Many of our interchanges with the general public one another come with a perceived set of expectations. The restaurant owner trusts its patrons will pay their bill after the meal. The grocery store owner assumes customers queue up to pay instead of simply walking out to the parking lot. And the Airbnb host trusts that the guests will checkout of their property on time. What happens when these social norms are broken? What do you do when your guests won’t leave your Airbnb? How do you handle your guests when they miss their checkout time?
This post explores what happens when your guests don’t leave on time. It also dives into the consequences of dealing with Airbnb issues in the age of COVID and a reduced support staff. Last week I posted an article entitled “What a 25% Reduction in Airbnb staff can mean for You”. This article discussed the potential downfalls of a lessened support staff. In the past, Airbnb responded to the needs of the hosts and guests in a more timely manner. The post also speaks to potential indirect benefits that could be on the horizon due to all of the changes occurring at Airbnb.
Guests stay past checkout time
In mid-March, when the United States first began responding to COVID-19, an incident occurred with one of my listings requiring customer support. This issue happened on Saturday, March 14th, essentially the day all hell broke loose within the Airbnb world. The guests from one of my listings were scheduled to check-out at noon that Saturday. After their check-out time rolled around, the guests remained in their room. Not knowing the best way to handle guests who do not leave the premises on time, I contacted Airbnb for support.
The wait time to speak with an actual representative was 4 hours. Yes, 4 hours! This particular weekend marked the initial onset of when the United States began to feel the severity of the virus. Subsequently, many Airbnb reservations started the drastic cancellation wave as spoken about in “The day all my Airbnb reservations disappeared…” Being that this was unprecedented territory, I could understand why wait times were so extreme. However, I still needed support from the staff for how to deal with this uncomfortable situation.
Unable to contact Airbnb Customer Support
I could have been completely frustrated with how Airbnb was handling my hosting needs. Instead I couldn’t help but to be thankful that the issue I called about was not an extreme issue. Yes, it was awkward and to be quite frank, a bit scary trying to figure out how to get guests to leave. On the bright side, at least no one was physically hurt and no one was damaging anything.. at least that I knew of. I wondered what may have happened if I had been dealing with a more serious matter that required instant support. Not a pleasant thought.
After the 4 hours on hold, the line simply hung up. I never got to speak with a live person. At this point, the time was right to find an alternative method. I contacted customer support via chat. This took several minutes, but eventually I chatted with an actual human (I think). This chat session recorded the incident and the representative instructed me to send an email to Airbnb support explaining the situation. This by no means helped me with the incident in its present moment, but it did help with recording the sequence of events. At this point, my only option was to cross my fingers that the guests would eventually leave on their own.
Airbnb reviews have powerful impact on Host Ratings
I opted to leave my home that afternoon in hopes the situation would defuse on its own. Up until this point, these guests’ stay had been very pleasant so I was unsure of how to handle it. It’s always a contentious situation to have any instances that can be viewed as potentially negative during the end of any guest stay. Guests can have great stays, but if the last moments fill with anything other than pleasantries you can get screwed. I was not sure how to approach the issue with these people that they were overstaying their welcome because it was past noon.
This may seem like a simple conversation to most, but when everything you do and say is reviewed on a public platform you must be careful. In this day and age, it is extremely easy to offend someone. You do not want to leave a bad taste in anyone’s mouth with the power to review you. The success of a host is highly dependent on ratings. One bad review can screw up things for you for a while so that is why I just went about my business and left my home for the remainder of the day.
Additionally, the Airbnb platform emails you reminders of when your stay is about to begin and when your reservation is ending. Also, within 2 hours of check-out time, an automatic email generates and sends to both the host and guest asking for a review. Besides the fact that people should be fully aware of their own reservation details, Airbnb makes sure to remind both hosts and guests every step of the way.
Options to track check-in and check-out times if guests won’t leave
My property has a wifi-enabled lock so I can see whenever somebody opens and closes the front door. For more information about the Schlage lock, check out this article. This lock is truly amazing. But, I digress. So I was able to see that they finally started thinking about leaving my home at 4:30 in the afternoon. One or both of them accessed the front door multiple times. I crossed my fingers that this meant they were on their way out the door.
I had already blocked off their room so that it could not be rented that same day. When guests don’t leave on time, it doesn’t leave enough turnaround time for cleaning. This forced me to block the room from rental for that Saturday night. I returned home later on that night and they fortunately had vacated the premises.
After sending the email explaining the full situation to the Airbnb support staff there was nothing left to do except to wait. Well wait I did. I did not receive a direct response regarding this situation for 2 weeks. Thank God this was not an emergency and thank God these people ended up leaving peacefully later that day. No one knows what to expect when your guests won’t leave.
How Airbnb Guest reviews work
There was a bright side to Airbnb taking so long to get back to me on this issue. By this time Airbnb connected with me for support, the guests had already left a review and it had posted. I chose not to leave them a review because I was unsure of what to say. Their stay had gone well, but their departure left a lot to be desired. I was perplexed on what I would say so I opted to say nothing. When only one party reviews the other it takes 14 days for the review to post. In this case, the review went public before I ever heard back from Airbnb.
When I read the review they actually wrote a note thanking me for their stay. They also mentioned that they left early to get back home. Apparently, they were unaware of their reservation dates. They thought they were leaving early instead of actually leaving late. As I mentioned earlier, the Airbnb platform communicates several times via email regarding your reservation dates and times. I have no idea how they were unaware of when they were supposed to check out.
However, this was not my fault that they did not know the details of their own reservation. I’m sure some of you may think I should have communicated and reminded them of their departure times, but it could have been an extremely contentious situation. As I stated above, you never know what could make a guest angry. It was not worth the risk to potentially spoil what had been a pleasant stay with anything that could be taken negatively. Bad reviews stay with you permanently. As a host, you often have to hold your tongue about many things.
Starting an Airbnb guest dispute
Airbnb support informed me that the next step was for me to contact the guests and request money for that Saturday evening. I wrote the guests explaining the monetary request since they had left several hours beyond check-out. In the note to her, I explained that while they believed they were leaving early they were in fact leaving a day late. I requested to be compensated for the amount the room was originally listed for that Saturday night.
The guest responded with a refusal to pay. Their main objective was the fact that it took so long for the issue to be brought to light. This was no fault of my own. Airbnb was over-congested figuring out how to handle COVID cancellations. I contacted Airbnb in regards to the next step in this situation as we had come to a crossroads. I believed I was owed money by these guests and the guests believed that due to the time that had lapsed they should not be required to make the payment.
Supporting your dispute claim when guests won’t leave
The Airbnb staff representative I communicated with on this occasion asked if I had any proof that these people had left after checkout time. He then said that if so, he would contact the guest and request that I receive payment.
This is where a lesson learned came into play for next time! My Schlage lock keeps track of all occurrences of someone entering and exiting the property. My phone receives notifications anytime any of the codes are used as well as any time the door is open. (You do have the ability to change these preferences) The lock saves notifications for up to 100 transactions. The notifications start dropping off after closing or opening your door 100 times. Since the time lagged for several weeks at this point, I no longer had proof of the exact times the guests used the front door.
Fortunately, there was enough evidence to support the fact that these guests did in fact leave hours after check-out even though I could no longer show direct evidence from the lock. I had communicated with the Airbnb staff that same afternoon when my guests should have checked out. I also followed up a few days later with Airbnb and received no response but the evidence was still on their platform.
When Airbnb communicated with me two weeks later, they could see the review left by the guests stating that they have left a day early. This was further proof they had overstayed their welcome. Airbnb typically favors the guests during disputes. However, in this case the evidence heavily supported the claim. Airbnb issued a request for payment to these guests to pay for that Saturday night I was not able to rent to new people.
Handling guest disputes moving forward
This was one awkward situation that could have gone really sour. In the future I will leave little hints in conversation asking guests about their plans upon check-out in an attempt to try to not have this type of issue again. I must also remember if there is any type of potential dispute to always save a screenshot of my notifications from my lock. This time I had enough evidence through the written communication between the guests and myself. Next time this may not be the case so it is important to remember the details moving forward.
For further advice on what to do if your guests won’t leave, click here. This article lists important steps you can take to protect yourself in the event of an unfortunate situation.