Guest having loud sex in the bathroom - update: now threatening to sue

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Hi everyone,
This is my first time posting here. For context I am a live-in host in New York City. Have been hosting since last September and have had a very positive experience…until now.

The story is developing as I post. So here goes…

A lady from Denver contacted me saying that “she met a man online”, has been talking to him for months and is coming to Brooklyn to meet him for the first time. She says he is in the army (has been stationed in Turkey) and will be coming back on the day she arrives. She says they “are in love” and that he will “pack up his life and move to Denver” with her. “Stranger things have happened” she says. A few things bother me about this situation:

  1. She has never met a guy that she will bring to my home.

  2. Her language - that I feel is too melodramatic and makes me think she is a naive person. (e.g “I am so pleased you could be a part of our story.” or “I appreciate you being so willing to take a risk on a couple in love”).

  3. She is brand new to Airbnb. So no reviews.
    So I am skeptical , but what the hell, I am also curious about how this will pan out. So against my own advice I accept her reservation.

She arrives Saturday morning . She seems nice. Her “man” is going through some “clearing process” in Ohio, so his arrival is delayed. She does not see him. Fast forward to today - Monday morning.
5:00 am - my husband gets up, goes to make some tea, sits in the kitchen to do his morning reading.
5:20 am - my husband runs back to the bedroom terrified and grossed out - "I think she has someone in there, I think they are having sex…loud"
5:45 am - I get dressed and go to bathroom to brush my teeth. Before I enter the bathroom I see that she has the door slightly open and is peeping out. After bathroom I go to the kitchen, put a pot to boil to make my coffee and come back to my bedroom. The second I close the door, I hear her going to the bathroom.

  • I can hear the shower in my room, and some point there sounds as if someone banged on something or fell…
    6:00 am - water has boiled I go back to kitchen, to make coffee and sit in front of my laptop. My husband joins me as well. I want to figure out if she did bring a stranger to our home. Well I won’t need to cause we realize that there are two people in the bathroom and they are not there for a shower. Loud moans, bangs , talking, sounds as if someone fell in the shower. I was appalled! WTF. And my poor husband I was more disturbed then I was.

6:15 ( I think ) - she comes out of the shower barely wrapped in a towel ( she is very big ) followed by what looked to me a like a Mexican kid quarter her size ( not that thats relevant… just to give you a sight ) also half naked wrapped in a towel waist down. And I get little half smile " oh " from her, as if she is some naughty kid who got caught doing something naughty.

6:45 - more sex ensues, which we can again hear because we are in the kitchen. We decide to go back to our bedroom.

For context:
We have a two bedroom apartment with the bedrooms located on either end of the apartment with big kitchen, living room, and bathroom and hallway with closets in between the bedrooms giving both our guests and us plenty of privacy. And we NEVER heard anyone have sex and we have had plenty of couples stay with us . And we are not old or old-fashioned.

I know this is getting really long…but bear with if got this far.
Both my husband and I agree that she has to go. This is not acceptable. So I send her this message on Air.

"Name,
Unfortunately you can not stay with us any longer. I have to ask you to leave. Today. Here is why:

  1. House rules in the description clearly says “no visitors”. We ( my husband and myself ) can not have you bring unknown men to our home.

  2. I don’t have a house rule that says “Please don’t have sex in our bathroom” at 6 am in the morning when both of us are up but that is implied. It is disturbing and grossly inappropriate and inconsiderate to your hosts.
    Additionally, it may also be dangerous. We have sliding glass doors in our bathroom, what if one of you fell and broke the glass and hurt yourselves? This is not a scenario I want to have to deal with.

  3. Another rule I don’t have is " Please don’t walk around half naked in the common areas (after having sex in our bathroom)" but again this is implied.

I realize that you may be new to Airbnb and may not be aware of do-s and don’t-s of being a guest in a shared home. And mistakenly think that it is same as a hotel. It is not. I would suggest that you either rent an entire apartment or a hotel room.
You will be refunded for the remainder of your reservation which is 5 nights.
Check out is before 1:00 pm."

7:30 am - I call Air super-host number that was posted here. Thank you so much for posting this info. This was the first time I had to call Airbnb about a guest.
They told me that this was indeed appalling and it was a clear violation of house rules. The representative said she would contact other departments and they will arrange another stay for her. Because she needs to leave TODAY.

8:00 - I start writing this post

Am I OVERREACTING here?
Thank you for reading this long post.
Sincerely,
Disturbed host

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Somewhat over reacting.

Sex happens. Fat sex hsppens too. You don’t need to upbraid her for meeting up with her lover (who she has told you about so is probably under the mistaken impression you don’t mind.)

I would simply remind her that you don’t allow unauthorised guests and ask her to pay for the additional guest. If she says no then it becomes a situation where you need to ask her to leave.

For me the rest is irrelevant. I personally have put headphones on or played music when I’ve heard my guests getting jiggy. I’ve also stifled a few laughs but that about it in terms of reactions.

EDIT: my personal trigger is smoking. Everything else I would deal with but wouldn’t ask anyone to leave I would simply speak to them and explain that I wasn’t happy for whatever reason.

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The problem is that this is not her “man” she was supposedly meeting here. This is someone she probably picked up in a bar. A complete stranger. And I have an explicit rule about bringing unauthorized guests or visitors in my description.
For clarification I am NOT judging her. I don’t care or mind guests having sex, whether it is fat or skinny. I just don’t think it is acceptable to stay in someone’s home, where you share the bathroom with your hosts and then bring a stranger and have loud sex in the shared bathroom at 6 : 00 am in the morning while clearly knowing that both your hosts are up.
EDIT: her guy is stuck in Ohio. At least thats what she told us yesterday.

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I’m a bit confused. It would be okay if she had brought that man who is stuck in Ohio but not the

Like @zandra, I know that people will have sex in your home. (I have many, many stories about that very subject!) And as she is a first-timer, she probably doesn’t fully understand the aspects of being a guest that are ‘implied’.

So yes, I think it’s a bit of an over-reaction. You’ll get good guests and those who are not-so-good but I’ve found that the good outweigh the others. It’s just something that you have to deal with, hopefully in a firm but friendly fashion.

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Honestly, there is some behavior appropriate for hotels and not appropriate when you are sharing someone’s home. There’s a reason home sharing is a cheaper alternative to a hotel. Social etiquette, to me, would say you do not bring people who are not you travel companions back to the property. Period.

Her weight is neither here nor there and should have been left uncommented on.

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I agree this was in bad taste. And the weight has nothing to do with any of this.

As for the guy stuck in Ohio - yes I was not comfortable with this guy either, because she had never met him in person.
Bottom line for me is that I would simply not stay in someone’s home and have sex in the bathroom, especially a shared one. And I expect the same from my guests

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That’s the problem though, our guests don’t always behave as we would ourselves.

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Yes, you are a bit overreacting.

Sometimes these kind of things happen, that is part of the AirBnB host experience.
People get caught up in the moment and do things they normally would not do.

I would have had a talk with her in person, and told her I feel uncomfortable with her behavior, before throwing her out.

You broke this house rule yourself by allowing her to book, while she already told you she would have a male visitor.

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I too wouldn’t have sex in a shared bathroom. But my assumption is that drink is involved and she didn’t expect you and your husband to be such early risers.

I stayed in an Airbnb in Warsaw where the host’s bedroom was next to mine. He brought a woman home one of the nights I stayed (no idea what their relationship was) and proceeded to have loud sex the whole night. I could hear everything, she was a screamer and the thin wall between us shook.

I left a four star review, because of cleanliness issues but not because of the sex. I dealt with that by putting my headphones on and listening to The World at One. I do love a bit of politics on the radio.

Oh and no I didn’t mention anything about the sex in private feedback either.

The issue here is an authorised guest, and the way to deal with it is to charge the appropriate fee and explain it won’t be tolerated again as it’s against your houserules.

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I never would have allowed this woman to book in the first place. All my host spidey senses are tingling when a stranger I don’t know starts telling me all their personal business. You should have known if she met someone online and were in love they would be having sex that you might not enjoying hearing.

I hope the comment about the “mexican kid” doesn’t really mean she is in there with a literally underage person. Both your comment about his ethnicity and her weight are a turn off. I’d rather listen to people have sex than listen to someone talk about other human beings in that way.

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Thanks for the constructive feedback @Zandra. I suppose I am overreacting :disappointed:
I am starting to feel guilty about throwing her out. [quote=“Zandra, post:9, topic:14159”]
The issue here is an authorised guest, and the way to deal with it is to charge the appropriate fee and explain it won’t be tolerated again as it’s against your houserules.
[/quote]

Yes that is a legitimate issue. I am not comfortable with not knowing who is in my place. I actually added the no visitors rule after I had a guest who brought several friends over every day and some of them stayed overnight several times. Since I did not have an explicit rule about visitors, I let it go.
I can not and would not charge her a fee, since the room rate covers up to two people. In fact I am refunding her all the nights she will not be spending here.
I know lot of posters suggested I talk to her, but I would not even know how to approach the subject…it would be kind of awkward for both us, wouldn’t it?

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Next time, this is the moment to go knock the door and ask “Is everything OK?”. They would have gotten embarrassed and would have toned it down.

A agree with others that you seem to be overreacting a little to a bit of sex.

The real problem is having an uninvited guest over. Supposing the quarter kid wasn’t her man. But why didn’t you just ask her “Oh, did your man arrive tonight?” That would have put her in an awkward situation and would probably have prevented her having anyone else over in your place.

To me, the beginning of your story, also activated my hooker-radar. But I am probably wrong.

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This too is irrelevant. Old people have sex too. Old people do not necessarily mind knowing that other people are having fun.

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I don’t think that just mentioning weight or ethnicity is the same as judging or discriminating someone for these characteristics. To talk about people’s characteristics is a normal element in story telling.

Your comment “…talk about humans in that way…” sounds much more judgmental than what the OP wrote.

For the rest I like your post and agree with them most of the time.

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Why would you feel uncomfortable ? When I smelled cigarette smoke in my flat I immediately went and knocked on the door to find out what was going on.

And in this case since you saw both of them, all you had to do was either follow it up with a message or knock on the door and just say; hey can I speak to you quickly? I don’t know if you realised but actually we don’t allow extra guests.

Me, I’m not so sure this guy isn’t the guy she was talking about all along.

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I disagree.

Referring to either is derogatory in this case because you wouldn’t say : she was skinny and he was white and really tall. By mentioning ‘fat’, ‘Mexican’ and ‘half her size’ the OP is being judgemental and in fact insinuating that this type of sex shouldn’t have been happening (or that she can’t believe this type of sex was happening. Woah that a fat person and a thin Mexican should ever deign to have sex.)

If I follow your argument @GutHend, saying: ‘there were kids at the end of the street causing trouble’ and ‘there were big black kids at the end of the street causing trouble’ is exactly the same, just me telling a story.

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It was an observation, albeit in bad taste and unworthy of mentioning. But in no way meant to demean or shame.
To your other comment, yes this person looked very young, at least for the brief few seconds that I saw him.

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Ok, let me get this straight. This oddball woman books and says she is having a rendezvous with the man of her dreams, who gets delayed and then she goes to a bar and picks up some young kid? Brings that guy home and they go at it in your bathroom. Gross.

So for me, you are not overreacting. Your approved the first guy but did not approve the second guy. You don’t have to allow anyone who makes you uncomfortable to stay in your home. Yes, you should have told them to knock it off but that is equally uncomfortable to you.

You did the right thing by throwing the lady out. I would not want that in my home. She needs to book the no tell motel.

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If we go looking for bad intentions in everything that was ever written or said, the conclusion will probably be that it will be better to stop communicating all together.

If they were big and black I don’t see anything wrong with it. If someone would write “There were kids at the end of the street causing trouble, of course red midgets as usual, who else?” that would be really wrong and reason to react.

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“Shouldn’t have been happening” in my bathroom!!
I think you are making assumptions based on very limited information.

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