About security deposits...

[Michael5689]

I'm going to focus on facts in this post so please try to focus on those in responses as well.  I have many opinions about the process, drivers of policies, but I'd like to hear facts and non emotional opinions from others.  If some of the responses aren't civil I'll probably reach out to the community support to get those type of responses removed.

Guest gets sick on carpet. (It happens...it's vacation home after all.)  Guest tries to clean it up with bleach (Noooooooo.)  Ruins carpet, ruins towels, covers up the mess with a hassock before checking out AND doesn't tell the guest who booked the reservation.

I as host arrive after guests leave very late at night (after 14 hour drive due to roads closed due to winter storms, ugh), do my walk-around, notice the hassock has moved and the carpet is a bit stained, but don't realize the severity.  I figure I'll take care of it in the morning with a wet vac and push the hassock back into the right spot.  Wife checks more thoroughly and notices the severity of the problem and the bleach smell.  I do a bit of searching online that night on how to estimate costs of replacing carpet, take a photo and head to sleep and decide to take care of it in the morning as I don't want to send the guest a nasty note in my state of sleep deprivation.  Of note this is 2 days after Christmas at the height of the US Covid spike.

Another complicating factor in this whole saga may be that on the day of scheduled check-out the guest couldn't leave but we didn't extend the reservation until AirBNB had already automatically checked him out so I have to send a supplemental payment request for the extra night.  He eventually pays this extra amount right at the 72 hour deadline before AirBNB has to get involved.

We call in our house cleaner the next day to help out.  The next morning when more calm I submit the estimate I came up with the previous night $2.5k as a request directly to the guest.  The original reservation was a Christmas reservation so this is still less then their full reservation cost.  The renter replies rather quickly.  I can tell he is upset, but...because he didn't know anything about it.  I call him and talk to him.  I believe him so I give him a bit of an overview of the damage reimbursement policies and tell him he'll probably only be out his security deposit and not the full $2.5k I put in the original request.  He says he's going to call his friend. 

I spend a lot of time over 3 days using the rug cleaner to get the carpet as good as it can be.  We take the after photo showing the remaining bleach damage.  The room airs out of the smell after a few days of having the windows open.  We then go and buy a $200 area rug to cover it as we have guests booked pretty solid for the next month and don't want our guests to have to deal with the carpet looking like it does.  I feel bad for the guest so later when we find the ruined towels hidden in a cabinet in the bathroom and realize the bed skirt is ruined too, I decide not to document or add anything else to the reimbursement request because $2.5k is going to be painful enough.

Because of Covid getting a contractor in to give me a real quote is a real pain.  I get one guy in about 7 days later, but can never get an actual quote out of him.  I end up PAYING Home Depot $50 just to give me a real quote about a week later that I can use as documentation.  The quote itself doesn't come until after the 14 day post checkout date and it comes out to a bit over $1k.

Due to the age of the carpet 10 years, I am only reimbursed 20% or a bit over $200.  My security deposit if $625.  No matter how much I protest about the incongruity of my "security deposit" amount and the amount I'm being reimbursed.  I try to add the other items back in but don't have great documentation and receipts so of course it's all rejected.  Eventually I get into a back-and-forth with support about why I can't get my security deposit.  They keep saying how the area rug I bought isn't damaged so they can't reimburse for the area rug completely misses the point that I'm trying to recover the full security deposit for the original ~$1k in damages that they have acknowledged.  For the first time in my life I almost yell at a support person on the phone when calling AirBNB support to try and get access to the full security deposit despite the resolution request run-around.  

Without trying to get into recriminations and opinions about the policy and the meaning of "security deposit."  I'm curious of other's opinions of what happened.  I think my initial estimate being rather high is a factor here especially when the actual quote came back in much lower.  I chalk up the bad initial estimate up to sleep depravation.  Some potential explanation options for how the rest of the process unfolded I have outlined below:

1) Guest didn't admit that he caused the damage.  (I believe he didn't know about it due to the hiding of it with the hassock and the hidden ruined towels we eventually found stashed in a cabinet.)  Therefore AirBNB didn't give me access to the security deposit and only reimbursed me through AirCover policy which has the 10-year deprecation built-in and leads to the 20% reimbursement.

2) Because I didn't get the final actual quote in past the magic 14 days I wasn't able to access the full security deposit.

3) The guest admits the damage was caused by his group, but since he personally didn't cause the damages, AirCover policy is invoked and only results in 20% recovery of the quoted damage.

I've gone through the "Host Damage Protection" terms and "AirCover" terms/documents and they are confusing at best.  I've tried to answer the question of what happened with the process myself with the documents, but I'm giving up at this point and turning to all your collective knowledge and experience.

Please try to limit your responses to your guess based on your experiences to 1-3 above or propose #4-X of what I didn't consider...and keep it civil.

Thanks all!

Mike

[Elaine701]

@Michael5689 

Well, sport this happened to you, but it's down to some basic realities. 

1) there is no "security deposit". It is an illusion. It simply doesn't exist. No money is "deposited" by the guest to cover any potential damages. 

2) "Air cover" Is not a "guarantee" nor "insurance". This is one of the few terms that isn't vague. Ok, they paid out 20%. Count your blessings. They didn't have to pay anything. 

It's always better to try to work it out with the guest and keep Airbnb out of it. In this case, the guest admitted it, and perhaps would have paid for the full recovery cost, by providing the receipts. 

We've had to absorb many costs like this. It's just not worth pursuing most of the time. If they started the bedroom on fire, that would be different. But if it's a few hundred or less, it's often wiser to just take it on the chin. 

I hope that helps... 

[Michael5689]

Yeah I agree I actually don't usually try to get reimbursement for small things of a few hundred.  I've only had one other guests that caused damages of 500+ and I didn't even ask for the full amount back in that case either.  That was just last summer and that process went so much smoother so I'm not sure if something changed or it's the luck of the support agent.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Michael5689 Your post will help people understand that Aircover pays out, if it pays at all, on a depreciated basis unlike most insurance policies which pay on a new for old basis. At 10 years old I am amazed they paid anything for the carpet.

[Kelly149]

hosts would do well to realize that leaving bleach and/or bleach-containing cleaning products within guest access range is often a bad idea.

And also, I can think of yeeeeears worth of host complaints of guests ruining the "whole of something" (scratches in wood floors, stains in carpets, scratches in countertops, damaged furniture) where abb feels content to make "patch job" reimbursement.  No host anywhere should ever expect that their entire floor is going to be replaced bc of a stain or a scratch, it just isn't going to happen. A) choose durable products B) hide the things that can cause damage C) have a plan in place - BEFORE YOU NEED IT - for how you will document a claim D) never expect that the "security deposit" is real. It is not.

Sorry for your tough lesson learned

[Michael5689]

We didn't leave bleach out.  Once the pandemic hit almost all cleaning products got locked away.  I think the guest must have gone out to buy it.  Why that instead of carpet stain remover I have NO idea

[Michael5689]

Also I agree scratches are wear and tear as our small stains so you just need to cover that stuff with your cleaning costs and rental rates and that's what I do unless the stain is huge.  In this case this was approximately 3'x4' section of carpet that got ruined.  I'm guessing it took them a while to realize their mistake because it was multiple strokes of the towel in the carpet in multiple directions.  In most cases I stay quiet and just click the don't want to rent to the guest again but this case was by far the worst I have seen.

[Helen744]

Helen@744 Mike in house insurance there is usually an amount that the owner of the house pays called an excess this amount is deducted from the final payout.Quantity surveyors estimate carpets with a percentage dedictions per year ,therefore a ten year old carpet becomes worth very little and labor may not be covered at all. If your carpet is expensive then replacement costs are higher  but still only a percentage .If you replaced the whole carpet then submitted the bill you may get a better reimbursment but I doubt it . you are in competition with the insurance agency not the guest . If you go through the insurance then you cannot claim from the guest as well. that is double dipping . one or the other. cheers H

[Helen744]

Maybe the insurance covers old for new but they have to try and get the money back from the guest. Good luck 

[Michael5689]

@Helen744 Yes, the insurance reimbursement and percentages makes sense to me so I understand only getting some deprecated amount back.  What I'm troubled by is it seems the guest was admitting the damage, but I still didn't get up to my deposit back.  That really means the deposit is completely meaningless.

Part of the confusion is this was my second request for anything from the deposit and that one also included carpet stains and a pool table stain.  That previous one was about 2 summers ago.  In that case I was also reasonable and didn't time to claim the full amount for all of the costs that I had due to the damage.  I actually got back more than my security deposit in that case.  If you look at the guests response to my review of them, I don't think they admitted fault in that case.  I'm wondering how much of the variability is due to the draw of the agent and/or how much is due to how the corporate AirBNB policy is driving damage payout percentages.  Of course I'll likely never really know the full story too.

[Helen3]

I would never operate an STR business without having my own home insurance for STRs - there are far too many areas the guarantee doesn't cover. (Also I don't believe the booking guest didn't know about their friend being sick as the friend had time to go and buy the bleach and clear up and the smell would have been evident. 

[Michael5689]

@Helen3 hI would be skeptical too, but the speed with which he responded to my email asking for reimbursement and the surprised phone conversation I had with him shortly after that leads me to believe him.  In retrospect, the friends attempt to hide it was comical.  Putting the hassock over top of the stain near a random corner of the bed in the middle of the room so we wouldn't "notice" and stuffing the ruined towels in a cabinet.  This room was at a corner of the house away from the master bedroom so it is believable to me that if it happened the night before they left the booking guest may not have known.  The guests were actually kinda of trapped on one of the mountains due to passes being closed and they had to leave in a hurry once the roads opened up too.  Other than this carpet problem the rest of the house was left in quite good shape for an exiting guest and I was ready to give them a very good review until we found the problem in the back bedroom.

I hadn't thought of a need for any supplemental insurance except for personal umbrella because my one previous experience with getting damages reimbursed by AirBNB was quite positive.  I did raise my security deposit after that experience, but it seems  

[Elaine701]

@Michael5689 

Unless you're collecting your own deposit, independently of Airbnb (as we do at times), how exactly do you "raise your security deposit"?

Or do you independently collect a deposit from every guest? 

[Michael5689]

@Elaine701 I have not been doing anything individually on security deposits.  Knowing my clientele I don't think making them go through another site to collect the security deposit will work for me in practicality either. 

I have the ability to set the "security deposit" under the "Listing" under "Policies and Rules" so that's where I increased it last summer.

I would suggest that AirBNB calling it a "Security deposit" is misleading at best though.  A lot of the tension you are reading in the host circle between the support ambassadors and the hosts with damage to their home is due to the fact that the implication is that you can access your security deposit for well documented damage to the home.

Personally if AirBNB isn't going to honor it as a more traditional security deposit that the hosts can reasonably access for real documented damage than I think they should do away with it completely.  They are going to get howls of protests from the owners that haven't yet learned the practicalities of their damage reimbursement enforcement policies on the security deposit.  I think they are creating more trouble for themselves by keeping the status quo and royally upsetting the owners when they understand how it works.  I personally am testing out my options about how getting off AirBNB would go precisely due to that reason.  For now I am keeping the security deposit up, but I now know it's mostly a toothless deterrent that I can hope scares away some of the more rough guests. 

A interim policy change AirBNB might implement is limit the size of the security deposit to some lower amount (like twice the average nightly rate maybe?) but also increase their targeted payout ratio for claims.  It's a public corporation...they may not have a "target" but I'm sure they are tracking that ratio very closely.

There's healthy tension on payouts as you don't want hosts to abuse the deposit for normal every day things like removeable stains on walls that should be part of normal wear and tear for people vacationing, but I'm sure they could put a system in place to guard against that too.  In my case I've only asked for something from the deposit twice out of 100+ stays and even in those cases I didn't even ask to get fully reimbursed for all the costs I incurred.

Mike

PS
Also, I didn't realize you could add photos to these posts, so just for completeness of this thread I attached a photo of the damage.

[Elaine701]

@Michael5689 

I have the ability to set the "security deposit" under the "Listing" under "Policies and Rules" so that's where I increased it last summer.

Hmm.. Sorry, must be different in different regions. We don't have "policies and rules" under "listings" In the app over here. "House rules", yes. But nothing about "Security deposit".

Not that it matters, because there isn't a "security deposit" unless you collect it yourself. It's just a term Airbnb uses in reference to claims under "Air cover", which is neither an insurance nor any guarantee, and has no legal obligation on the part of the guest or Airbnb. 

Glad you have that setting though. For whatever it's worth.