Hi Martin,

Thanks for responding to my comment. I am looking at this from a therapist’s point-of-view, no doubt. One of the biggest problems I see in my practice is people not accurately interpreting and perceiving information, and also putting a meaning about something together without a shred of evidence to prove their story. This phenomenon is rampant, and close to 90%+ of people have this issue, I’d guess-timate. So when you say “everyone else said it happened to them,” I am skeptical of their reality and meaning making, in addition to the author’s. I also know from my work that people will deny having any part of a situation that didn’t turn out well for them, and afterward concoct a story where they are the hero, the offender is the villain, of course, and the story dictates that the hero was treated cruelly and without cause. (Surely you have heard your friends give you the short version of their divorce.) So I am skeptical of this story, and had I read all of the comments, I would also have been skeptical of theirs.

I feel certain that this action, by Air BNB, did not occur out-of-the blue. Many of the commenters say they will not use Air BNB after reading about such nasty treatment. If you knew how many people are nutty and difficult out there, you might better understand their death penalty policy. They aren’t wanting to deal with the nutty and difficult people, so they accept the sacrifice of losing some of the ones who were truly ill-treated. Who has the time and resources to investigate every cases? I am imagining they are taking the path that saves them the most time, erring on the side of the reporter or hosts, as without our beautiful places and helpful hosting, they would not exist.

One sign that someone might very well be nutty and difficult is watching them in the aftermath — protesting from the rooftops in a punitive way to anyone who will listen — negative reviews, blog articles, blah, blah. This isn’t a deadly shooting or anything of such import, it’s just the loss of something that can easily be replaced with other apps and organizations. Making a huge damn deal of a little damn deal says a lot, in my opinion. Still I don’t know the truth, so I can’t say the blog author is wrong, I can just say I am skeptical of the story.

If it happened to me, I would write it off as a learning experience and find another place to stay.

Becky