest avatar/s are inbound tourists or inbound corporate relocations. But in 2020 the borders shut. Tourists and corporate relocations are/were 99% of my guests, and these folks were instantly blocked from entry into Japan. So I needed to pivot very quickly. For the full story – read here.

My pivot included a switch to hosting local Japanese business people who are working remotely or who are on a special project in Tokyo and need temporary rentals. The market price of these rentals isn’t as high as inbound vacation rentals so I have had to reframe my business model to ride out the pandemic until the borders open again. 

Horror Guests – One of my recent Horror stories of Airbnb

One of my large homes is Samurai house and I rented to a company (ironically a cleaning company) for 6 months for staff transferring on a project. Normally for stays over a month, we offer a complementary cleaning service. This is so we can keep an eye on the property and it makes it easier to turn around after the stay. We’ve learned that longer term guests tend to “settle in” and don’t keep things as spic and span as the short term stay guests. However, despite insisting each month to offer a clean, the guest flatly refused – I mean they are the renter afterall. Yes this set off alarm bells but as the borders were still shut, pickings were slim… 

Finally the guest moved out last week. OMG!

Nothing was broken but really they hadn’t taken good care of my beautiful home. The stove hadn’t been cleaned in months, there was trash everywhere and all of the cabling for the TV, streaming devices and internet were a complete mess. Cabling is hard – so it took hours to get everything connected and tested. I think they were using their own devices or TVs or something. 

The weirdest thing was they had left behind furniture. FURNITURE… and not small furniture either. 

Sure, we’re used to people abandoning broken suitcases or clothes they no longer want but we’ve never before had to deal with an extra sofa, kitchen table, TV cabinet and a DVD player. 

In Japan, disposals are no simple task. There are no “goodwill” stores to donate. To have the city remove large items, they need to be booked in advance and this takes around a month. 

The photos show just how gross this all was.

Oh – did I mention that they also were smoking inside the house for 6 months! Completely against our rules and a complete nightmare in a house that is mostly wood, paper and soft furnishings. Cigarette smoke is STR kryptonite! 

I had new guests arriving in 4 days!

So last week I was running around madly trying to sort everything out – so no blog post. Sorry if you were waiting for it.

Solution – I like to be solution focused! 

What I have done is:

• Booked double cleaning team to deep clean everything
• Opened up the house for days to try to air things out
• Found people on Facebook who wanted free furniture and could come and collect it ASAP

Of course I sent an invoice for my costs and trauma – fortunately I was dealing with the company boss and he was very apologetic about his staff. But they haven’t paid out yet but I am confident they will pay up.  

But this was still a bit of a headache I really didn’t need especially when I have new guests moving in. 

What have we learned?

We added some additional terms and conditions in our long term agreements. Cleaning is not complementary but it is now mandatory. This is in writing and they must sign this before move in date. 

I’m against over-regulating guests but I prefer to do a good job in vetting the guests from the start. But I’m still needing some tighter wording on my agreements. 

Drop a comment below to share your horror story. I know they are rare but there is always something we can learn from them. 

Would like me to audit your systems and processes and agreements? – Are you not sure if you’re attracting the right guests? Or are you needing to pivot or rebrand? Why not get in touch for an audit? I will audit your current listing(s) and branding and will provide you with a list of actionable items you can implement immediately. Or share your specific needs and I can coach you live during the call. More info here.