You probably have heard of horror stories from both AirBnB hosts and guests. I am not here to add a new chapter to the horror collection. Drawing upon a friend of mine’s recent experience with a Airbnb host, I hope to shed light on the proper ways of hosting an accommodation via Airbnb. In the end, I aim to offer a fellow guest’s perspective on how to become a moral and professional Airbnb host who respects guests’ boundaries and a more decent human being.
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My friend from the U.K. had to stay in Vancouver for three weeks. Although she did not make a last-minute booking in the literal sense, she was two weeks away from her trip and so was left with very few options on Airbnb. When she booked the place that she ended up staying, the host requested that she booked an extra 15 days to “hold” it because she did not want to leave it vacant. My friend had to comply. After all, staying at a hotel would not be exactly economical in her case.
It was the first time she had used Airbnb and she was careful not to offend the host. She feared that if she did anything offensive, she might be asked to rebook and move to a different house. Given that it was work related and she was already fully occupied, she would not be able to afford the time and energy to move around. Although the host, a sixty-something woman, acted overly kind and was admittedly very communicative, they were a number of serious issues with the house:
(1) The oven was broken and remained unfixed the day she left. As she never had to use it, she did wonder how the other guests (two other people shared the same floor) could stand it.
(2) There were no lights in the sitting room. There were a number of times when she went back late, all lights in the open kitchen and tiny dining room were off. She therefore had to find her way back to her room in completely darkness.
(3) The host did not live in the same house. She did not visit that often, and when a new guest moved in, she expected one other guest to be present in the house to receive the new guest.
(4) There were no beds, only mattresses, in two of the rooms on her floor. This was not obvious in the photos, and was nowhere mentioned in the descriptions.
(5) The small back garden was a totally decrepit state when she arrived. There was a male guest from a developing country. The host managed to persuade him to fix the garden for free, as she stood by and “supervised” him.
As said, the host requested my friend to pay for an extra 15 days to hold the room, but asked multiple times whether she would like to go for a walk with her. The host also revealed that she felt depressed due to personal issues. My friend gently resisted the pressure to socialize. One night, she nonetheless was forced into a conversation with the host who happened to drop by. During this conversation, the host dropped that she drank urine to help cure her acid reflux. This was quite inappropriate by any reasonable standard. My friend was very easy-going (e.g. she managed to make new friends while waiting to take the vaccine!), but resented being pressured to socialize when the host clearly treated it as a business transaction. Socializing was simply not part of the deal!
Nothing truly disastrous happened to my friend. Yet the experience left a really bad taste in her mouth. While she never expected a hotel-like experience, she felt it was a complete rip-off: not only did the host fail to provide the bare minimum, she also sought extra ways to exploit her guests.
Those who are tempted to blame my friend for not canceling and moving to a more decent place need to be reminded that it was my friend’s very first Airbnb experience and she had plenty of things to do during her stay. She suspects that the male guest felt pressured to perform a manual task. He could have refused–not doubt about it–but perhaps he had never stayed at someone else’s house before and would have felt uncomfortable either way. That someone consented to doing something does not mean that they were not pressured in some way or that it was even moral or professional to request them to do so.
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Airbnb are understandably seeking to make ends meet. Still, regardless of one’s financial circumstances, one should aspire to be moral and classy as a host and fellow human being. First, there is never an excuse for not providing the basic necessities to ensure that the house is safe and livable. In addition, they must not exploit their guests or manipulate them into performing duties that are not part of the business deals. On top of that, they must respect boundaries and refrain from being intrusive and from forcing guests to be their companions.
Update: Airbnb led to housing shortage in cities like Vancouver. The reason is simple: Property owners would rent out their houses to tourists for short-term accommodation purposes than to regular tenants who pay much lower monthly rents. The province of British Columbia has passed a new law that will come into effect on May 1, 2024. Simply put, house owners cannot rent out their secondary residences on a short-term basis; they can only rent them out on for 3 months or longer. They can certain rent out parts of their primary residences, meaning that they themselves must live in the same place as the renters.
This is such great news. In the above case, the exploitative woman cannot rent out her house to six people, while she lives in her primary residence elsewhere, after May 1, 2024. This would mean a substantial cut in earnings (hopefully this will not cause her more acid refluxes and she will seek the medical and therapeutic help she needs). People owning multiple properties can still profit from their secondary residences, just not as much profit as before. When you make an investment, there is no guarantee that you always profit from it. Fair game for all!