Airbnb Owners Share Their Most Regrettable And Nightmarish Guest Experiences

Imagine renting out your living space to a complete stranger. Everything will go smoothly and you will get paid, right? Not likely! That type of intimate exchange comes with a lot of juicy stories and usually a little bit of regret.

44th_king asks:

Airbnb landlords what's your worst guest story?

Get ready for these gems!

Is that...my kitchen!?

I had one "tenant" make a porn. I didn't find out until I was cruising around. I noticed my living room and kitchen

The house party

Not the landlord, but the neighbor of one. She rented her house out, and the tenant threw a massive house party with over a hundred people in it. They destroyed her house and tore down our fence as they fled when the cops arrived on scene.

Borderline worst-case scenario

My boss rented out his old house on Airbnb and in the night they took every item and piece of furniture in an afternoon except a sofa.

Greedy guests!

We did a bit and it was ok. Worst wasn't bad at all, but a bit of a culture clash.

They complained our house, a 100 year-old cottage in the New Forest, southern England, didn't have a particular type of bedding (only found in America), and didn't have 'bug screens'.

We tried to explain that 'bug screens' simply don't exist anywhere in the UK, but they didn't really get it.

We got a so-so review for having a house missing these so-called 'basic conveniences', despite our trying to explain that things are a bit different in the UK to America.

We were their first stop before they headed up to Edinburgh. I hope the rest of their trip didn't bring them too many surprises, but I have a suspicion they would have spent the whole two weeks bitching about how things are different to America.

They had some nerve!

I have a couple. One guest used my house to cheat on his wife and then proceeded to proposition me. The reason I quit hosting was because of a couple who stayed with me for $500 for a whole month. They had a two room suite with a bed and TV in one room and a futon, TV, computer, printer, small fridge and microwave in the other room a very very large walk in closet and an en suite bathroom, and they still took over my entire house. I ended up staying in my room if I wasn't at work. They ate all of their meals for the day from the breakfast food I provided so I was spending about $50 a week on breakfast food. I forgot to preset the coffee maker ONCE and the wife complained about it the entire day. She was unbearable, nothing was good enough for her. The next year even though my home wasn't listed on Airbnb, they had the nerve to email me and ask me to stay with me for 2 months at a much lower rate.

Come on, fight me!

Converted a rental house for Airbnb use. Bought furniture from Craig's List and Ikea, fixed it up, found a property manager for it. Turned on the listing.

Second booking was a 20-something woman with no previous reviews on airbnb. She booked the whole house for just one Saturday night. Our manager warns us "that sounds like she's planning a party". We respond that the listing makes it very clear that parties are not allowed. My girlfriend, who runs the business, writes to this woman twice and phones her once to remind her of the "no parties" rule. The woman keeps assuring us "Oh no, I would never do that. It's just me, my two friends, and my brother coming over for dinner."

Saturday comes along, we're staying in the house next door, and around 9:30 we hear music coming from our rental house. We look out the window and disco lights are running in the house. In the kitchen, a group of women are moving huge pots into the kitchen. A little later, we see them emptying ice, fruit juice, and several bottles of liquor into the pots.

My girlfriend decides enough is enough and goes over there to remind them of the "no parties" rule.

"Oh, no, we're not having a party, just my brother and his wife coming over for dinner." "Ok, then, where's the food? Who are all these people?". My girlfriend turns away about twenty people who show up at the door.

After breaking into tears and telling my girlfriend "You're ruining my life!", she agrees to leave, and the party is over. My girlfriend still had to turn away a couple of carloads of would-be partiers.

The night ends with two of the woman's friends pacing back and forth in front of the house screaming at my girlfriend. "You b*! You f***_b! Give us our deposit back! Come out and fight me, b! B! B_!".

Plants in the garden are uprooted. Pots are smashed. Neighbors start to gather. Police are called.

The next morning involves cleaning up, repotting plants, and writing letters of apology to the neighbors.

When your Airbnb visit involves a SWAT team...

Nothing bad about my guest, but the whole timing was horrible. This Korean Kid (probably 20-22yrs), spoke very little English and his first time in America, he arrives at my house about 8:00pm (Renting just a single bedroom for 4-days. I will add at the time my house was not in the best neighborhood). He arrives and I am not home yet, he lets himself in and probably reads the info sheet I left out... I get back about 9:00pm and the entire area around my house (4-block in all directions) is locked down by the police, they tell me I can't enter but I explain the scenario about a new International Kid living at my house, so they escort me through the alley to my house. I go inside the house and he is in his room kind of scared to come out. At this time the SWAT Team is in front of my house, News crews down the street and I find out the brother of the person across the street just beat his GF with a bat, then ran a couple blocks and broke into his brothers house to hide. He is a Felon with a Warrant and they believe he may be armed. The Korean Kid (Forgot his Name) asked me if this is what America is always like as we watch out the window. Anyways 2hrs later they kick in the door, throw flash-bangs inside and go in, 5-minutes later they carry him out Limp, handcuffed and ankle cuffed and lay him on the street while medics look at him. He was very frightened to do anything the whole time he stayed with me because he thought it is very dangerous to go outside!

Edit: sorry my punctuation and grammar are awful, I'm too lazy to correct it currently.

When things get a little wild!

I always offer to take my guests out on the town, I always host on the weekend. First off, my friends and I go pretty hard when we go out. This couple, maybe in their early 30s and very professional, had not planned on getting shitfaced, but after a couple drinks they decided to stay out late drinking with us. The next morning I woke up still drunk, walked out to my living room to find the man passed out on my rug, 10 ft from the bedroom, and he had pissed himself. I'm a super laid back guy, so I found it hilarious, the girlfriend, not so much. He was still out for the count, so we dragged him into the shower and turned it on. I made them breakfast and 30 minutes later when we went to check on him, he was still passed out but in the shower. She was so pissed off, then they left. I received a nice apology over the phone later in the week but I never got a new rug :(

Now I hear Big Lebowski jokes whenever I tell the story, which I love.

Taking over staying your welcome to the max!

I had an Airbnb guest try to steal a free night.

She originally booked for 1 night and wanted to stay longer - fine - she offers me cash, I say NO.

So she books another night on Airbnb.

Then she wants to book another, further night and also bring her son.

Ok, I say, please amend your booking through Airbnb.

So she does - adding her child and swapping the day to the day after leaving one night during her stay unpaid for.

So my calendar had a gap in it (after I approved the change without checking)

So on the afternoon of the night she has no longer paid for I go to her room to confront her...

She wants to do anything but pay it, she wants to open a dispute with Airbnb - blah blah - I said 'fine, but it's a live listing and someone might book it, so hurry up'

I doubt she bothered trying to contact Airbnb and after 2 hours of hearing nothing I submitted an alteration request to her myself.

At around 7pm, I asked her if she's seen the request. No, messages go to her husbands phone... whatever, and she still wants to call Airbnb.

I said, 'Ok please do that now'

Then she goes to floss her teeth.

At 9pm I finally confront her fiercely and demand that she accepts my request immediately for that night because I want to go to bed and she's not staying for free.

She told me that 'wasn't good for her' and I said 'You must do it anyway because according to Air - you aren't even HERE and that's not acceptable to ME.

Anyway, she did it... and I didn't hear another peep out of her and it's been a week since she checked out.

She also did not apologise.

It's all in the details

We offer a room on AirBnB, nothing fancy but it's a super convenient location and we've gone much further with setting up than the 'spare bed for the night' price would otherwise justify.

We had someone leave a bad review because there were "too many cushions on the bed". He was with us three or four nights and not once mentioned this to us despite us chiming in with the typical "Is everything OK?" Every other time we saw him.

To this day I feel that, if we had collectively put our minds together we could have probably worked out a solution for this most heinous of crimes. To make matters worse the professional photos of the room showed the exact same cushions on the bed in nearly two thirds of the shots. With the week or so booking notice he gave us I'm positively certain we could have hammered out a strategy for removing a couple of cushions prior to his arrival.

Not our worst guest by far, but definitely the most asinine.

I think you forgot something...

Rented from a guy on Airbnb. He was super nice, beautiful home, had tablets in every room. Apologized to us that, the tablets weren't to be used. Last renters stole ALL of his chargers among other things.

Feeling a little left out?

They argued with me that I was supposed to leave the room I was renting.

No slumber party for me I guess...

A true horror story!

Years ago I put my 1 bedroom apartment in San Francisco on Airbnb, and eventually I had a nightmare guest that covered my home with blood.

This guest was a young British businessman living in Dubai. He rented the apartment for a week while I was going to be on vacation in Russia. My dad met him and said that the guest arrived from the airport in a limo and wearing a nice suit. 5 days later I got an email from a detective for the SFPD trying to get in touch with me. I called and he told me this story:

The guest was partying in the Castro and took an unidentified lover back to the apartment one the evening. They were using meth and the guest was also on some meds for a cold... And he had a bad reaction. For some reason the guy took one of my kitchen knives and stabbed himself in the chest, aiming for his heart. He started bleeding profusely and the lover must have run off to get first aid because there were lots of bandage wrappers littered about. Meanwhile, the bleeding man freaked out and went everywhere in the apartment putting bloodly handprints, footprints, and drips on nearly EVERYTHING I owned in EVERY room. Like, on every couch cushion, fabric chair, a dozen towels, the bed, the rugs, the walls, the windows, in drawers, all over the bathroom, in the refrigerator, books, tables... Everywhere. He tried to climb out a window and blood streamed down the front of the buildings walls. He knocked on neighbor doors leaving bloody handprints but was terrified and ran away if he saw anyone answer. A jogger found him naked in a bush at 7am, half a mile away and he was picked up by an ambulance. The guy was in a coma for 3 days and the police eventually figured out that he was an Airbnb renter and tracked me down to see if I was alright since I wasn't answering my phone, as I was out of the country.

Anyways, my dad sent me a couple pictures that I passed on to AirBnB to open a claim. They were super responsive and immediatly sent me $3k to get a hazmat team in there and told me to tell them the cost of anything I had to throw away or replace. The total cost to me was $10k but it was all reimbursed. They made it really easy and, honestly, I'd still be hosting with them if I hadn't been violating my lease and threatened with eviction by my landlord. Fair enough.

A simple detail can change everything

My parents rent out their flat on air bnb. The people who rented from us were supposed to return the keys by putting them in our letter box. They put it in someone else's letterbox. When my parents went to check the flat, everything was stolen. And they probably moved everything stolen to a self storage unit since we checked the flats and couldn't find any of our stuff. And the ex-renters won't tell us what letterbox they put the keys in so I think they had something to do with it (e.g some one bribed them to put it in the wrong letterbox). Still angry about the lack of basic human decency but that's the real world.

Cultural differences

I had foreign guests that each time they dropped a deuce they would clog the toilet.It was, literally, twice the size the can could take. It was a challenge to let it go and it resulted in switching the toilet altogether.

When paranoia starts to creep in

Story where I was the guest in question:

My wife and I booked a single night in an Airbnb that was a 20 minute drive away from a coastal city we were visiting on a road trip. We met and spoke to the owner, and he was a lovely old man, who made it sound like he had made a ton of money before retiring and now was hosting Airbnb because it filled his otherwise lonely days. The house was a gorgeous old building, a former seminary, that was also sometimes rented out as a wedding venue. It had a grand front hall, a huge kitchen, a billiards room, a lounge...a study... are we were staying in the Clue Mansion?

The house was gorgeous, but the grounds were so expansive that you couldn't see the fence or any neighboring properties from the house. The countryside we drove through to get to the house was picturesque to the extreme, but the cell signal was spotty, often times dropping out entirely. It was the perfect location to get away from it all and enjoy some peace and quiet in a beautiful location, or to lure moronic tourists into an elaborate murder mansion. I sent a text to my parents with pictures of the house and a message that said, "Haha, staying in an Agatha Christie Mystery tonight, gonna get murdered lol!" I was only half kidding. At least now, after we disappeared, the cops would have proof we were at the house.

I woke up at 2am convinced that somebody was in the room with me. The doors didn't have locks, so I had piled our suitcases in front of them to prevent unwanted entry, but I couldn't shake that little voice in my head that kept saying, "Did you even check the fireplace for secret passages? Could you make it any easier for him? You're basically begging for a Saw-type situation at this point." About the fourth time I used the light from my phone's screen to check whether anyone was in the room, my wife woke up and convinced me I was being an idiot.

We had to leave early the next morning to make it to our next stop, so we didn't see our host again, but I still feel bad for being the guy that was so convinced that sweet old retiree was going to kill me in my sleep.

All the secrets are being spilled!

They found my hidden cameras and covered them... talk about a boring weekend

Who needs a proper set when you have Airbnb

He shot his tv show in my apartment, forced me to participate in it, and on top of that broke my toilet by flushing golf balls down it.