‘I hope this isn’t happening to a lot of other hosts out there’: Viewers split as Airbnb host says Airbnb policy cost him big on 11-night booking
An Airbnb host said he was getting "f*cked" by the company and called them out for ghosting him and making him lose out on the income of a nearly two-week stay. He urged viewers to call out Airbnb in the comments.
In the viral video, TikTok user Kyle Toomey (@kyle_toomey) explained that they had an 11-night booking, but within hours of being in the home, they canceled the reservation and got a full refund from Airbnb — leaving Toomey with $0 for their stay and less likely to get booked for the remaining days.
"I'm an Airbnb host. I'm getting absolutely f*cked by Airbnb," Toomey said.
He said he'd been an Airbnb host for a year and quickly became a Superhost. He said he tries to go above and beyond for guests, leaving fresh flowers, fully stocking the home, and being generally communicative.
Toomey went on to say that his area has a lot of construction going on, which also means there are sometimes rodents in the neighborhood. Toomey regularly gets the home treated for pests and did so before these guests' stay after hearing from a neighbor that they'd spotted a mouse.
For the sake of transparency, Toomey let the guests know about this. That's where commenters say he went wrong. Within hours of the guests arriving, Airbnb called Toomey to let him know there were listing inaccuracies related to the parking situation so the guests could leave with a full refund.
Toomey debunked that with screenshots, showing that he'd stated clearly that there was no private covered parking. Then he gets another call from Airbnb, this time about the mouse message. The guests "didn't feel safe" because there was a mouse in the neighborhood, and since Toomey couldn't give a 100% guarantee of no pest being in the house, they were allowed to get a full refund.
https://www.tiktok.com/@kyle_toomey/video/7299272218557631787"What neighborhood out there exists where there's no mice or rodents in it? That can't be a valid claim for someone to actually leave early," Toomey told them. "... What mouse, pest treatment is 100% proof? That's not a thing."
Toomey points out that they're losing 11 days worth of income since the guests aren't staying, and it's less likely someone else will grab up the home at the last minute for those days.
"Pretty salty about it to be honest. We've kinda moved on to some degree, but at the end of the day we don't feel like Airbnb has our best interest in mind ... and we feel like Airbnb is banging us right now."
The guests did ultimately leave, and over the next few days, Toomey reached out to Airbnb multiple times and didn't hear back until the fourth attempt.
"We're more so disgruntled with Airbnb as opposed to the guests. Airbnb just has not communicated with us and we feel like they put the guests on a higher pedestal than the hosts that work really hard," Toomey said in another video.
In a follow-up video, Toomey addressed the people who said he overshared about the mouse and agreed that in the future, he shouldn't give so much information.
The video has over 400,000 views and more than 2,200 comments.
"I think you are too nice. These are not your friends. Don’t tell them about mice next door. You over communicate," the top comment read.
"Kinda seems like AirBNB doesn’t care about hosts OR guests," a person said.
"Why would you tell them what’s going on at the neighbors?" another asked.
"On Airbnb’s side 100%," a commenter wrote.
In an email response Toomey said that despite reaching out to Airbnb multiple times he still hasn’t heard back. He added that they were able to rebook a few of the cancelled nights “and overall really enjoy being super hosts.”
“A lot feedback we’ve gotten from the TikTok has honestly been helpful and will definitely guide our communication with guests going forward,” Toomey said.
The Daily Dot reached out to Airbnb for comment via email.
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