How to deal with disappearing stuff and guests who break stuff, without knowing who it was - long distance management

[Stephanie2789]

Hi, 
We have been hosting our home in Norway since the end of May this year and we've received quite some guests already. 

We have a self check in and check out. So we don't see our guestes (since we live in The Netherlands ourselves) and we fully have to trust on what our cleaners see after a booking. 

We bumped in to a strange thing. Laundry detergent seems to disappear. After 4 bookings we had to let our cleaners buy new fillings. 

And with one detergent 100 washes could be done. This happened a few times now already. Do the guests drink the detergents or something?? Our cleaners also need to use the detergent for the towels and bedsheets, so we can't just leave it away. 

Also our 10 packages of lighters disappeared withing 6 bookings. 

First we wanted to provide these kind of things, but how to deal with this? We can't keep on buying stuff that's gone after just a few bookings. It's not a cheap and easy to provide thing in Norway. And with our prices per night this just can't work. Going for higher prices also doesn't work because the house is in a more isolated area. 

Also after 6 bookings our drain got blocked and than we got a very high bill of the plumber, because he had to dig in the ground and renew the whole thing again. We couldn't point at one guest because we didn't knew who did it. So we had to pay the huge amount ourselves. While the drain was all renewed before we left Norway. And we even got a less happy guests after this happened, while we did everything we could including offering them a free cancelation and cleaning fee back.

Ofcourse this makes managing our home as Airbnb way less fun and a bit stressful.

We also get strange questions about a sieve for the shower? While there is a shower drain? Can anyone tell anything about this? 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Stephanie2789 I suggest you buy laundry capsules and get the cleaners to only put out say 3 per weeks stay with the rest locked away in a cupboard. This is how we manage dishwasher tablets (one per day plus 1 left out for each booking).

[Stephanie2789]

Thank you! That is a good idea. We only have to fix a lock to put on a cabinet and give the cleaners the key. 

[Nur785]

@Stephanie2789 This is going to sound heartless, but how much do you trust your cleaning person? In my experience guests do not carry out liquid detergent. Also, if your cleaning people do the laundry, they probably should know after which guest the detergent bottle was mostly empty. They should also run the appliances and wash the shower after every guest, so they would know when the problem like clogged drain occurs. 

I would ask a trusted friend to supervise the cleaning crew for a few turnovers. Anyway, just my two cents. It might not be the guests. You can disregard this comment completely if your cleaning person is very trusted. 

@Mike-And-Jane0 's capsule idea is a good one. I do this both for dishwasher and the laundry, and the sheets and towels are laundered offsite, so it doesn't become an issue. Good luck! 

[Nur785]

@Stephanie2789 Also, maybe do not respond to reviews with clogged drain information the guest did not write herself. Your response made the issues public, probably not a good idea. 

[Stephanie2789]

Thank you so much for your comments. 
Sadly it's too late to remove our reaction on the guests feedback. 

We have only met our cleaners twice. So we don't really know them that well. 
Though it felt like they are really good persons. But ofcourse we will never know for sure. Asking our neighbour to double check sounds like a good plan.