Behind the scenes of renting premises on Airbnb. “But we had three really bad experiences.”

The house has three bedrooms, one full bathroom and a separate bathroom with just a toilet. It has a full kitchen, washer and dryer. The entire house is approx. 120 sq m.

The property is located on a large plot, so guests have full access to the paths and forest, we also have a small stream, and guests can feed fish in the koi pond.

We are less than 20 minutes to several different colleges. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is 15 minutes away. It's about an hour to Columbus, Ohio, and about an hour to Cincinnati, too – so the location is great.

We don't have a lot of vacation rentals, but we often have people visiting family, military personnel re-deploying, and people attending graduation ceremonies, bringing new students, or visiting children on parenting weekends – and similar events.

From March to the end of December each year, we had practically no weekends off.

The previous owners were very successful and met a lot of great people, so we decided to continue this business. After purchasing the property, we re-listed under our own name and have been running it ever since. We were hosts for about 2.5 years.

Bad guest experiences made us leave the platform

However, I decided to remove this property from Airbnb for several reasons.

First of all, I was recently diagnosed with a mild form of leukemia. It's not as scary for me as it is for some people, but we don't know when I might get seriously ill, and at some point I might be too sick to run my Airbnb.

However, in 2.5 years we had three really bad experiences – two of which involved the same guests. This was probably the first time that being a host was frustrating for me.

Once the guests stayed for five days. The two men were just hanging out at home. They brought two large, smelly dogs because we allow pets without a fee and they behaved very sloppily. For some reason they drove the car up the driveway and onto the lawn.

They didn't destroy anything or trash the house, but it was very dirty after they left, so it took us a long time to clean up. A few months later, I didn't notice that the same guy was booking the house again.

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Three days before my arrival, I thought: “Oh my God, is it him again?” It was frustrating.

Another time the man said he would come with friends. They stayed for about 10 days and completely destroyed the house – literally dirt and mess. Food wrappers stuffed under mattresses and beds. They threw the cooked food into the flower bed in front of the house. They melted the TV remote control.

Due to the additional cleaning and damage, I submitted a refund request to Airbnb $160 (approx. PLN 660)attaching documentation.

I didn't ask for an excessive amount. In the end, I was only paid $10 (approx. PLN 40) for the TV remote control. I would even prefer they didn't pay anything.

Editorial note: Airbnb, in response to Martin's complaint, said: “We carefully analyzed the uploaded photos, as we do with all damage claims. We partially compensated for the damage found on the host. We value our hosts and strive to support them at every stage of the rental.”

After that, my husband and I decided that maybe it wasn't for us.

My daughter, her girlfriend and their best friend live very close. They are over 20 years old and live in dorms, so we agreed to let them rent a house.

We'll make about half of what we usually make, but I won't have to clean anymore. I don't have to refill snacks and water. I don't have to worry about changing bed linen, towels or providing shampoos or other things.

In the future I will rent the house to my daughter

We didn't use dynamic pricing – I just charged $125 per night (approx. PLN 520) and $75 cleaning fees (approx. PLN 310). If the stay lasted more than 7 days or more than 15 days, I gave 10%. or 15 percent discounts.

For a weekend stay we usually got approx. $325 (approx. PLN 1,350) for two nights – and it could have been for one person or for six people, as we allowed up to six guests at no extra charge.

We are not a tourist town, so we serve people who come for a specific purpose. People don't come to Dayton, Ohio to have a vacation-like experience.

So usually our guests were the same as people we would invite to our family and I wanted to provide them with a nice and affordable place, but not so cheap that they would have guests who would just show up and destroy the house.

We hosted people who unfortunately lost family members in tragic accidents, as well as one regular client who came because her father was in a nursing home. Every month for nine months she spent a long weekend with us at the beginning of the month.

At the beginning of the new year, we already had six reservations – mostly for March and April – so I contacted each guest to explain that I had to cancel their stays.

We met really nice people who stayed with us many times and it was a bit sad to deprive them of this opportunity.

Normally, we earned on average approx. $2,300 per month (approx. PLN 9,550). Now we will collect from my daughter and her roommates approx. $1,300 per month (approx. PLN 5,400) — including all media.

They will also do some gardening, which will save us extra money. So I think it will all even out in the end because I no longer have to provide bedding and snacks or pay someone to clean up.

Once I regain my health and my daughter decides to move out, we will probably use a platform like Furnished Finder and move to something more long-term where I can have more control.

The above text is a translation from American edition of Business Insider

Axel Springer, the parent company of Insider Inc., is an investor in Airbnb