Airbnb used to be a nearly utopian way to stay on a vacation or visit another city. For often far less money and hassle than a hotel, you get to stay in a proper house with all the amenities you’d have on your own.
In recent years, of course, the bloom has rapidly gone off the rose, mostly due to increasingly greedy and demanding hosts. However, one Airbnb host shared a story that illustrates that as annoying as Airbnb has become, many of the guests are ruining the system too.
The Airbnb host explained why he canceled a guest’s reservation on the day of check-in.
Airbnb host and TikToker @crazyairbnbstories uses the platform to share exactly what his username suggests — wild tales from the often bizarre world of renting your house out to strangers.
Of course, if you’ve gone pretty much anywhere since the pandemic, let alone traveled, you’ve surely noticed that everyone seems to have lost their minds and, with it, their sense of decorum. So you can probably guess what the host’s day-to-day life dealing with the public is like!
A story he shared in a recent video is a perfect example. “I just canceled on Airbnb guests,” he said, “because they’re being super annoying and crossed the line with me.”
The host said the problems began when the guests requested an early check-in on short notice.
The host said he’d had quite a bit of “back and forth” with the guests in the lead-up to their stay that, in hindsight, sounds like it might have been a clue as to what was coming. This finally culminated in a request for an early check-in.
He explained to the guest that his cleaning crew would be there until about 2:30 p.m. Since everything was already scheduled he couldn’t give them much leeway like he could have done if they’d given advance notice.
“They weren’t very happy,” he said, but there was really not much he could do at that point. So, the guests decided to simply take matters into their own hands.
The guests showed up hours early while the previous guests were still in the Airbnb.
What ensued is exactly the kind of debacle that tends to transpire when people who refuse to take no for an answer decide to do whatever they want anyway. “They show up today at 10:30 in the morning,” the host said, “the other guests check out at 11, so they’re still there.”
As you’d expect, the host’s phone immediately blew up with calls and messages from the people still there. Now, he said, “they’re feeling uncomfortable,” and rushed out of the Airbnb they rightfully paid for.
The host then had to call the new guests and tell them, “Please go somewhere else for the next 2 to 3 hours. Like, my cleaner is not even there yet.” Unsurprisingly, they refused.
The host then canceled their reservation on the spot when they insisted on waiting at the property for hours.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve stayed in a lot of Airbnbs in my day, and not one of them has ever lined up well with my flight time — there’s always a bit of time-killing that has to happen. That’s just part of the deal, and it’s no different with hotels, which often have even later check-in times!
Maria Markevich | Shutterstock
That didn’t matter to these people though. When the host asked them to go kill a couple of hours, they insisted on waiting at the property while the previous renters checked out and the cleaning crew reset the space.
“And to that I said, alright, I will cancel your reservation,” the host said. “Go find somewhere else. When you put another one of my bookings at risk and or my cleaner at risk, I will cancel the stay on you.”
People on TikTok were firmly on his side — not just because of the basic lack of common courtesy the customers showed, but also for the safety concerns the situation presented. “I clean empty Airbnbs for a reason,” a cleaner in the comments said, referencing how guests standing around could be dangerous.
Nearly everyone agreed that the host dodged a bullet because if this was how they handled check-in, imagine how they’d have treated his property all week. Something really seems to have happened to people’s brains where their sense of entitlement has skyrocketed at the same rate their common courtesy has declined — and nobody is obliged to put up with it.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
