Airbnb guest let her dogs loose in my garden

[willowwonder]

I live on the same row of houses as an Airbnb. The Airbnb is in the middle of the row. My house and garden is at the end of the row, where there is a dropped kerb, and an open driveway/parking area leading into the garden. So there is no gate, just the driveway opening. Garden has usual garden things, like kids toys, sheds, raised planters, etc.

This morning, the Airbnb guest walked right past us putting kids in the car, she turned into my driveway, and walked into my garden - with 2 dogs. I was strapping the toddler in and honestly took me a few seconds to register what was going on. Once she reached the grass in the garden, she let the 2 dogs off the lead! And then they were running around my garden!! She was sort of wandering about, looking at my raised beds, totally casual.

So DH followed her and called after her "what are you doing??" I couldn't hear her reply but after a few seconds they both appeared back. The dogs were running about. One jumped into my car. I pushed it out and DH got in the car, sort of rolling his eyes. I heard the woman say "I was told it was dog friendly here...". Haha - what, in my garden!??

This is an absolutely wild thing for her to do, right?? The Airbnb isn't even next door. Like, there is no world in which she would have thought my garden was part of her Airbnb property. She just walked down the street, past a few houses, past ME and into my garden, to let her dogs run around it. Presumably to poo.

What on earth could have been going through her head??

AIBU to think this is INSANE behaviour?

I find it amazing how many walkers have maps, yet leave the path and try to walk up my driveway and through my garden. Last time someone tried this (while walking very close to the back end of a pony as he tried to duck through the gate before I closed it on him) insisted that I should go to the trouble and expensive of erecting a sign post, despite signs on the gate and a MAP IN HIS HAND! Do any of you actually LOOK at them?!

Dog people gonna be dog people but I think we need a diagram to understand just how unreasonable she was

And an outing hobby.

I would be inclined to agree with that. We were once in Port Issac and walked up to where Doc Martin’s house was filmed.

People were peering in the windows and sitting on the frontage. It was clear it was someone’s home.

I have had that before and I have a gate. My garden is huge but it in no way resembles a play park.
Once the dog owner said that the air BnB said that they had use of the garden ground (yes but not MY garden ground). Another time they said they wanted somewhere safe for their dogs to play. When I asked if people let dogs in their garden to play they said of course not and looked at me as if I was mad.
The best though was when a family tried to let their children into my garden to play unaccompanied as it looked more fun than the patch of artificial grass outside the air BnB. When I asked what on earth they were doing they just said but we're on holiday - well that's alright then.
Honestly some people are just so entitled.

I digress. Complain, OP, and make yourself a pain in the arse. We have a holiday cottage near us and customers seem to think that because they are on holiday, it doesn't matter what they do, because they will be gone in a week. Owners of children and dogs are the worst. The owner thinks that because he is running a business, he gets priority over things like a rapidly dwindling private water supply in the drought. Luckily, the management company who handle the bookings are a bit more reasonable, otherwise we would be stuffed. There really needs to be more recourse for people who are forced to live near these properties. I have also become a lot more unpleasant and now have a couple of staffies on my property, which makes people think twice. We are in Scotland, where there is right to roam, and I have actually had people open my driveway gates, walk 200 yards to my garden, before plonking their arse on my garden chairs and watch their dogs take a shit and simpering, "Right to Roam!" at me when I lost my rag. Not in my garden there isn't!

Is it some kind of brain worm sucking out the brains of people who were not very bright to begin with perhaps?

I think she MUST have thought it was an open communal area round the side of a house or something like that. . Nobody sane uses a private garden as a poo place for dogs.

From OP’s diagram there doesn’t seem to be much room for confusion - it clearly seems to be a private garden.

i think the most likely thing is that the individual just DGAF

Most people who describe other people as "insert word - people", are shit heads.

Yeah maybe. That's a bit weird. Maybe she just cant control the dogs ....what , with the dog jumping in the car etc. And maybe when they ran off into the garden she just had no control over them and didnt want to admit it so just pretended it wasnt an issue.

Oh of course. An outing hobby that the DH does.

With apologies to the OP, who I do have sympathy with:

"I was about to drive DH to his hobby that he does several times a week (can't say what as outing) and my MIL had turned up uninvited and insisted I give her a lift as well, when we saw the AirBnB resident letting her dogs off the leash in our garden. My DH went to speak to her even though this was possibly going to make him late for his hobby (it's a time-dependent one, but I can't say what as its outing). One of the dogs came running out and bloody MIL didn't close the door in time so it jumped into the car and on DH's hobby equipment (expensive, but I can't say what as outing).

MIL blamed me of course for not having put up a gate to our garden and not her previous DS, even though you can clearly see from the diagram that it's private property. And the CF from the AirBnB with the dogs didn't even apologise."

This is so outrageous that I think she must have believed your garden to be some kind of communal green?! There’s no way anyone would confidently walk past the owners of a house and into their garden to let the dogs off the lead? No one in their right mind anyway!

Typo: precious not previous!

@ABoldStatement You missed a bit. "I was about to drive DH to his hobby that he does several times a week (can't say what as outing) and my MIL and step-daughter had turned up uninvited."

Sympathies, OP. Kick up a fuss with the owner and the booking agent and be relentless!

To play devil's advocate, she could have thought that that extra bit on the side was like a communal field or something. Everyone else just has the bit behind their house. You would check though if you were literally walking past people to get in

I agree. We have neighbours who rent out their own home as an Air BnB - they stay somewhere else of a weekend and coin in a few hundred for a couple nights . Causes nothing but trouble with noise and trespassing onto our property. So selfish and greedy

What a fucking weirdo she is.

Council too, if your in an area that charges extra council tax for second homes.

So some dogs ran in to your garden? For what like thirty seconds?

I don’t think I would give this a seconds thought.

Most holiday lets are in residential areas though. And they bring a fair bit of income for local businesses.

No, the dogs were led into the OP's garden. Then let off the leash.

Then one ran out of the garden and jumped into the OP's car.

I would if one or both dogs had decided to take a shit in my garden.
And a stranger wandering about in your garden is not OK.

Maybe it's the same reason that makes people park on other people's driveways to collect their kids from school.

Entitlement.

I have the same sort of open front garden - I can't imagine that anyone would think my garden wasn't a garden, but...people..

My friend lives in Salcome and has an AirBnB next door. TWICE she has come downstairs to find families IN HER HOUSE!! Once wandering upstairs looking for 'the office' and anoher time 4 Japanese people sat at her kitchen table - when she told them to leave they got huffy and demanded coffees 😂She looks the door now. People are fucking insane. I live on a farm and the level of entitled batshittery is off the scale since covid.