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%.

[Annie1372]

@Richard531 

it is nice to hear that some story have a good ending with the AirBNB customer service.

[John2406]

@Richard531 Well, I'm very glad that you had a resolution, but in all reality, surely all of the "problem" wouldn't have occurred at all if your crew member (or one of your other crew members') had disposed of the dog turd in the first place

I would be mighty interested as to how much you had claimed for the offending item's removal, as we are are a dog-friendly establishment, and having a shingled courtyard, it isn't always possible to distinguish between turds and stones, should they have defecated out there, so at each and every changeover we always walk over the area, eyes "glued" to the ground, so that we can remove any turds - if any had been missed by the dog owners.

The "exercise" doesn't take long - about 10minutes at the most - and in 98%+ of instances no turds are ever there - but even if we do find one or more, an empty dog-turd bag is whipped out of our pocket, the turd(s) picked up (in the bag), and disposed of accordingly.

There is a saying, not restricted to dogs turds, but using a different word to the latter, it being that " .... happens" - so we deal with it!  End of.

[Amanda660]

@Richard531  when hosting dogs there are always going to be occasions when a poo is overlooked somewhere (possibly not as obvious as on the pathway) but the same situation will occur in the future.  My housekeeper and I are both dog owners and neither of us has an issue taking care of it, Is your cleaner going to do this every time there’s a stray poo?   It all seems a little dramatic for one poop and she now knows her diva outburst reaps rewards. 

[Anonymous]

@Richard531   In your situation, I'd take all that time and effort spent fiddling with the Resolution Center and dedicate it to finding a non-diva cleaner.

[Helen744]

@Richard 531 so what exactly is the going rate for dog turds . Sounds lucrative especially since there is no signature to worry about . Ha ha

[Helen744]

Get that dog a lawyer.

[Gillian166]

haha @Helen744  I know right. I imagine she might need to buy a new string of pearls, to replace the ones she broke upon seeing such an offensive sight on her pure eyes. oh my stars. 
how can a cleaner be offended by dog poo? pick it up in a baggie and move on. i'd rather pick up 10 dog turds than deal with vomit or baby poo on sheets. 

[Richard531]

@Annie1372 @Helen744 @Anonymous @Amanda660 @John2406   Really appreciate the thoughts!

It was a massive set of turds.  It was directly on the only pathway in/out of the cabin.  I dunno.  We haven't hosted 1M people.  But we've hosted 2,500+  This was as bad as we've seen in our experience.  

Had I been the dog owner, I would have been appalled (at myself) and apologized and closed the resolution outright with the host for whatever they reasonably asked for.  Instead, this gal denies it and says the turds aren't big enough to be hers (I think she was almost joking).

YOU'RE DARN RIGHT that we need to find a better staff member.  However, this is where these workers are headed (at least in Southern California).  They kinda run the show to a certain degree.  Getting decent (notice, I didn't say "good") help is VERY hard and VERY expensive.  

We're already paying north of $50/hour for these folks and they nickle/dime us for stuff like this when its egregious.  And if we don't like it?  There's dozens of other operators that would love to have our staff.  We only keep them due to our longevity and our guaranteed volume/workload for them.

[Huma0]

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@Richard531 wrote:

@Annie1372 @Helen744 @Anonymous @Amanda660 @John2406   Really appreciate the thoughts!

It was a massive set of turds.  It was directly on the only pathway in/out of the cabin.  I dunno.  We haven't hosted 1M people.  But we've hosted 2,500+  This was as bad as we've seen in our experience.  

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Really??! I'm not saying it's okay, but you've been very lucky if that's the worst you've seen from 2500+ guests. That or you're doing some kind of amazing job vetting them. 

I'm always astonished at how much cleaners charge in the US. I pay my cleaners £15 (around $18) an hour, but a lot of people in London pay less, and outside of London, the rates are lower still.

Or, are you paying $50 for a team of cleaners. When I say £15, that is per person, per hour. 

[Richard531]

@Huma0  $50/hour/person.  Yep, you can be a wealthy house cleaner in California if you work hard and don't waste your money. 

I guess that's good, right?  

[Huma0]

@Richard531 

Wow. Yes, it's great that they get paid well, but considering I charge something like that per night per room, there is no way I could afford it! 

The 'London Living Wage' is £11.05 and the minimum wage is only £9.90 (and that's after a very recent increase), so the £15 I pay is well above that. People here would think it insane to pay $50 an hour for a cleaner. I kind of get it now why most US hosts have cleaning fees.

[David8879]

@Huma0 

People in USA think that people in Californian are quite unique.

Well - you need to be unique to stay in the state with prices and taxes and mandates and..what's not...

That is why I moved to Portugal - California weather without California people 

[Richard531]

@Huma0  I think it's part of a broader movement empowering workers in America to "charge what you're worth."  And honestly, as much as I hate it as the homeowner/entrepreneur, I can't help but be happy for the workers to a certain extent.  One of our cleaners has a half-million dollar house!  Another one drives an $80K Audi and will be "trading it in for a Tesla."  I'm not making this up.  

Let's remind ourselves: cleaning houses absolutely sucks.  Being forced to get everything you need to get done in a narrow window of time, sucks.  Taking/reporting inventory, sucks.  We also hold our crews to very high standards, which sucks.  And there's a lot of little BS that we have them do (refill EVERYTHING, turn on music for the next guest, check the hot tub, swap out the sponges, roll the towels a certain way, fold the TP on the dispenser, water the plants, fix the shades, report damage, and in extreme cases, pick up dog turds, haha).  All of this stuff, absolutely sucks.  If you're good at it and can be 100% dependable, it comes with a price.  And our workers are ALWAYS there and 99% of the time, they do a terrific job (as reflected in our killer review scores).  

So that's where we're at.  I also think we're kind of "at the peak" with this sort of thing - at least for house cleaners.  In the markets we patriciate in, many house cleaners are looking for more work as STR demand wanes a little.  We've been able to snag a few good people as a result!  

However, in the market where the above example took place (Julian, CA), we have tried EVERYTHING to get more/better staff.  No dice.  

And you won't be believe this, and I'm dead serious, here. . .  The last person we interviewed wanted NO LESS than $125 just to show up.  I'm like "OK. . .  it's a 475 foot cabin, high-volume laundry is on site, we provide all the supplies, we're always well stocked, well vetted guests, 4.99 stars with 350 reviews, most turns can be done in under 90 mins."  And she's like, "Yep!  $125 - and then more if there's anything else you need me to do." 

Yeah - NOPE!

[Rhonda301]

Glad they support you they left me with a $2200 water damaged claim they denied.  They made the guest leave due to flooding both levels of the house but they denied our expenses to get the house cleaned up, replaced the broken items due to the flooding which the plumber who came on a holiday Sunday stated was operator broken got a new faucet we are talking a freestanding g high end faucet with sprayer installed cleaned up. Water poured out of the ceiling fans so we had to buy a new one and then the rest of house they clogged both toilets it was a mess. But we got it all done by professionals and cleanup yet with all the documentation Aircover block box ops said nope. I have appealed it.