All Forum Posts by: Heidi Schlueter

@Nat Chan - OK that's horrible. (and I feel bad that you've had worse guests!)

He's my first AirBNB guest, and I have no other AirBNB reservations (most traffic in my area comes from VRBO), so I've already shut down my AirBNB listing. If he wants to leave me a bad review, totally fine. At this point I've sunk so much money as I rented the other condo for his use, so refunding him leaves me about a grand negative. I have refunded one night, and he declined further refunds. The only thing he'll accept is the construction to stop.

Tell me about your worst guests. I have a bad one this week, and I"d love to hear what you've been through and that you made it through the other side. 

I will admit - it's not a great situation. We heard a few days before the guest's arrival that there would be construction on our building. I notified the guest, he said he understood and still wanted to come. He has been a nightmare since he arrived. Any compensation I offer is declined. i have rented another unit for him to use during the day - not acceptable. I've offered to refund money - nope. The only thing he will accept is for the construction to stop. Out of my control. He's harassing the construction crew and my on-site person is ready to take him on a one-way fishing trip. I'm trying to come up with any creative way to make his vacation better, and he wants nothing to do with any of it. 

I know everyone has bad guests from time to time. Let's enjoy a few of the stories in hindsight.

I’m in Monroe County, here they are not giving warnings. They’re issuing citations, convictions punished by up to 30 days in jail and $500 fine.

I think @Paul Sandhu is being realistic (blunt, but realistic). I live in Boston and own a property in Florida. I purchased it as an established rental and furnished. It took a bit of work to get it set up, but I spend less than 10 minutes a day on it now, turning over 25% is a huge cut of profits for what they do. Get a good cleaning service (mine came with the property, so they actually know it better than I do), a good handyman, and I have a neighbor who charges me $25 a week to keep an eye on things. You're probably not getting a ton of responses here because I think most people here self-manage. 

We recently did what @Adam Dow is thinking about here. We purchased a condo in the Florida Keys. We were able to purchase an existing rental and were able to get the last few years rental history, we knew the condo would be able to pay for itself. We self-manage, but have a trusted neighbor who greets for us and keeps an eye on things, and just kept the cleaner and handyman that were on staff before we purchased. We are in a situation where we need to vacation at the exact same place every time, so it made sense to buy a place to return to for vacation, but we only use it ourselves on weeks that don’t rent well (beginning of May, end of August, beginning of December). There are a few towns in the Keys that do a lot of STRs, but they’re fairly expensive to get in to.