Resolution Center | Guest denies, Airbnb fills the gap immediately

[Richard531]

We had a guest leave a nice, big, fat dog turd on our walkway a few days ago.  The whole experience was pretty irritating, but I'm here to share with you a happy ending.  

The situation started out really bad.  The staff member who discovered the poop got REALLY diva on us and nearly refused to remove it.  Imagine the horror of arriving to your $350/night cabin and being greeted by a big, brown log of dog poop in the walkway!?  So we promised the crew member compensation if she removed it and we were able to recover anything from the guest.  She took good photos and we created a Resolution Request DRAFT.  She discarded the poop and we could all breathe (for the time being).  

We waited a day or two for the guest's review to come in, then waited another 2+ days so she couldn't change it.  Then hit her with the Resolution Request.  She denied that the poop was hers. And the denial was pretty funny, "We have a golden Labrador.  That poop in the picture doesn't look big enough to be hers." LOL!  I'm NOT making this up!  The whole thing was preposterous because it was the same crew member that turned the home prior to their arrival.  She attested that there was no dog poop there when she left and we're taking that as a fact.  

So the guest rejects the Resolution Request.  We leave an honest (terrible) review for the guest.  Then we "Escalate to Airbnb."  Literally 10 minutes later, we got our compensation from Airbnb.  Then we handed the money to our crew member.  CASE CLOSED.  

It took about 30 mins total to iterate all this stuff over a few days.  WHICH REALLY SUCKED.  But all the right things happened and Airbnb had our backs 100%.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Rhonda301  it is easy to get a claim for $20 or 200 but 2000 is something completely different

[Huma0]

@Richard531 

Well, good for them! Yep, cleaning up after other people sucks (I have done plenty of it and still do so I sympathise) and managing everything you've mentioned takes skill and organisation, so sure they should be paid properly.

It's all about supply and demand though. £15 an hour is a very decent rate for a cleaner here. I could get someone cheaper, but my cleaners are good and reliable so I am happy to pay what they ask. If they asked me for $125 for 90 minutes, I think I would fall off my chair though. 

On the other hand, that would be perfectly normal for a plumber or electrician for example. Decent, reliable tradespeople are like gold dust here and can charge pretty much what they like.

Anyway, going WAY off topic here...

[Gillian166]

sounds like the dog was overfed on the trip. 
We had a guest at the start of the year try to extort me after their trip over dog poo that they saw in the pool house. It was also massive and I couldn't believe it was from our dog (at the time @9months old), a very active Kelpie. He'd somehow gotten into the pool house early in the morning, and done a poo in there (the first and last time that's happened), and the guest had left early but must have gone for a stroll and seen the poo and took a photo of it, through the window of the pool house, they didn't actually go into the pool area. The lighting suggests it was very early, 6 or 7am. Later when they were trying to extort me for a full refund, this photo was presented to me by CS. Honestly, I did wonder if he'd planted it because the poo was massive, but no, my daughter cleaned it away and laughed about the size of it. Anyway, i calmly explained that the puppy was still in training, and an early morning poo (pointing out the way the light was slanted that it was a very early AM photo) happens with every dog, and we are diligent in removing them, and that it wasn't in the guests personal space. They sided with me, phew.  I've since added to my listing that we are on a farm and you might encounter real life situations (like kangaroo poo, we don't leave dog poo lying around!) and if you are going to be offended by that, perhaps stay elsewhere. 

[Kia272]

@Richard531 I'm finding it hard to believe that AirBnB compensated you for a dog poo. Seriously. They regularly deny claims for guest damages, and yet it didn't really cost you anything to have the poop removed- I mean it shouldn't have, except for your prima donna cleaner.

I'm actually more than a little bit troubled by this. They should pay legitimate sizable claims, but they don't. Honestly, had a guest caused a minor amount of damage at my cabin approximately equal to the offense of that dog poop, I'd likely not file a claim. I'd probably message them about it and not have them back ever again. 

This may be a story about how AirBnB had your back, but to me it's a story of how AirBnB doesn't have the backs of so many hosts with legitimate damage claims. SMH. 

[Dave52]

My sense is totally depends on amount of the claim. In my experience Airbnb quickly pays small claims but delays or denies larger claims.  Seems like around $100-200 is the threshold, less they pay, more they delay or deny.  Regardless of validity of the.claim or evidence provided.  Shouldn't be this way, a host guarantee should be a host guarantee.

[Huma0]

@Dave52 

It was a few years ago, but the only time I put in a claim was when a guest broke an expensive front door lock. The replacement costs were over £400. It was really quick and easy. I needed to first ask the guest to pay (I already knew he would say no as he seemed to think it was Airbnb's responsibility to pay out of the insurance) and send the quote from the locksmith and photos of the broken lock. That was it and it was all sorted within a day.

So, who knows what the threshold is, but I've never needed to claim (touch wood) for thousands and I don't bother to try to claim for small damages as then I'd be constantly on the phone with CS!

[Anonymous]

@Huma0   The smaller claims are definitely subject to less scrutiny. I don't know if there's a threshold, but it does seem like the more simple and straightforward the claim is (e.g. single item, single receipt) the higher the odds of success. When hosts seek compensation for multiple things at a time, or there's reasonable doubt that the guest was fully responsible for the extent of the damage, the whole claim tends to be thrown out.

[Huma0]

@Anonymous 

Yes, I totally get that it could be much easier when you are just claiming for one specific item rather than a long list of issues, especially if some of those are difficult to quantify, e.g. additional cleaning, smoke damage and, I would have thought, pet damage.

In terms of a reasonable doubt RE whether the guest was fully responsible or not, in the case I mentioned, the guest tried to deny that he was. At first, he tried to blame other guests, not realising that they had check out long before it happened. Then he tried to find whatever reason he could to not take responsibility, i.e. he waited by the front door until the locksmith arrived and then, even though the locksmith said it was an expensive, top of the range, very strong lock that should last for decades, grilled the poor guy over and over until he got the answer he wanted, i.e. that there was a slim possibility it might be something else. 

So, the guest then used this as an excuse to say that he might just have been the straw that broke the camel's back, i.e. that he had broken the lock but that it could have been about to break at any time. Never mind that he broke it by ignoring my clear instructions that you cannot close the door if the deadbolt is out, yet repeatedly slammed the door with it out until the lock broke (I heard him doing this and rushed down to stop him, but just missed him). No one else was in at the time. I should have been alerted by the fact that he asked, "What if I come home late? Will other guests be disturbed if I SLAM the door?" Like it's necessary to slam the door rather than just close it.

CS were not privy to any of this. The guest refused to pay, saying there was no certainty but they reimbursed me anyway. I have no idea if the guest lost his deposit or Airbnb paid for it in full because they did not provide me with that info, but it was all really easy.

By the way, this guest was also a host.

[John5097]

Seems like the cleaner would have just cleaned it and you paid extra for small things. But I guess good on you for charging the guest. I suppose it could have been another dog as its outside and not really worth the risk. 

However, the only guest to bring a dog, messaged me after check in that they had a service dog, so I had to just go with it, but it tore a bed spread, dog hairs under the mattress protector on the mattress, and left dog poop outside that another guest stepped in. It sucked because the guest who stepped in it was incredibly clean and perfect guest who was also one of my guest that Airbnb wants to host to be more inclusive. Thankfully I wasn't marked down but leaving dog poop and guest not bothing to clean up should  can be very unpleasant for next guest, cleaners, and host. I wouldn't have cared about cleaning it up but they assured me they would be responsible, and I was more upset that my perfect guest who was so considerate had the unpleasant experience. I think as host you just have to factor in some additional cleaning and do the best you can. 

[David8879]

It is so nice to hear that some stories have a happy ending for the hosts...the rest is history