Hi hosting community,
My wife and I have been hosts since August 2019 and have had far more pleasant experiences with guests than unpleasant ones. However, a recurring problem we have encountered--which seems to be getting worse with each passing year--is that guests who come to our villa with small children are almost always the ones who leave our place damaged.
Here are some examples: we have had multiple guests whose children have drawn pictures with markers or crayons on our white walls, light-coloured curtains or even our white sofa. One recent guest wrote to tell us that there were "some problems with the door handles," which we thought was odd. Then, after they had checked out, we found that not one, but THREE door handles had been broken off the doors--and one was so badly damaged that we had to replace it entirely.
Then, our latest guest took the master key, the main one that locks the doors thoroughly from the inside (and of which we only had one copy), off of the large keychain that we kept it on for safety because her daughter "kept wanting to play with the keychain." We asked why they couldn't have just kept the key in a high place where the child couldn't reach it, but they never gave us an answer.
And then they lost the key. Our worst fear. The very reason that we had put the key on the big keychain was so that it couldn't be easily lost or misplaced--and then they lost it. Of course, they claim that they didn't lose it and that it was on the table with the back-up key when they left. But when we found only a broken keychain and no key, then we knew with quite a bit of certainty that the child had probably broken the keychain and the key got lost in the process.
Anyway, we have been watching a continuous cycle of parents--and especially parents with only one young child--coming to our property, doing damage, and then claiming that they don't know what happened. Indeed, we've had far more problems with guests of this kind than with any other guests that we have rented to.
What I want to know is how many of our fellow hosts have stopped renting to parents with young children--say, under the age of 6. We have heard that it is possible to set this as a prerequisite on your Airbnb hosting profile, and so we are curious if there are any hosts out there who have done this and what their experience has been since doing so.
We would be grateful for any related feedback you could share with us. Thank you.
