Screening For Bad Airbnb Guests

One of the biggest headaches with renting out your vacation home are troublesome guests. I’ve had my fair share of terrible guests and it will eventually happen to you if you decide to go down this path. You can read about what you should be prepared for when you become a host here.

Here are some experiences I had with troubling guests:

1. One guest sent me 20+ images of things he didn’t like about the property, including photos of scratches on the cabinet, a few leaves on the outdoor deck, etc. to receive a refund on this stay of 10 hours. It was a last-minute booking and in the end, it seemed like he just needed a place to crash for 10 hours before their trip back home. 
2. I had another guest who smoked weed indoors and left trash all over the house (empty solo cups, takeout food sitting out, etc.) and even left a couple ounces of weed behind! The guest’s account was removed from AirBnB when I reported the guest’s stay.
3. Another guest exaggerated how the space wasn’t what he expected but said overall it was good yet left a one star review. 
4. One guest drove their SUV on the lawn when it was raining and broke a water line. This caused A LOT of water to leak and repair. Then they demanded that it be fixed ASAP while the plumber was out in the rain at midnight fixing it. 

I have a couple more stories but these are the ones that really aggravated me. 

While it’s not possible to have a pleasant guest for each booking, I’ll go over some tips I recommend on how to screen guests. 

Guest Profile

Profile Verified
The first thing you want to do is ensure that the guest’s identity is verified. You want to make sure the person is real and that the platform knows who the person is if they ever need to go after them for damages. 

Profile Picture
AirBnB has removed the ability to see a person’s profile picture until after they’re already confirmed. If your listing is autobooked and you see a disturbing photo (like tear drop tattoos on the face), you can reach out to AirBnB to cancel the booking without penalty because you feel uncomfortable hosting the individual. 

Location
Profiles may show the city where the guest lives. One red flag is if the guest is in the same city as your listing as it may be a party. However, sometimes, people just book a staycation so it’s important to ask questions following their inquiry. 

Account Creation
Be wary of guests who recently opened an account and never stayed with a short term rental. They may have expectations like a hotel, which won’t turn out well most of the time in my experience.

Also, accounts that have been banned or suspended could have created a new account. I wouldn’t trust a platform’s vetting process since they encourage new guests to join and may not have the systems in place to prevent a new account creation. 

Past Reviews
Take a look at their past reviews if they have. While you won’t see stars for each review, you will see the guest’s average stars for each category. Some hosts submit generic reviews to elicit a review from the guest but if one review stands out, look at the host’s profile and see if they’re a legitimate host and how they run their operations. Hosts will not go out of their way to give a detailed negative review unless it really was horrible.

AirBnB now shows the number of trips booked under the account and it’s possible they just don’t have a review. If the guest has no previous reviews, ask them questions which I’ll go over in the next section.

Screening Questions

Guests are prompted to state the reason for their inquiry/stay. Usually, I’ll get an answer, but sometimes, guests either ignore and just write the number of people in their party and how they’re looking forward to staying. I even had one respond that they don’t feel like they need to share that information with me. Already a troubling guest so that was an instant decline. 

Here are questions to ask in order to screen your guests:

1. What’s the reason for your booking/stay? What brings you to the area? What’s the purpose of your stay?
2. Can you please read the listing in its entirety including the house rules and confirm that you agree to them?
3. (If the guest has no past reviews or stays) Is this your first time booking a stay on the platform? Have you ever stayed in an AirBnB before?
4. (If the reservation is a same day booking) What’s the reason for the last-minute booking?

While these screening techniques and questions aren’t a foolproof-method to keeping your property and reviews safe, it can help mitigate the risk and save you some headache. It only takes a few minutes to check and ask these questions. 

Most guests are pleasant and as a host with over 150 bookings at my properties, the vast majority (I’d say over 95%) have gone well so don’t let this be the thing to discourage you from venturing into short-term rentals!