guests doing drugs in your rental

AirBnB ~ Community ~ ABOUT US

This was interesting to me; it can apply to other situations besides AirBnB. Even more importantly around anyone who may have a past involving drug use but has grown and moved way above that. Or family members and grandchildren! I’ve always firmly made it very clear ruling that no drugs or drunks are allowed in MY home or environment. Unfortunately and surprisingly (#rulefail) I really slipped, messed up and not only didn’t follow my instincts but ignored red flags. And got blindsided by other drugs being brought around my family also. Now it’s all cleared up and all is good and it will NEVER happen again! I’m still let down by my own mistake. I don’t waste any energy on it; I don’t look in the rear view mirror because I’m not going in that direction….but when I run across a conversation or post about it…I still shake my head at my fail. Thank God and my & my family’s good karma…universe vibes/energy…it was SHORT; a very short little episode. Although short, it’s still like having a tornado blow thru your house or like being shortly stuck with a stoned narcissist! So I’m sharing this with hope it might spare someone else that experience. At the least letting others know they’re not alone. SHHHEEW…we can all breathe fresher air again (& forever now) ♡ To be clear, I’m not against smoking. ..when people who do…keep it in their space, not mine or my family’s ♡ NOT being disrespectful and inconsiderate to others; people and property.

So yes…this situation can happen to any rental situation.

Just take care of business and turn the page.

WANDERLUST ♡

guests doing drugs in your rental

*Susan Level 1 in Lynden, WA

So I am not seeing this sort of topic addressed but I had a quest that was doing drugs in my condo. He was there supposedly just with his son but I had several neighbors say that there were alot of people there, windows open all the time, very noisey. He contacted me about 3 weeks after he had left to say first that he forgot his day planner under the upstairs mattress and needed it, this then turned into his wallet with all his kids social security cards in it, then it became his sons insulin supplies. My husband found it and what it was actually was drug paraphenalia, I know as I am a nurse and frequently have to take these items away from patients, sign of the times. I did report him through the email where you can flag a person but have no response from airbnb. This could have been a serious situation had someone (think child) had found the needles and poked themselves. Help!

COMMENTS/MEMBERS INPUT ~

*Oh man, what a bummer. I have it in my house rules that “no substances” may be smoked in the house. I also market my unit as a “family” place since it is nestled in a building among condos full of families. Fortunately, I haven’t had an issue like yours (after about 1 year + 1/4 of hosting).

*Not sure how you can prevent this, other than to describe the surroundings as non-amenable to the kind of privacy drug addicts crave. I.e., if they know that there are families right next door, and that there are kids coming and going, and parents watching over those kids, they may be less likely to want to rent from you, if only because they don’t want to get caught?

*Yikes. This is a hard one.

*@Susan I would alert Airbnb personally if you are sure your guest was using drugs. The best way would be by Direct Message (or Message) on twitter @airbnbhelp where you can explain the situation. I certainly would not want this person staying at my place so Airbnb needs to remove his account.

*My wife and I just had a horrible experience with 2 guests who smoked pot in the house (with their two kids downstairs) and then we found out there was additional drug use, evident in the fact that they almost burnt our bookcase with a space heater. We had DCFS at our house, police visited twice, and someone from the state also came (who my wife was told was their “aunt”) but we think it was a case worker. They listed us as a permanent residence and eventually we asked them to leave after a month and they were supposed to stay for 3 months.We had payment issues and in the end with the items they took, broke, or damaged we had just under $1500 in loss. We called Airbnb late at night and were able to get through quickly and were able to get a hold of a manager. AirBnB is very tight on what they’ll help pay, so I highly recommend raising your security deposit. We increased ours from $150 to $500.

*

*There were a few things we wish we had done. “Biggest one was listen to our gut instinct” haha. My wife had told me she wanted to decline them and I said we shouldn’t. But that aside I think the biggest thing for us was we didn’t do any research on them. They were our 2nd guests as AirBnB hosts and the first 2 were amazingly awesome. Didn’t even cross our minds to do a google search. We found them on facebook and a couple of things didn’t match what they had told us about why they needed a place long term, which could be a red flag. After we kicked them out and the police knocked on our door asking if they had been staying there my wife googled them and there was mugshot after mugshot online of the husband and a couple for the wife.

I would recommend googling them, not just searching on facebook. We’ve started asking a lot of questions of guests because of this experience and almost all are fine with answering. The ones who aren’t, I am guessing, have something to hide.

*@Matt & Heidi That’s great information that many hosts will find educational!Following ones’ instinct (woman’s intuition?) is a good thing. One host here also said that he does a google image search on the guest’s profile pic to see if they use it for anything else. Mugshots? Yikes!

One thing new hosts don’t realize is that hosting is a business before it is a “movement” if you get what I mean. Hosts have to look out for their best interest and not be overly “nice”especially if it turns the host into a doormat. If I don’t feel comfortable about a guest, I have no problem hitting the decline button. That said, I try to be a gracious host and hope to provide a great experience. But all within reason.

Thanks for your reply and hopefully another host in the same situation will glean some useful advice from you!