'How do you like snakes?': Neighbor strikes back after Airbnb guests constantly wander onto his property, shares true stories of 30+ snakes living in rental house

Author image for Isabella Penn
Isabella Penn
Nov 2, 2024 9:00 AM EDT

This new Airbnb has stirred up some serious tension in a tight-knit rural community. And it's all thanks to the host who doesn't care where her guests wander. She's nice enough, but she doesn't truly care about the community, only about making more money. For over 20 years, the neighbors have enjoyed their quiet, massive properties, but since a local home was converted into an Airbnb, clueless city guests have been taking "hiking" a little too far and right onto the neighbor's private land.

One frustrated neighbor tried asking the host to inform her guests, but she brushed off any responsibility. With her misleading rental listing suggesting there is "plenty of land to explore," guests think every plot of land is fair game. Instead of calling the cops, the neighbor decided to let nature do the work. He started to casually ask guests about the snakes on the rental property, which is a whole other story in itself…

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    Let your guests trespass? I hope they like snakes!
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    So, I live in a rural area in Pennsylvania. Our "neighborhood" is very close knit and we have all known each other for over 20 years. One must navigate nearly 5 miles of dirt road to arrive at our little section of paradise. One day
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    about 3 years ago, my elderly neighbor calls me and asks me to come over and check out an odd sound in his house. When I arrive he describes the sound and I hear it right by the main entrance. On the exterior of his home, I open a seemingly random access hatch to
    via u/Afraid_Secretary_378
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    find at least 30 black snakes hanging out in a space above his door. Not dangerous or venomous, but unsettling at any rate. The neighbor says "they are just keeping the mice out. No need to disturb them".
    via u/Afraid_Secretary_378
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    Just over 2 years ago, my neighbor informed our little community that he would be selling his house due to health concerns and moving closer to a major city. I was extremely interested in buying the land and the home but he was asking far
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    too much for the property. He and I were about to come to an agreement on price when he got an offer for nearly 2x his original asking price from a real estate broker who was going to turn it into an AirBnB. I hated the idea of
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    having a "hotel" right next door, but she bought the property and that means she can use it however she wants. Now, three neighbors and I have had to ask countless AirBnB guests to leave our properties
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    since they believe that they are welcome to wander wherever they please. When the previous owner of the home let it be known that he was going to sell, all of us neighbors put up "No Trespassing" signs around our properties just to try to avoid any
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    tension with a new neighbor. This has done little to deter guests because most of them are from cities and have never needed to worry about such signage. The guests that I have engaged about the issue thought that "No Trespassing" meant that they were
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    not allowed to hunt but that they were otherwise allowed on that land. My neighbors have given similar accounts of interactions with these guests. I brought the issue up to the host and while she was pleasant to
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    deal with, but simply told me to inform her guests that they were trespassing and needed to go away. She offered no further support. Her statement upset me because the listing for the rental property specifically says that there are "lots of opportunities for
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    hiking and exploring". The land that she owns is less than half of an acre, built into a very steep hillside and completely surrounded by privately owned property. You can hike the navigable section of her property in about 13 seconds. The nearest
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    public land for "hiking and exploring" is a 30-minute drive from where we live. I do not have the time or desire to ask each new guest not to wander around property that they, frankly, are not welcome on. I got the feeling that as long as she is still collecting her
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    money from her private hotel, she really doesn't give a our little community. about Now, I'm not going to call the police on these AirBnB guests because most everyone that I have confronted has been an
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    absolute treat to deal with and I have had little push-back from them. I also understand that a lot of them simply do not know they are doing anything wrong so it would be in extremely poor taste for me to involve police because most of these guests have no foul
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    intent (except for the amount of litter that they leave on and around my property, which still baffles me). My biggest concern is that someone gets injured on my property and I am held liable for someone that should not have been there in the first place. It is
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    impractical to put up dividing fences because each neighbor owns 100+ acres of land and that would lead to needing literal miles worth of fence installed, at great cost. I also refuse to purchase insurance for such things because it is not my fault that she decided to operate a hotel next to my
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    property. Her choices about how she uses her land should come with zero financial burden on me. I really don't want to involve AirBnB or Vrbo because that could mean that she would lose a stream of income. In this economy, I would feel very guilty regardless of her financial situation.
    via u/Afraid_Secretary_378
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    My solution? When I a guest off my property and back to the public road or the AirBnB, I often ask how they are enjoying their stay just to make small talk. I have started sneaking in the phrase, "How do you like the snakes? Pretty cool, right?". When
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    questioned further, I recount the story of the previous owner that I detailed above. Last I checked, the reviews of the listing have tanked, and she has numerous complaints about guests "finding" the den of snakes and cancelling the rest of their stay. I have heard rumors
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    from people that know her that she is thinking of selling the property because she is not bringing in enough money to make the mortgage payment each month. EDIT: People are asking why we don't just fence in her property. It
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    is not quite that simple of a solution. They don't always cross onto our properties at the invisible ownership boundaries where land meets land. There is a d ad-end county road that provides access to the land owners. Most guests walk down the road (since that is easier than
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    walking the rocky terrain) and enter a neighboring property when they have seen something interesting or want to take pictures deep in the woods. I happen to own land on both sides of this road. I would need to put a fence on both sides of the road, the entire length of my property to have a physical barrier keeping these people out. Other neighbors have the same circumstance.
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    Cheezburger Image 10423055616
    via Unsplash (Getty Images)

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