Air bnb owner ott or do we deserve to be chucked out?

[Pilloh]

We were forced out of our house due to a water leak in the house. The insurance company said we had to move out due to the severity of the work.

A bit of a nightmare for us as we have a large dog. He’s been called a wonderfully mannered dog by a qualified behaviourist outside the house who really doesn’t care about people/other dogs. But he is a breed used for guarding and therefore very barky at home (we have a command that gets him to be quiet but it doesn’t stop the impulse to bark initially). Not to make excuses, we were working on this with the behaviourist pre-pandemic but our progress stalled so we just manage the situation. Ie we have gates all around our house/garden, don’t allow strangers and the dog to meet inside the house (he’s totally fine with people when they are not on “his” property). Our house is basically Fort Knox and only DH and I are here so it’s all pretty easy to manage.

We told the air bnb owner that please tell the cleaner not to enter house or garden without telling us as dog will run up and bark at strangers. He agreed. We explained the situation and he said he understood.

Yesterday pm, cleaner comes into the garden when I was playing footy - she was fetching something from shed. Dog ran towards her and barked. I gave the recall command which worked initially but then my dog ran back to cleaner and barked. It’s no doubt intimidating. After 20 ish secs dog was in the house and I apologised. Recall is not full proof hence why we never rely on it. We would never have found an Airbnb where we were not assured we would be informed of any person entering the property.

Owner has messaged now saying the cleaner won’t return whilst we are here and that means we have to leave as the owner is not ok with the house not being maintenanced.

Cleaner has visited 4 times without incident as the right procedures were followed.

Who is being unreasonable?

At the end of the day, this arrangement no longer works for the owner. So that's that. He isn't unreasonable to not want the responsibility of keeping people safe from your dog.

Oh I understand you perfectly. I just think you are an irresponsible owner spouting bollocks one way or another.

Train your dog. Problem solved.

I don’t think you’re being unreasonable at all OP, you did everything you could to ensure the owner and cleaner knew about the situation.

Owner shouldn't have agreed to the let.

You shouldn't have a dog you can't control.

OP I don’t think you needed to go to the lengths you did about the history of your dog. It isn’t relevant to the question. You explicitly asked the owner not to allow access to cleaner without notice because your dog may be perceived as overly aggressive under certain circumstances.
The dog is probably more anxious than normal due to being in temporary accommodation.

I suspect the cleaner told the owner she was visiting as instructed but the owner forgot to tell you.

PP are making a lot of assumptions about your dog. If he is absolutely ok everywhere but in your home then he is pretty normal. If he was reactive outside of your house then that would be different. I have visited a lot of homes where you are greeted by a barking dog. But I would start working on it again if it causes you anxiety.

It’s up to the Air B&B how he deals with it but the dog, who had never met the cleaner before, did exactly what 80% of domestic dogs do when a stranger invaded their territory, he barked at her.

We live rurally and have a useless lab who never barks, invites guests in and would put the kettle on if she could. But if someone came into our enclosed rear garden without us inviting them in she would be very vocal and probably run towards them. But to be honest that’s why we have her.

She would instantly back off if I whistled, but if the intruder showed threatening behaviour I have no doubt that she would show more aggression. But then so would my DH if someone jumped the fence into the garden.

But if the OP was a responsible owner, they wouldn't have had to do either.

Therefore the OP is unreasonable because all dog owners have a responsibility to ensure their dog isn't a fucking menace and they can control it even on their own property.

I can see both sides of this, the dog is protecting it's territory - and as it's a dog it doesn't understand that it's an Air BnB and not owned by it's people because it's a dog, and doesn't posses the reasoning skills to realise it's a temporary arrangement and it has no claim over the territory legitimately - it's occupying that space and therefore to the dog is it's territory.
But, that's where the owner comes in, understanding that and ensuring the dog isn't in the position of defending it's territory from anyone else, with no unannounced visitors and the dog restrained/out if there are visitors.

@Pilloh I'm not sure I understand the incident clearly though, was the cleaner there as arranged /pre warned and in the house and you in the garden with the dog out of the way and she came into the garden unexpectedly to get something from the shed? Because in that case I think you are unreasonable as you should have kept the dog on the lead in the garden knowing the cleaner was on the property at all.
On the other hand, if you were in the garden and the cleaner arrived unannounced to get something from the shed when she wasn't actually meant to be there as in it being cleaning day, then I think the cleaner/Air BnB is unreasonable as the agreement was in place, but further to this, no one should be going in unannounced anyway, dog or not when the property is being let. Part of my job is dealing with holiday let's and we always ask/inform if staff need to go in and do something that's come up that wasn't pre arranged (meter reading etc).

Ultimately though the host has been put in the position of choosing between you and the cleaner - a short term guest who although it's longer than a holiday, will be moving on soon (hopefully for you anyway) or the cleaner. They're going to choose the cleaner because they need one on an ongoing basis and they're hard to recruit and hard to keep, where as guests change all the time due to the nature of the business. Clearly this host values the cleaners services and doesn't want to lose them.

Not embarrassed, cheers. 👍

Victim lol

Op will just have to curb her enthusiasm on the day the cleaner's due 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Maverickess Not a cleaning day. Did not expect cleaner at all. Cleaner came randomly.

YANBU.You made your situation clear to the owner prior to renting and they have disregarded this. I don't think they should ask you to leave, and the cleaner should give you notice.

The OP isn't making the host do additional work - it's standard Airbnb policy to tell a guest when the host or an employee is entering the property. The owner may be regretting agreeing to this let in the first place but actually isn't within their right to ask them to leave; this would require OP to break house rules or the property to be uninhabitable. OP over cautioned Airbnb owner by saying dog bites (even though according to them it doesn't) to ensure they took her requests seriously which they clearly haven't.

She did warn him

I think YANBU however unfortunately you don’t the balance of power here. Kick up a fuss to air BnB any maybe you’ll get some compensation for the inconvenience but that’s about it

The owner didn't know the cleaner was coming? So that's why he didn't tell you then.

But that's the point, the cleaner wasn't due - this was not their regular cleaning day/time this was just a random visit that the OP had no knowledge of so could not prepare for.

If the cleaner cleans on Friday afternoons then the OP should not have to be alert for them appearing unannounced on Monday lunchtime ...

Surely overstating the risk of a dog is being polite and cautious not dumb?

Have you got anything in writing to the owner?

You have asked for notice and they have not fulfilled this requirement. You are not being unreasonable.

The op is getting a massively hard time here but it doesn't surprise me as a large majority of MN seem to be dog haters.

She is doing the best she can to manage a reactive dog. Unless you've had a reactive dog yourself you have no idea how hard it is or how soul destroying it can be. She's not passing the dog on to make it someone else's problem, she's being as responsible as she can be to ensure the dog's needs are met AND that he isn't a danger to anyone. Fucks sake, the people saying she shouldn't have a "guarding breed", have a heart yeah?

But you never know why someone might need to access a property, especially in an airbnb. There could be a fire or emergency. Wires might get crossed - gardener, cleaner, window cleaner, workman turns up at the wrong time (which had already happened). Child from neighbouring garden tries to get a ball. These things shouldn’t happen ideally, but if they do, people shouldn’t be taking their lives into their hands.

No she's not she gave up on training

Stop with the "you're all dog haters" bollocks 🙄

I don’t quite understand what happened? Were you aware that she was in the house and she then went outside? Or she just turned up and went into the garden without knocking? If it’s the second I don’t think she should be entering an occupied property without notice or at least knocking. However if the owner of the property has agreed to have a potentially dangerous dog on the property and it did attack their employee I wonder if they would potentially be liable. I wouldn’t put myself in that position as an employer. You are probably too much of a risk to them

Air b&b owner right here. Their cleaner can't clean ..I'm surprised an air b&b owner allowed you to have a dog in their property.

SHE. SHOULD. NOT. NEED. TO. WARN. HIM. IF. SHE. IS. A. RESPONSIBLE. OWNER.

OWNER. IS. WITHIN. RIGHTS. TO. SAY. BITEY. DOG. (SORRY. NONE. BITEY. DOG. BUT. LYING. OWNER). IS. NOW. AN. ISSUE. COS. ITS. UPSET. HIS. DIFFICULT. TO REPLACE. LOYAL. EMPLOYEE.