Help!! Florida!!! Airbnb has taken guests side of story, and flooded our home then left and wants all there money back.

[Jason1908]

Our house was flooded by our guests.  The guests just so happened to flood the house the night before the end of there 8 day stay.  Then they wanted all there .only back along with payment for a 400.00 dress they left on floor plus make up in the amount of 478.00. Then wanted the entire 2445.  Back in addition to the 513.00 airbnb granted them due to things they were unhappy with such as

 they saw a stain on the white carpet in one of the kids rooms and said it was blood to airbnb resolution support.  Guest were mad the pool was not swimmable due to rain storms every day saying  pool was pond water, it's a salt water, so less chemicals.

Water line from bidet came off, and was leaking fresh water, guest called us, we told them to turn it off til we could get a plumber out.  We called.our warranty company and the soonest they could get one out was 72 hours.   They were fine with that.  We have two full bathrooms besides that one small one, they turned the water back on and left to go to the beach for several hours.  

They video called for everything, so I have no messages stating for them to keep the water off.    However, after the flooded our home and no mean 50,000. In damages loss.if 20,000.  In income for loss of use to property.  

I do not know what they told airbnb.  But I do know guest told airbnb we (the host),never said for them to keep the water off.  Makes no sense.  Why w9uld anyone turn on the water when it's leaking and why would they say they were waiting onna plumber. 

Airbnb ruled in there favor before hearing and seeing anything we had.  Also, because we couldn't get a plumber out there fast enough during Holiday week.  

Has host been through anything like this?  

I mean this is alot of money, all they see if there loss, which they caused.  I have never heard of someone's house being flooded and then blaming the homeowner.  We were out of state, and just came bsxk in last week on the 7th.  6 days after the disaster.  What would anyone suggest to help this absolutely ridiculous situation?  

At any time they could have left, if they were living such a tragedy. 

If we owe anything to them it would be the night they didn't stay.  

The only reason they left is due to the flood hate to insinuate this, but I believe the guest did this to get out of paying.  

Help?!?!?   Has anyone been through anything or situation like this?   Were you at fault?  Right now.  I think airbnb, is just avoiding confrontation.  Or we as hosts are not fighting this correctly.  

Help!!!

[Nanxing0]

You can file for the Aircover although nobody can guarantee you will be paid for the damages. Try to gather as much evidence as possible and submit a claim following their instructions. Aircover says it covers up to a million if they agree with your claim. If they don't honor that I guess the loss amount justifies for a small claim court dispute you can put both Airbnb and the guest in the defendant.

[Gwen386]

@Jason1908 It is heartbreaking to have your beautiful home damaged like this. 

I sure hope you immediately filed a claim with your homeowner’s insurance, which should cover the damages minus the deductible. Then you can deal with AirCover. 

I’m really surprised that you didn’t get a plumber out immediately versus waiting 72 hours for the warranty company to come out. I believe this was a grave mistake. From this point going forward, please have these service vendors numbers at your fingertips: plumber, electrician, pool guy, HVAC tech, and a handyman. Any emergency can come up, and of course, it’s always at an inopportune time. 

It is sad that all communication wasn’t documented via airbnb’s message platform. Now, it’s he say-she say. Always communicate via their platform or at the very least, document the call through the platform. Such as, “ in reference to our call just now regarding the water line becoming disconnected from the bidet, please keep the water supply turned off until the plumber can come out in 72 hours. I apologize for this disruption and delay ,,,,”

So during guest’s stay, they couldn’t use pool or the bidet for a few days. As a guest, this would have annoyed me but not enough to deliberately flood someone’s home. I would have asked for a refund for the days those two amenities could not be used. I read their review that said the pool guy was scheduled to come out 2-3 days after they arrived. Why wasn’t the pool cleaned before they arrived? Were supplies ordered for THEM to clean the pool? Is there not a cover for pool when unusable?

Of course this is in hindsight, but when you’re not in town, you should have a co-host, neighbor, or someone who can step in, especially in cases of an emergency, to remedy little situations before they become expensive problems. 

I know this is not what you want to hear but this unfortunately is a hard and expensive lesson-learned type of situation. 

As a host, this situation has taught me something very important—to have emergency numbers displayed for guests just in case I’m unreachable in an emergency situation. 

[Jason1908]

Unfortunately I called every plumber in the phone book. Due to it being an upcoming holiday which is July 4th no one could get out there soon enough.  I was literally stuck. This is the house I actually live in and I rent it out while traveling for work. I did everything I could to get a plumper out sooner. This would have never happened if they just kept the water off on the toilet.  They had 2 completely working bathrooms besides this one. There excuse for turning on the water was they thought the plumber was coming so they tried to fix it themselves.