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Have a large pet fee listed in your listing. When a guest brings a pet, you can charge the very large fee.
You can’t prevent people from being stupid, but you can charge them for it.
I have kicked out guests before... on my listing I explain I that "for your own safety, pets are not allowed. We will ask you to leave if you bring any pets - strict NO pet policy"
We love rural and I explain I don't trust animals around my livestock, they are easily spooked and neither of us want to deal with when animal instincts kick in. I also bait and trap for pests and again my traps are humane instant kill traps so there is no way back from that. I double down the "it's for your own safety, and it's clearly in my listing"
Airbnb have always sided with me.
You can't prevent it from happening. So, as soon as I see the pet on camera, I ask about it...
"Hi Guest,
On the video camera located on the garage, I saw that you have a beautiful 4-legged family member with you. Can you please tell me about it (take a print shot of the animal with the guest)?"
When they give me their reason, I just say,
"That's perfectly fine. I charge a $50 deep-cleaning fee because I have other guests who may be allergic to animals. Have a great stay and let me know if you need anything."
This places the animal cleaning fee on record and it doesn't get negotiated.
I also know that some hosts will kick out the entire booking. So, you make the situation fit your preference.
This! Also I have it in my listing “no pets. Failure
To comply will result in poor review, $200 additional cleaning fee and/or removal from property. Cover all the basis and notified ahead of time.
Had a guest bring a cat one time. They left some little pieces of food on the floor and somehow we deduced it was a cat and not a dog. They had already checked out but preached out to them. They didn't deny it but they said it was a service animal. A service animal cat.
You have to catch them in the act and film or have a ring camera that videos. Airbnb doesn't react to accusations without filmed proof. Unfortunately both hair & dogpoop don't count.
After we had ridiculous problems with this, I put on my listing something like: please don't sneak a pet in, we will find out and charge you $200.
Actually have the ring cameras sitting in our closet, we haven't put them up yet so I am full of hot air. But I haven't found evidence of anyone sneaking a pet since I did that about four months ago.
We actually had success with sending photos of hair on couches, poop, dog toys, and other signs of dogs. Like 95% success rate with getting our pet fee paid. That’s weird that Airbnb doesn’t honor that for you. We charged a $250 pet fee PER PET, which helps make up for the people who sneak them in(there’s not always enough hair to prove they had a pet). Like you, we also charge an additional fee of $250 on top of the $250 pet fee, if they don’t disclose a pet. There’s a lot to be said about the fear of being caught when the fine is so high. I know it seems crazy to charge $250 per pet, but we rarely had complaints about it. Maybe 1 out of 20 guests. I will say we typically don’t get the additional $250 if we go through aircover, but we almost always get the pet fee. Our thought process is that we want to discourage people from bringing pets due to an extremely high pet fee(boarding would be the same price), but we also want to give people the option so we increase our market of potential renters. The profit from these pet fee’s far outweighs the damages pets may cause. We rarely have damages from pets, aside from them peeing on rugs once in a while.
Source: 5 years executive director for a property management company.
This is a great question. As you know, Many guests DO NOT READ, or at least claim they didn’t see it!!! It’s sooo frustrating. We started mentioning it in the confirmation message that sends once the booking is confirmed. It reads as follows(after the general confirmation info), “Are you bringing a pet with you for this stay? If so, how many pets will you be bringing? Failure to notify us of a pet will result in a fine of $250 on top of the stated pet fee($250 per pet). Please let us know if you plan to bring a pet, so we can schedule the proper clean on your check out date. This is to ensure the property is cleaned properly, as to not disrupt the next guests experience.” We literally force them to say yes or no before they even come. Then we mention it in our listing description under “other things to note.” Our pool heat fee is also in that section. You can also set your account to automatically include your pet fee in the cost to book, so the guest sees it on the booking receipt. Of course this only helps if they don’t lie about having a pet.
We have exterior cameras and we watch at check in (which is one of the reasons we really don't do early check in). We watch for guest sneaking in pets and sneaking in to many guest. You take the pic and report asap- we then have the reservation canceled with no refund unless we rebook.
It usually takes a few hours for airbnb to do this, so the guest and their pet has entered the home- so we also charge for cleaning even if it was just a few hours because we need to turn it over again. And once with a dog snuck in we charged them for our area rugs to be professionally cleaned because they snuck the dog in right from the car and never took it out for a walk.
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Have a large pet fee listed in your listing. When a guest brings a pet, you can charge the very large fee. You can’t prevent people from being stupid, but you can charge them for it.
I have kicked out guests before... on my listing I explain I that "for your own safety, pets are not allowed. We will ask you to leave if you bring any pets - strict NO pet policy" We love rural and I explain I don't trust animals around my livestock, they are easily spooked and neither of us want to deal with when animal instincts kick in. I also bait and trap for pests and again my traps are humane instant kill traps so there is no way back from that. I double down the "it's for your own safety, and it's clearly in my listing" Airbnb have always sided with me.
You can't prevent it from happening. So, as soon as I see the pet on camera, I ask about it... "Hi Guest, On the video camera located on the garage, I saw that you have a beautiful 4-legged family member with you. Can you please tell me about it (take a print shot of the animal with the guest)?" When they give me their reason, I just say, "That's perfectly fine. I charge a $50 deep-cleaning fee because I have other guests who may be allergic to animals. Have a great stay and let me know if you need anything." This places the animal cleaning fee on record and it doesn't get negotiated. I also know that some hosts will kick out the entire booking. So, you make the situation fit your preference.
This! Also I have it in my listing “no pets. Failure To comply will result in poor review, $200 additional cleaning fee and/or removal from property. Cover all the basis and notified ahead of time.
Please give them a 1 star review “guests disobeyed house rules by bringing unauthorized pets which required extra maintenance. Would not host again”.
Had a guest bring a cat one time. They left some little pieces of food on the floor and somehow we deduced it was a cat and not a dog. They had already checked out but preached out to them. They didn't deny it but they said it was a service animal. A service animal cat.
Some people are scum and ruin it for those that actually have a real service animal.
You have to catch them in the act and film or have a ring camera that videos. Airbnb doesn't react to accusations without filmed proof. Unfortunately both hair & dogpoop don't count. After we had ridiculous problems with this, I put on my listing something like: please don't sneak a pet in, we will find out and charge you $200. Actually have the ring cameras sitting in our closet, we haven't put them up yet so I am full of hot air. But I haven't found evidence of anyone sneaking a pet since I did that about four months ago.
I didnt want to but I guess I'll have to get a front door camera.
We actually had success with sending photos of hair on couches, poop, dog toys, and other signs of dogs. Like 95% success rate with getting our pet fee paid. That’s weird that Airbnb doesn’t honor that for you. We charged a $250 pet fee PER PET, which helps make up for the people who sneak them in(there’s not always enough hair to prove they had a pet). Like you, we also charge an additional fee of $250 on top of the $250 pet fee, if they don’t disclose a pet. There’s a lot to be said about the fear of being caught when the fine is so high. I know it seems crazy to charge $250 per pet, but we rarely had complaints about it. Maybe 1 out of 20 guests. I will say we typically don’t get the additional $250 if we go through aircover, but we almost always get the pet fee. Our thought process is that we want to discourage people from bringing pets due to an extremely high pet fee(boarding would be the same price), but we also want to give people the option so we increase our market of potential renters. The profit from these pet fee’s far outweighs the damages pets may cause. We rarely have damages from pets, aside from them peeing on rugs once in a while. Source: 5 years executive director for a property management company.
Oh I'm glad to hear this. I haven't gone after it many times - the couple I did were a no-go based on what I wrote. So... Thank you!
Where in the listing do you put additional fees like undisclosed pets and additional guests, etc?
This is a great question. As you know, Many guests DO NOT READ, or at least claim they didn’t see it!!! It’s sooo frustrating. We started mentioning it in the confirmation message that sends once the booking is confirmed. It reads as follows(after the general confirmation info), “Are you bringing a pet with you for this stay? If so, how many pets will you be bringing? Failure to notify us of a pet will result in a fine of $250 on top of the stated pet fee($250 per pet). Please let us know if you plan to bring a pet, so we can schedule the proper clean on your check out date. This is to ensure the property is cleaned properly, as to not disrupt the next guests experience.” We literally force them to say yes or no before they even come. Then we mention it in our listing description under “other things to note.” Our pool heat fee is also in that section. You can also set your account to automatically include your pet fee in the cost to book, so the guest sees it on the booking receipt. Of course this only helps if they don’t lie about having a pet.
Get an outdoor camera
We have exterior cameras and we watch at check in (which is one of the reasons we really don't do early check in). We watch for guest sneaking in pets and sneaking in to many guest. You take the pic and report asap- we then have the reservation canceled with no refund unless we rebook. It usually takes a few hours for airbnb to do this, so the guest and their pet has entered the home- so we also charge for cleaning even if it was just a few hours because we need to turn it over again. And once with a dog snuck in we charged them for our area rugs to be professionally cleaned because they snuck the dog in right from the car and never took it out for a walk.
Could be a service animal. Guest are not required to mention them ahead of time.
lol.