Paranoid guests due to Covid who decided to leave

[Janet112]

I recently received my first guests after re opening who booked for a week. I had spent two weeks, deep cleaning, bleaching and sanitising, washing everything in the place, textiles and kitchen equipment, had installed a brand new oven, replaced pillows, towels, shower curtain, bathmat and put in some new kitchen equipment. My place had nearly always had 5*s for cleanliness but it was cleaner than it had ever been.

When my guests arrived they messaged me and told me the house was dirty! I went straight over to find out what the problem was. They had found a carton of one day old oat milk in the fridge and a bottle top behind it, some tea staining in one of the sink plugholes, some finger marks on a radio handle, a supposed cobweb behind the sofa and some (clean) underwear I had left in one of the drawers upstairs that I had left three months previously when I stayed there.

These people had obviously been through the house with a magnifying glass (I wondered if they were mystery shoppers). They told me they were worried about covid but didn't socially distance themselves from me, one of them shouted in my face without a mask! After rectifying the problems for them and apologising they decided to leave. 

I contacted Airbnb support, explained the situation and asked for help and offered them a partial refund. 4 days later and I haven't had any communication. I find it very strange that these guests have not tried to get a refund and am worried they are going to leave me a bad review and bring my rating right down. Has anyone else experienced this? The irony is that there has only been 4 covid deaths in my town and that was at the start of the pandemic!

[Anonymous]

@Janet112   Sorry to hear your first pandemic-era guests were such a dud. Their Covid concerns may well have been a ruse, but it sounds like these guests were unprepared for the fact that your cottage has been used as a home (hence the knickers and oat milk) rather than as a 100% holiday rental. Properties that are solely dedicated to tourism like hotels are expected to be stripped of all visible evidence of prior users. Unfortunately many Airbnb users don't understand that even an Entire Home rental might double as someone's primary or secondary residence and contain their belongings.

If you update your listing settings, you'll find that Airbnb has added a space to disclose that the rented space may include the owner's personal items. This may not be strictly true with your cottage, but a note on this might help deter guests who aren't charmed by its lived-in qualities (I think it's absolutely adorable and exactly the kind of place I love to stay, but I'm not afraid of underwear). 

It is unfortunately possible that they might leave a review; best you can do is be prepared to leave a gracious and professional response aimed at your future guests. Hopefully your next ones will be a better fit and appreciate all the hard work you've put in.

[Debra300]

@Janet112, @Anonymous,

I think that the enhanced cleaning badge may also lead guests to have inappropriate expectations regarding cleanliness.  During my two week trial participation in the cleaning protocol, I informed my guests that after cleaning and closing the space, dust and insects can still appear.

These people probably shouldn't have been taking a holiday.  However, the red flags may have been raised when they saw the oat milk and the panties.  From that point, they preceded to become Miss Marple to look for any other cleaning mis(sed)deeds.

When I have stayed in places which are the hosts' primary residence, I did expect that the refrigerator and my designated storage areas (drawers, cupboards, closet) would be devoid of their personal belongings.  Your hosting mojo is probably a little rusty, but the learning lesson from this encounter is to do a thorough walkthrough to make sure nothing is unintentionally left behind.