u/peachymoonoso

I lived in the larger half of my duplex and decided to rent it out to make some extra money. I found what I thought were great tenants and we signed a year lease. It’s been a bit of a bummer and I don’t wish to renew when the lease is up in a few months. From what I can tell I should be ok since I live in an owner occupied duplex. I still live here in the other side if the property. I know CA has strict laws but I don’t believe I’m subject to them from everything I’ve researched. Has anyone been through a similar situation who can maybe give me some advice?

I am running into several issues with new tenants who are a bit controlling. They have pets and are asking me to reschedule maintenance for days when they are home. I live on the property in one half of the duplex and they got mad when I had a new gardener show up to give a quote. He needed to enter their yard and I told them only when he arrived, not with 24 hours. I’ll be honest, since I am responsible for the gardener and I live here, I didn’t see this as an issue. I understand that’s their preference to be home but it doesn’t always work well for my contractors. They are also asking for admin access to my Schlage locks. There’s other stuff and I think I’m just realizing I’m not cut out to be a landlord. I don’t know if this is normal or if I’m being too picky. Thoughts?

I switched to the new fee on Airbnb on two listings and I regret it. I usually have a pretty good idea what pricing should be and Airbnb’s wand helps me dial it in. The only issue is the wand pricing does not factor in how much we lose from the fees. It had my listing priced at what would be my winter rates using their suggestions. I am walking distance to the beach and this is peak season. There has to be an easier way to price listings.
Also, PSA, if you haven’t switched to the new structure, don’t do it until the last second.

A recent guest stayed and at checkout it looked like a piano was dropped on the bed. It was completely broken, all four legs and two of the three support beams, wood split kind of broken. I’ve hosted thousands of stays across four properties and specifically purchased this bed because it’s so sturdy. I have never seen anything like it so I messaged the guest asking what happened, not in an accusatory way, just a “was everything ok and did you guys have any issues I should know about” kind of way. Their response, despite the bed not functioning and being pulled to the center of the room “the bed was fine, we noticed no cracking, the damage was not caused by us”.

On the last day of the review period, I get a notification they’ve reviewed me. Three stars, “great Airbnb, comfortable stay but the hosts post stay communication caused significant stress. After checkout the host accused us of causing an issue with the bed frame, despite us using the bed normally and noticing no cracking, movement, noise, or collapse during our two-night stay. The post-checkout communication caused significant stress and negatively affected our overall experience. Based on how the situation was handled, I would not stay here again.”. So a guest caused damage at my property, refused to accept responsibility and then left ME a negative review?! Airbnb is allowing the review to stay. How is this not retaliatory?

I’ll go first. A guest booked an apartment about two years ago in a locked building and claimed someone entered her apartment. It’s an upstairs apartment with only one entrance, and it’s got door code history showing every time a code is used or the door is locked/unlocked. The only people who have access to the building are Airbnb guests and each guest has a unique code associated with their phone number.
This happened around July 4th, my busiest season of the year. Trust and safety became involved and did an investigation which shut my account down for two weeks. I’d never had an issue and had been hosting since 2014. This is the reason I installed cameras, to protect myself from guests like this who make false claims. To this day I still don’t know what convinced her of these accusations. Thank god I was able to keep my account.

Let me start off by saying I’m an extremely picky person about everything I buy. I’m probably on the spectrum, undiagnosed, but that’s a topic for another day. I manage Airbnb’s and travel a lot so I know what I like, and don’t like. When my husband and I were buying a mattress a few years ago a friend bought a Birch mattress and she liked it. I wanted something that had cleaner materials so I looked into them and ended up purchasing their basic, non lux mattress with the wool topper (an extra add on). It’s now 5 years on and I can honestly say this has been one of my best purchases and my husband agrees.

Here’s why I love it:
It doesn’t sag on the edges or the middle and there is very little motion transfer. It doesn’t sleep hot. It has great non-toxic materials, which was our main reason for purchasing. The price point wasn’t bad.

This is not sponsored. I was recently buying a mattress for an Airbnb we manage so I read through a lot of threads here to see what others like. I just wanted to share about a mattress I love and still love 5 years later.

My husband and I love our old house, possibly more than words can describe. Despite this, I think we’ve failed her and it’s something that keeps me up at night. I never thought I’d be able to own a house, let alone an adorable Spanish revival duplex in Southern California. We started restoring her almost immediately but despite my husband being handy, he made a critical error. When remodeling he tore out all of the lath and plaster, yes, this is as painful for me to type as it is for you to read. We have many regrets. Our handyman convinced him it would be easier to start fresh and open the walls to rewire our knob and tube and replumb. The issue is they didn’t add insulation behind the drywall. I have no good reason why and he doesn’t like to talk about it. We tried to do right by our little house but instead, we will likely have to redo much of the work we did a few years ago when we can afford it someday. I cringe to think that we are one of those couples people hate for destroying an old home and they are right.

My spouse and I disagree on this so I’d like some advice. We manage 12 units and use the same cleaner for all of them. She’s been with us for many years. In the last few years we’ve had her do walkthrough videos because of policy changes at Airbnb. Her phone is full and needs to be upgraded to take longer, more high quality videos. In your opinion should we provide the phone for her to do this or should she provide it?
My spouse and I share differing opinions.

Edit: she’s an independent contractor with other clients. Also, we didn’t realize that other hosts were providing phones for their cleaners so this post has been insightful. Thanks to those who weighed in respectfully.

Ever since I synced my lock with Airbnb guests have had issues checking in. Airbnb sends them the code 48 hours before check in. I send detailed check in info in messages but they never read it.

The amount of guests who message me saying their door code doesn’t work, is absurd. The apartment building has two doors and the code sent is for their interior apartment door. The instructions and codes are all in the messages but now guests no longer read the message. I even have step by step photos added as part of the check in. I’ve tried everything but need suggestions on how to make the 2 am calls stop.

I hope airbnb will change how they send guests info because that pre shared door code seems to be all they see.

I manage properties for a couple owners. One owner always pays me within a day or two. The other one pays around a week later, sometimes longer if they forget. Here’s the thing that’s important to note, I also pay their bills to contractors in an effort to get the contractors payment quickly and keep them coming back. They reimburse during monthly billing so sometimes I can have $3k plus in bills if there was construction, plumbing issue etc.

We purchased what a seller told us was a new mattress. He insisted we shouldn’t unwrap it because it would be hard to transport. We trusted him and paid $800 for the mattress because it was exactly what we were looking for.
The next day, we unwrapped it and discovered the mattress was not new. The fabric had dirt, piling and the piping on the edge was frayed, all signs of use. Also, the tags were removed which isn’t a deal breaker but the other stuff was because we bought something that was misrepresented.

I sent an angry message telling the guy he’s a scammer. That this was an expensive lesson to learn and that it’s his karma for being dishonest. I thought that was that and I was just going to move on and hate myself for trusting someone and not insisting we open the mattress (lessons were learned).

Here’s the kicker. The Zelle payment that we sent didn’t go through!! He wrote me today saying that. I don’t know if it’s a sign or what but crazy, right? I told him I didn’t want the mattress and he can come get it or we would deliver it back for $50 as we are 120 miles away (round trip). We also offered to keep it for $300. He refused all options and said he will sue us and file a police report. This has been the craziest situation ever. The marketplace listing is gone and he said he doesn’t want it back.

I don’t know what I should do at this point. I’m pretty stressed out and just want to be done. I don’t want to scam the guy in any way but I definitely feel like he scammed us. Please advise what I should do.

Just today I noticed I was switched to firm and strict is not an option. Has this happened to anyone else?

I’m looking to move but first of want to visit the place. I am in a bad living situation so I’m looking for a short term rental until I can move and will leave as soon as tomorrow.

My main goals right now:

Good weather, not too hot or cold.
Hiking, trees, nature (need to heal)
Sunshine, not cloudy, foggy weather (I get sad)
Cute downtown area with a good coffee shop

A swimming spot that’s warm enough to swim in would be an absolute bonus.

Any tips?

Owner purchased a building with 7 units all with tenants, all leases were signed under a year ago with leases coming up a different times over the next 6 months. He plans to do extensive repairs (bad flip) and wants to have the building empty.
The ideal situation is to see if we can sign a fixed term extension for anyone who wants to stay until work begins next year. The dilemma is with AB1482. From my understanding the extensive work would be a valid just cause reason. Would it be a bad idea to do a fixed term extension as opposed to just non-renewing once leases are up? Building is in Orange County if that helps.

Had a guest book for one person and three showed up. Immediately got red flags based on appearance and amount of luggage, as well as not being able to contact the guest, and seeing one of the men leaving with a cigarette in hand on camera.
I asked Airbnb to cancel their stay as we only allow two people max. They ghosted me for days. Airbnb got back to me eventually but only after the guests stay was over. The agent said they were in the hospital and that was the delay. I call BS because every time I actually need something important I get the “my shift is about to end” line.

I was worried what I would find when they left, biggest concern was drugs. Thankfully things were ok except the smell of weed. My cleaner ran the ozone machine and laundered all washables including curtains etc. She charged me $200 for the extra work. I sent my invoice to Airbnb as well as a guest next door saying they smelled it in the lobby.

It’s appalling how difficult they are making getting reimbursement. The receipt, screenshot of convo in Airbnb with another guest and photo of the guest on camera wity a cigarette aren’t enough. They have asked for a photo of video of remediation, a report from a professional smoke remediation company showing the smoke levels inside the listing were above normal levels. On top of it, despite my listing having a clear penalty fee for guests beyond my maximum, they won’t be paying that either.

Aircover is a joke. Getting paid for guest damages is like being on trial. You have to prove you’re innocent while the guest who violates the rules gets away with it, penalty free.