When you are going on vacation, you want everything to go smoothly so that you can relax and enjoy yourself, but that is not always what happens.

What would you do if your neighbor was renting his house out, and the guests who were going to stay started coming in your yard demanding that you let them in the house?

That is what happened to the neighbor in this story, so finally he got ahold of the house owner and the rental got cancelled, leaving the rude vacationers stranded.

“I’m not your BnB! You just climbed into my backyard…”

My neighbors are Airbnb-ing out their home while they’re in Europe. It’s been a pretty problem free experience…until today.

Ok, no big deal so far.

Yesterday, I was studying at home. At midday, I saw a car pull up in front of my neighbor’s house. A couple exited and immediately went up to the front door to knock.

As time passed, and no one answered, they started exploring the property, presumably searching for someone. Unfortunately for them, no one was home. This is where things started to get…interesting.

Why would he want to go into someone else’s yard?

The man, growing increasingly agitated, decided the sensible thing to do in this situation was to climb over a fence into my neighbor’s backyard.

As I watched, perplexed by his decision making, I saw him wandering around, knocking on, and then trying to forcibly open the backdoor.

Nope, they can’t be doing this.

It was a rather amusing sight. That is, until he gave up and decided the next thing he’d like to do is climb the fence from my neighbor’s backyard into mine. Oh, no…

At the moment, our landlord is building an extension to the house, and immediately I’m worried that this man might accidentally injure himself on the construction site. I rush out to speak to him.

What are they doing in his yard!

What I’m met with is an out-of-breath, red-faced man and a woman, whose face looks awful, rapidly descending down my driveway towards me. Knowing a little about my neighbors arrangement I initially try to help:

“Hi, are you guests at Neighbor’s Airbnb? Check-in isn’t until 3.00 PM. I don’t think you’ll find anyone there at the moment.”

Why would she be unhappy, he is trying to help.

The lady, now upon me, was unhappy after hearing this.

“You need to let us into the house!!!”

Not his house lady, nothing he can do for you.

I’m taken aback. “I’m sorry? I’m not your Airbnb host, I just live next door. You should get in touch with the neighbor, as they’ll be able to help.”

Ignoring the perfectly rational advice I’ve given them, the lady starts turning a deep shade of red, her partner silently glaring at me, his face beginning to contort with anger.

How is this the neighbor’s fault?

“They told us we could check in at 10.00 AM!”

“You should really contact your host. As I’ve said, I’m just the neighbor.”

These people are irrational.

This only seemed to anger the couple more, and the lady immediately started shouting at me: “YOU NEED TO LET US IN OR I AM CALLING THE POLICE!”

Wow.

At this point I’m getting pretty annoyed . I tried to explain the situation to her again, but only got so far as “I can’t let you in…” before she cut me off.

He doesn’t have your money you crazy lady.

“LET US IN OR GIVE US OUR MONEY BACK!”

Now, in her increasing anger, coherent sentences started to break down, which in hindsight was pretty funny to watch. It became a series of “YOU TOLD US 10.00 AM”, “GIVE ME BACK MY MONEY”, and more threats to call the police who would apparently get them a refund.

Maybe they have had a long day of traveling.

I’ve never seen someone get so belligerently mad in such a short amount of time. At this stage, I’m done with being polite.

“Lady, I am NOT your Airbnb host. You (gesturing to the man) climbed over the fence into my backyard, which is why I’m out here speaking to you. You both need to leave and contact your host. I know that their check-in isn’t until 3.00 PM.”

She is mad at the wrong person.

Being forceful at least interrupted her tirade, but she was still mad. As I watched her, I could see her slowly starting to process the situation. Despite this, she wouldn’t apologize or admit she was wrong. Instead, what she blurted out next was:

“Can we at least store our luggage with you then?”

Absolutely not.

“…what?”

She repeats herself, this time much louder, apparently still under the delusion that yelling is the way to get what she wants.

Nope! You’re not leaving anything with me!

Hopefully the neighbor will take care of this.

After a further brief exchange they left, and I immediately let my neighbors know what happened.

Now, here’s the justice to the story:

My neighbors were annoyed. Really, really, annoyed. They tried to contact their guests, but they wouldn’t answer their phone.

Eventually they let Airbnb know what happened. Airbnb tried to reach out to them, too. Again, the guests were uncontactable.

Something suspicious is going on here.

During our exchange, the man let me know his name. Let’s call him Bob. As it turns out, the booking was made under a completely different name.

Both my neighbors and Airbnb tried to verify who was staying, but Bob wasn’t responding to their calls or messages. Eventually, Airbnb decided to cancel Bob’s booking.

Oh, they aren’t going to be happy about this.

I wrote a note letting Bob know he needed to check his Airbnb messages and that his booking had been canceled “due to the situation this morning”.

At 3.00 PM, the car returned, this time filled with four more people. Apparently, Bob was trying to sneak in a few extra unpaid guests.

Maybe if they were nice, or answered their phone, this wouldn’t happen.

I watched the quiet resignation on their faces as they read the note. It felt good.

As an aside, my neighbor managed to rebook the dates with a lovely Chilean couple, and Airbnb honored the payout for the insane couple’s cancelled booking.

Wow, this was really nice of them.

My neighbors insisted on giving me a portion of the payout for my trouble, but honestly knowing that these horrible people were inconvenienced was enough.

When you’re on vacation, you should be laid back and go with the flow, not freak out and get upset with complete strangers.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

Exactly, they are breaking the law.

Yup, let them call the police on themselves.

How does this even make sense.

Here is someone who would have called the cops.

Short term rentals can cause problems.

And now you have nowhere to stay.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.