Hello hosts!
I had an odd/uncomfortable situation occur today, and am wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience and how it was handled. We rent out a full garden-level apartment, which is directly below our house. We had a guest check out yesterday, who later wrote to say that he had forgotten something in the apartment. The next guests had already checked in, but I said that I would be happy to retrieve the item during the next turnover (which I said was today) and mail his things to him.
He wrote back and said he was in the area, and could he pick the items up. I said sure - our cleaner will retrieve the items and put them in a hidden area on our front porch where you can access them. He then wrote back and asked if he could just reenter the apartment and retrieve the items. I replied that I preferred not, because sometimes the prior guest leaves late or arrives early - and I would not want the incoming guests to see prior guests in the space (I think if it happened to me, I would be really creeped out by that!). He said he understood.
Our outgoing guests wrote to me early in the morning to say they had checked out. Our cleaner said she was coming late in the day for the turnover. Here's the kicker, I have evidence that someone entered the apartment in between those two known groups coming in and out. Curiously, the prior guest with the forgotten item wrote to me later in the day to say he was just going to double check his luggage to see if he had the items (whereas he had very specifically told me where the missing items were the night before). THEN he said, oh my friend had my items - I'm all set, no need to retrieve anything for me.
From the evidence I have and this person's change of tune, I'm 99% positive that he reentered our property (using the lockbox code which he knew from the day before) despite my request not to and offer to mail his items. I am not 100% certain, so I don't want to state as much in this person's review. However, I'm very concerned that someone would do this - not only to me, but to the potential guests on their way out (who could've been leaving late for all he knew)!
Has anyone ever had something like this happen? If so, what did you do? Other advice also welcome from those who haven't had this happen. (Also, we have to date hosted about 150 groups - and have not had anything like this happen.) I don't want to unleash an untrustworthy person on the community, then again they were otherwise good guests. I would've been happy to host them again, if not for this issue.
