Hi Name,

Thank you for booking our property, we are very excited to host you! We hope you are looking forward to relaxing and making memories at our property soon!

There are a couple of items we like to talk to our guests about when we host them in any of our homes. The most important items are:- No smoking/vaping in the home or on the property*- No pets allowed without prior approval*- No open-invite parties or parties with over 16 people without prior approval*- No more than 8 cars in total. Only two cars parked on the street.**Fines apply for each occurrence

Although we hope these items shouldn’t be a problem for you, we have had a few instances in the past that did cause an issue for us and future guests. I share them with you because we want to be completely open about our pride in the home and our desire to serve each of our guests with the finest experience possible.

Does that make sense to you? Could you please respond to this message confirming you have read the house rules and agree to the above terms?

See you soon!

Brendon Beebe

$500 fine for smoking on the property outdoors and $2,000 fine plus actual remediation costs for smoking inside. In either case your stay will be canceled and you will have to leave the property immediately

$250 fine for pets + remediation

$500 fine for parties + $50 per person over 20. Your stay will be canceled and you will have to leave the property immediately.

$100/car per day over the limit. We need to be strict on this. The last thing we want is to have cars lining the street in front of our neighbor’s home.

Dear Guest, Home is where the heart is. We believe that everyone should absolutely love their stay. And that’s the standard we’ve set for our property. Unfortunately sometimes things aren’t a great fit. We’ve noticed that you’ve experienced a consistent pattern of dissatisfaction with your stay. We’d like to make that right. Effective immediately, you have the option to end your stay, with a refund for unused nights. This offer will remain in effect for XX hours. This also serves as your official notice that your stay will no be extended, nor will any other compensation be offered or paid if you choose to stay, or upon your check out. Thank you for your cooperation.

Here are some great responses.

To keep prices affordable our base price is set to our average party size. However, we can accommodate more people. The extra person charges cover the additional wear and tear, supplies, insurance and cleaning that comes with additional people.

Our base price allows smaller groups to book at a discounted rate, and extra guest fees allow us to pay our cleaners an affordable wage when additional cleaning is required

 I’m sorry I wish I was able to allow this but we have full-time neighbors next-door and they are extremely strict about adhering to the HOA rules of no large parties, etc. They’ve been known to take a headcount and report to management and even the police at one point. I know there are other properties with more relaxed HOA’s/management nearby.  This is why our house rules say No parties or events.  Best of luck!!

 We keep a pet free home, however we fully respect the need for Assistant Animals and the important job they provide for their owner.

Could you please tell me if the Assistant animal is required because of a disability and what work or task has the dog been trained to perform?

If you choose to book, please first agree to the following:

1. Your Assistance Animal must be housebroken, non-aggressive, not destructive, and not display repeated, unprovoked barking. This is a multi unit home with shared walls.

2. Please be considerate of other guest that may be allergic to animals and expect my home to be pet free as stated in the listing. Therefore, please keep the dog off the furniture and counters (unless medically needed).

3. Your Assistance Animal should not be left unattended at any time. They must go with you when you leave the property.

4. Your service animal must use the bathroom outside. Indoor piddle pads are not allowed. Any dog mess outside will be picked up and properly disposed of immediately.

5. Your Assistance Animal should have a collar, harness, or microchip with identifying owner information attached should it become lost.

6. Please provide an advance copy of your Assistance Animal’s rabies vaccine (current thru your stay).

7. Puppies and Service Dogs in-training are not recognized under the ADA. We regret we are unable to accomodate those.

8. You are responsible at all times for your Assistance Animal’s behavior. While we reasonably expect that your specialty Assistance Animal is well-trained, should any damage occur, you are responsible for the cost of any additional cleaning, repairs or replacements as a result.

Thank you

Dear family member, as you know we just started our short term rental business. We are really excited about it, and hope you are happy for us.To optimize our season we are offering our family members 2 (or 4 or whatever) nights per year during the following months xxx xxx xxx so that it doesnt conflict with our business plan. Please be sure to request your stay 6 months in advance so that we are able to block those dates for you.Having family members stay is comforting as we know you will follow the the house rules and checkout instructions. As well, you will need to cover the professional cleaning fee of xxx.

I really appreciate your friendship. We are expecting to be full this peak season. If you want to rent the cabin, I can offer it at the same price as Airbnb but without the Airbnb fees (a security deposit will be collected and short term lease signed) for booking directly. (Easier to blame things on someone else like your attorney, accountant etc.) If we happen to have a last minute gap between bookings, I’m happy to invite you that time if you’ll pay a discounted rate to help cover utilities and cleaning,

Dear ……Thank you for bringing these items to our attention. As you can imagine with a house this size and quick turnovers sometimes minor details like these can be missed which is why we love when our guests give us feedback . We use this feedback to address items and keep our very high ratings. While I don’t think these items will affect your enjoyment of the home I am more than happy to send someone to address them . We like to give our guests their space and intrude as little as possible so just let me know if this is something you would like fixed now orIf you are providing feedback so the items can be addressed before next guests check in. Again thank you and we hope you have a wonderful stay!

Ozone machine will remove it.

Spray bleach in the sink and showers

Boil vinegar

Boil cinnamon, orange peels and cloves.

Tell the guest to cancel the remaining days. Do not cancel yourself. Do not accept the alteration request. Whatever your cancellation policy is will kick in. Tell the guest you would be willing to refund him any days that get booked. That way you are not on the hook if you’re not able to rebook.

Hi, guest! We hope you’re having a great stay at our home. I noticed you brought your dog, which is no problem as we allow dogs with a pet fee. I’ll send the pet fee request over now and you can just pay it through the app. Have a great time and let me know if you need anything!

I’d you live hours away or are busy: “Hello ____, I live ____ hrs/mins away and would not be able to make the drive to fulfill these requests for you before you arrive, as I have prior commitments. Had you let me know 24/48hrs in advance- I would’ve been happy to fulfill your requests! If you have an allergy or health concerns from here on out please address it and let to host know when booking is made, to ensure that those needs are taken care of!”If you live close and not busy I would do it! If you like, you may stop by Walmart & get a filter the size is xyz. I will reimburse you for the filter & accommodate some bedding up to $xx if you upload me the receipt.

A) Our property is available to tourists only.

B ) We rent to out of state visitors.

C) Our property is only available to guests with a valid ID that live XXX miles away or more.

D) We will rent to locals with a history of reviews from other hosts.

Add at the end:

We apologize for any inconvenience and hope you find a place that suits your needs!

This is brilliantly handled by a host. Following is a synopsis of the conversation with the guest and host. (grammar is not great, included for context)

Guest: Hi, we have checked in, and the place is dirty, sand on the floor, glass on the balcony are dirty with some stains, mirror not hanged straight, door handles are half broken, toilet paper handler is hanging half broken, entry door to the place is all dirty and not really nice, some bad smell in the apartment. Even candles in the living room are used out, really not satisfied and not the same as the pictures you have. We want a discount. I took pictures of everything.

Host: Hi, I’m so sorry! it looks like our property did not match your expectations! We can give you a full refund if you guys check out tonight so we can find something where you are more comfortable.

Guest: (four minutes later) Well don’t think there are any other options. It doesn’t work like that, can’t find anything in an hour or so, everything is booked in advanced at least couple of days in advance. So we gonna stay. have no choice. And I guess sorry will leave an appropriate view of your listing!

Host: There are plenty of options available. feel free to at least take a minute to check. I’m sure you guys will be able to find somewhere where you are more comfortable and mirrors are properly hung.

We unfortunately do not refund for inconveniences, we can address them or offer a full refund for check out.

Guest: As you can see on my profile I’ve rented 4 times on Airbnb and didn’t have complains everything was great. It’s my first time for me getting in to a place like that. I’m not going to check out just letting you know your problems with place and what you should fix. And I’m not asking for a refund, I’m just asking for a discount. And the Mirror is the minor problem. you shouldn’t point it out like that, it’s not nice to your customers. it just doesn’t worth that money because of all those problems in the place. Have a good night!

Host: I’m reaching out to airbnb so they can assist you better with this reservation.

Guest: There is nothing to assist with as I told you just letting ou know the problems and gonna leave an appropriate review.

Host: That’s your decision, as long s you and your group understand that by staying you acknowledge that you won’t qualify for a discount, rebate or anything of that nature.

Guest: Hope it’s gonna get fixed for future customers who will be staying with you.

Brilliantly handled. Notes from the Host.

Sand on the floor? unlikely . . . but maybe. Can easily be fixed by my cleaner. Stains on the balcony glass to the outside, maybe, not a big deal. also fixable, Mirror not hanged straight? Broken toilet paper holder? half broken door handles? They don’t want their “issues” fixed, they want a discount, Surprising.

My thought process “if they have issues, I can easily fix it for them, but instead they want a discount and not for me to fix those. If they stay, they’ll leave me a bad review and will progressively find or make up new issues throughout their stay to qualify for a refund. (i have multiple properties where that happened) It seems harsh, but the only option is to call their bluff. I tell them to leave for a full refund.

Unsurprisingly, guests DON”T want to leave, and in less than 4 minutes were able to assess that there is not a single listing to meet their needs. They mention a bad review.

At this point, I consider asking “so what you are saying is that if I don’t refund you, you will give me a bad review?” which is an easy bait and if they say yes, it’s extortion under the Airbnb policy. I decided to insist on having them check out, while explaining that we are not refunding them. That if they prefer we can address their issues or they can check out and get their money back.

Guest goes on about his previous stays, and he did have four 5 star reviews, but all from management companies which usually means nothing because most of them review automatically. He then complains that I brought up his complaint of a mirror that wasn’t hung straight.

He has not mentioned how he wanted a discount AGAIN, so his mentioning of a review is “sandwiched” between two requests for money, and that should be enough to get it deleted. I proceed to call Airbnb and let them know what is going on and the agent agrees with me in the handling of the situation. I let the guest know that Airbnb is being involved and he doesn’t want it to be the case for some reason. He mentions yet again the review. Now I’m 95% sure the review is going away, and I make a point of stating that if they stay they will not be refunded for anything to prevent a post-check-out- claim. (I have had those in the past) Guest still stayed.

Final notes from Host:

They said they would stay, then tried to leave after staying two nights IF they were fully refunded. I took them on the offer of leaving, but not on the offer of full refund. They were very insistent on being refunded but failed to provide evidence for any of their claims, which I knew did not exist since I visited the property multiple times in the past month since it was for sale, and it flew by its pre-purchase inspection.Airbnb rep later called me and asked me if they could cancel the booking altogether, and when I asked for clarity, they meant “cancel on my behalf” so that they could give them a travel voucher, to which I obviously did not agree.They finally left today and sent me a message calling me an idiot on the way out, clearly very sweet and nice people

In our house rules and Short Term Rental contract per our attorney: “Video/Audio Surveillance: The property has surveillance cameras placed to monitor all vehicles and persons that enter and exit the property and to verify the guest count arriving to the cabin when needed. This video and audio footage is not shared publicly and is recorded and retained by Host and staff for liability reasons as in the case this Agreement is being violated and/or proof is needed related to any access or incident occurring on the property. All cameras are located on the exterior of the cabin and monitor all exterior doors, drives, and much of the exterior surfaces surrounding the outside of the structure. In no way do the devices infringe upon Guests’ expectations of privacy during their stay and Guests do not need to expect to be monitored during their stay, but are being made aware of the cameras’ presence. These will be utilized if an issue arises or is suspected, and confirmation or clarification is needed regarding activity on the property at any time. Any attempt at disabling or obscuring the cameras is prohibited and may result in Guests being removed from the property without refund.

Hi guest ! Thanks so much for your interest . It looks like you are new to this site . Welcome! Will you tell me a bit about yourself, your trip , and who will be joining you ? Do you have any questions for me ?” If you’re satisfied with their response, follow up with “so xx adults and xx kids in your party . Do you expect any visitors during your stay ? Lastly , are you traveling with any animals ? Do you have any other questions for me ?

We are currently not offering any discounts. Let us know if you have any other questions, we are happy to help.

We have done our homework and we feel that we are already very competitive with our rates. Unfortunately we are firm with our prices.

Our rates are very competitive .

Hi xx! So great to hear from you! I’d love to host you again, but I am unable to offer a discount at this time. I hope that does not deter from you from booking with me as it would be a delight to see you and your family.

“We are sorry to hear you have to leave early but greatly appreciate you letting us know. Congrats on the new place! Of course you’re welcome to leave and cancel at anytime.

Once you depart, just click Cancel on Airbnb. If any refunds are due, Airbnb will process that according to the cancellation policy agreed to at booking. Upon cancellation, you’ll want to promptly reach out to your travel insurance provider to process a claim for anything over and beyond what the cancellation policy offers. They’ll use the cancellation details and your reason for cancellation to process any available claim.”

We are looking forward to hosting you. Thank you for reaching out to see if you can arrive early. We so wish we could allow you to arrive early but we are unable to make that happen.

Because we have a guest in our place almost every night of the year we have agreement with our cleaners and maintenance that we have to keep the change-out window clear and not allow anyone to arrive early as they need the time to clean and do any needed maintenance work to get things ready for your stay.

We kindly ask that you do not arrive before your 4pm check-in time. Your door code will activate at 4pm and everything will be ready for you when you arrive.

Take care and safe travels.

——–

Basically you are telling them you want to be able to do it but you are blaming it on your cleaning and maintenance crew for the reason they can not.This way you look like the good guy/gal

While we appreciate the obvious love and care that you invest in your fur babies, we also appreciate that many of our guests choose to stay with us because we don’t host furry guests. Unfortunately, there is a large part of the population who is allergic to various animals, and regardless of how well our cleaners clean the space after each guest, we would hate for an allergic guest to encounter any allergens. We firmly believe that all potential guests should be able to find accommodations that fit their needs-and we cater to those who can’t have animals in their lives. We believe there are other hosts in the area who are happy to host animals. We thank you for your interest in our property, and hope that you find something that you and your fur baby will enjoy.