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?

That is not what the law says at all. The law says it is an offence to allow a dog to be dangerously out of control in a public place and mentions causing reasonable apprehension of injury.

1/Not a public place
2/The person in question knew the protocol, had presumably agreed to it, therefore had a way of avoiding feeling any intimidation from the dog - yet chose not to.

The air bnb owner had no obligation to agree to the guests requests. However, once they HAD agreed, one could argue it constituted a verbal contract to do x/not do x and they broke it.

Visiting someone’s house with dogs is a completely different scenario to a stranger trespassing in your garden and I think you may find your nice, well trained dogs would have something to say about that.

you don’t know anything about dogs.

I was a stranger to all the dogs mentioned the 1st time I visited. I walked through the garden gates and up to the houses and rang or knocked. Most friends' dogs didn't give a shit unlike the friend with the 3 that bark like mad. The cleaner could have been a delivery person or a council worker or anyone at all that was approaching a house or garden. Do you know how many Royal Mail workers are injured by dogs each year because people think their dogs need to "defend their territory"? There's much more risk of someone getting attacked by a dog than of a stranger trying to enter your property with ill-intent! So who really poses the threat? Not the cleaner! So train your dog to understand that the vast majority of strangers are just people going about their day. Not some great existential threat to them. Pretty sure if there was a burglar in the middle of the night or someone tried to attack you that your dog would step up but for you to be glad that your dog treats every human as a potential attacker/burglar is very negligent and says a lot about the type of person you are. Going into a house with a dog/dogs that think their job is to police the doorway/garden is very frightening. Never knowing what the dog's intentions are and whether the owner has them under control. Wondering if you'll pass the sniff test or be savaged. Imagine if humans answered the door or ran across the garden brandishing weapons and shouting! But because it's a dog we are all meant to think it's cute and wonderful that they are "protecting their home". Bullshit.

I know enough about dogs to know how deadly they can be and that peoples' lives can be ruined by dogs that are not trained and are aggressive towards people they do and/or don't know. Fed up with high and mighty dog owners trying to defend the indefensible. I worked in a community job where I had to enter people's homes. The intimidation I experienced from people's pet dogs was so awful in recent years that I left my profession. Dog owners just cannot grasp that not everyone wants their dog jumping at them or barking aggressively.

YABU. It’s 3.5 years since lockdown. You’ve had ample time to get your animal’s behaviour sorted. If it’s a large dog then I’m not surprised the cleaner has taken fright when it’s ignored its recall.

This is really no excuse for training your dog. It’s out of control & you are the reason why. YABU to expect others just to accept your dog barking at them like that. I love dogs but poor recall & handling is scary as you never know what could happen.

Actually, the Air BnB owner was obliged (regardless of whatever he agreed with the OP) to give prior notice whenever anyone in his employ was going to enter the premises.

The OP’s request for prior notification was (even if the OP didn’t realize) simply a request that the owner/cleaner abide by existing Air BnB policies - which they failed to do.

Exactly this. Had OP omitted the dog and said the cleaner entered the garden without any prior arrangement and without even checking first there'd be 'complaint', 'review' and 'bad customer service' littering this thread. There's plenty who would make a massive big deal out of it and who would have had their whole stay, if not life, completely ruined because of it. OP doesn't really strike me as one of those people mind.

But because a dog is involved it's absolutely fine for the cleaner to go in whenever she likes and OP just has to put up with it.

I agree with all of that but it still doesn’t give the owner or the cleaner the right to breach Air BnB’s policies and access the property without notice (not least when the OP has made very clear that the policy needs to be followed).

OP needs to up her training game, clearly, but that doesn’t mean she’s at fault in this specific instance.

Your dog has issues. And you’re making excuses that have been going on for 3 years at least. Get rid of the dog

But the dog is the entire issue here. The cleaner wouldn't have had to make a complaint had the dog not gone for her twice and therefore the OP wouldn't have been asked to leave. The whole situation is about the dog. If the cleaner went to the shed and OP had no dog she wouldn't have been asked to leave the property and I would imagine the OP would hardly have thought it noteworthy enough to start a thread complaining that a cleaner turned up to get something from the shed. Oh the horror!!! Cleaner goes into Airbnb shed to retrieve something without 48 hour written notice! What a disgrace!!!!! That is outrageous!!

Wise up!

The cleaner wouldn’t have had to have made a complaint if she followed Air BnB’s terms, despite having the need to do so impressed upon her.

She and the owner are unreasonable to fail to abide by the terms and conditions of a contract and refuse to do so on an ongoing basis.

That doesn’t mean that the dog doesn’t need training but the owner is legally at fault.

Yanbu. You communicated the situ clearly.

Ref your dog, so he does warning barks? Big deal. He didn't bite her or anything. People are twits about dogs. If he'd wanted to bite, he would have!

The owner or cleaner needs to notify you. That's simple, surely? It's not like you're not paying for the cleaner, you are even if that's via your insurers.

You own a dog. You are responsible for its behaviour, nobody else is obliged to be frightened, disturbed, or mildly inconvenienced by it. Not even for one second.

You are not a victim of circumstance. Your dog's behaviour is entirely your problem. Own it.

I'm going to preface this with the fact I'm a dog lover, owner, and have in the past had reactive dogs.

The way I see this is that you know your dog doesn't bite. But the owner and cleaner think he does. Because you told them that.

The cleaner came in unannounced. Against the agreement yes, but in life not everything is announced. The dog barked and ran towards the cleaner. He stopped when you told him to but you didn't get hold of him. So he runs towards them again. Cleaner now thinks an aggressive dog who you told them bites, is running at them and you haven't really tried to stop it, or control your dog properly.

I see where you're coming from but I think you're in the wrong here. You described your dog incorrectly and didn't attempt to control him and now you're upset people believe the dog you told them bites, does in fact bite. You failed your dog.

Well massively condescending but ok.

I work in accommodation and it's standard that you do not enter SC accomodation without prior notice except in cases of emergency, it's written into the terms of Air BnB........
And people would and absolutely do complain about stuff like this and less.

I've dealt with complaints when the guests have left the gate unlocked and a meter reader read the outside meter, and more than once when despite being asked & pre warned if they don't do it, a member of staff will, complaints about us putting bins in & out on bin day and the 'intrusion'. And it's gone in reviews as well as verbally on check out. One even complained about a man up a telegraph pole outside on the road - we don't bloody have control over that!

So I think you're probably the one who needs to 'wise up' there if you think some people wouldn't have an issue with it!

I agree that the dog needs training, OP agrees that the dog needs training but as much as this wouldn't have happened if the dog wasn't there/was trained, it also wouldn't have happened had the terms and conditions that are set with each let were adhered to. As a pp said, OP didn't realise what she was asking for was in fact a condition of the booking anyway. Had that condition been honoured then there wouldn't have been a problem either.

I don't understand - are you wanting your dog to be a guard dog? Why?

Sorry but that’s nonsense (as someone who doesn’t like dogs having been attacked by a pitbull type - I got off lightly but still have PTSD).

If you enter someone’s property (even rented), when you are prohibited by contract from doing so, and having been specifically warned that there is a reactive dog on the premises, you cannot reasonably complain about being barked at.

no that's not correct. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2631482/Pet-owners-warned-jail-threat-dogs-jump-greet-visitors-homes.html

At the front door to protect delivery ppl & posties. Not in the back garden, or living room or anywhere else. The DM have just worded it to be as alarmist as possible

You are wrong about this. Your dog is not allowed to be out of control or indtimidate guests in your home - the law changed in 2014 after a spate of bad bites in private residences. It is illegal for a dog to be out of your control in 'any place'.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1991/65/section/3

YANBU - owner/cleaner didn't follow your instructions. You gave them the instructions for a reason.

I’m glad to hear you have new accommodation.

I voted AIBU simply because I couldn’t possibly have it on my conscience if the dog were to harm anyone and I’m sure the AIRBnB owner is all too conscious of that.

But there is an exemption where the person has no legal right to be on the property. The cleaner had no legal right to access the property without giving notice.

@Katbum

https://www.gov.uk/control-dog-public

Somebody walking into your home unannounced is not what they are talking about else a dog couldn't bark at a burglar.

Should this dog have been reported the fact it has no bite history & the owners have made explicit attempts to prevent access (multiple doors, gates AND SIGNS!) they wouldn't lose their dog cos it barked at someone who appeared in their garden without warning & ignoring the pre-established procedure.

Since when is a dog that barks unsafe? Dogs bark, they are DOGS. Did you pay extra to keep your dog there? If so then either they reimburse you for that and you find another place or they tell the cleaner to learn to follow directions. I would also leave a bad review of the Airbnb when you leave.