Smoking deposit collection best practices

[Inna22]

I put together this guide to help other hosts collect their smoking deposit. I have been successful in doing so and there seem to be a number of posts from hosts who were declined by CS and frustrated. Please add what have worked for you

1. This will seem obvious, but start by making sure your guests do not smoke in the first place. If you have a no smoking rule, I am sure your goal is to have a non smoking place, not to collect a deposit. I have it in my house rules on the site, I email a reminder with my welcome message and have signs throughout the property. I also say that there is no smoking on the entire property, including the yard and garage. The reason for it is that some people smoked in the doorway in the winter, in the yard with windows open in the summer and the house reeked of smoked just the same. I tell them they would need to physically leave my property to smoke. This also made it easier to collect proof for CS as even if they smoked in the house, most of the time they threw the butts right outside and since the whole property was covered by the rule, those pictures were accepted as proof.
2. Have a clearly stated separate smoking deposit. Make it high. Mine is $500. If you have a small deposit, someone can potentially choose to smoke and pay the fine.
3. Once you found out that a guest smoked, take pictures. I have never not been able to find some evidence, no matter how hard they tried to hide it. Something to watch out for: I once thought a guest drew a line with a cigarette on the decking and submitted it as evidence. A very detail oriented CS representative found the same line in one of my pictures posted on the site and denied the entire claim. Make sure your pictures are of the new damage by this particular guest.
4. Save receipts for dry cleaning, filters. I used to buy filters in quantity but CS questioned the date on it. If you are changing filters due to guest smoking and hope to collect the deposit, go out and by a new filter at that time. If you need extra cleaning supplies, buy them separately and save that receipt. You can rent a carpet cleaner from Home Depot. They are fantastic. I actually purchased one and it comes in handy often.
5. Have a detailed invoice from a verifiable cleaner. If you clean the space yourself, all you will be able to get is expenses listed in point 4 even though you have the smoking deposit. Airbnb will cover your actual cost, there is no punitive component. Even if you do not use a cleaning company but an individual, ask your cleaner to create an invoice on their letterhead. Perhaps even help her/him put it together. It should have their name and phone number, it does not need to be anything complicated with a logo but still have valid details. CS verified my cleaning company once. Have a detailed description of the extra work they did. For example, they would probably need to wash all the bedding you keep in the house, not just what your guest used. List everything (so many top sheets, pillow cases, etc). They should wash the walls with water and a bit of soap to remove the tar, list that. List everything.
6. Be calm and polite. This is a piece of advice I got from one of my favorite posters here. I used to let CS have it. No. Thank them for taking the time to work with you, be factual and polite no matter how ridiculous their response is. Be patient. They will sometimes take weeks to respond to you but will demand that you answer within 48 hours. Breathe in and out and come here to vent.
7. Ask for a manager if all fails. They will get one

In terms of getting the actual smoke out, ozone machine is magic. I got one online for about $70. I still need to do all the washing and cleaning but the smell lingers until I use the ozone machine.

Good luck!

[Inna22]

@Super47 Vrbo has just walked away from security deposits (somewhat) so the industry is moving away from it as a whole

[Jena2]

Oh, I was just wondering about VRBO. Is this something brand new that VRBO implemented? Because in March when I used VRBO I was charged a security deposit up front and then got a refund a couple days after checkout. Very curious because I was actually thinking of switching to VRBO. 

[Ann72]

@Jena2  When you host on VRBO, you can have a security deposit taken, then refund it after the stay if you don’t need it.  Or you could, but it appears they’ll be dropping that practice as @Inna22 says?

[Ann72]

@Jena2  I meant to add - VRBO allows guests to take out damage insurance.  They can pay $59 to get $1500 of coverage against damage to your property.

[Inna22]

@Ann72 as I have learnt first hand, that insurance is very limited and does not cover some important things, for example theft. It also requires the host to do a lot of work. We still have to collect all the receipts, invoices, etc

[Ann72]

@Inna22  Good to know.  But have you ever known insurance that doesn't make you jump through hoops?  I assume there's a lot of insurance fraud out there.

[Inna22]

@Ann72 100%. The difference is that the guest here is the one who bought insurance and the host is the one doing all the work to get paid after the guest did all the damage. Ideally, the guest pays for the damage and then deals with their own insurance that they chose to buy

[Ann72]

@Inna22  You're right - uugghhh!!!

[Kelly149]

@Inna22 @Ann72 I haven't chosen to charge a guest for damage in a very long time on Vrbo, but what they're saying about the current plan is that the SD is Available for a host to charge against (you get to decide instead of a CS person, which is my favorite part!). So, instead of charging it first and then refunding it later, it is more like they have a hold for that amount knowing that it might be run, but might not. This means that it runs in the background of the ccard info rather than showing up as an actual charge/refund. And they did SAY (again, I haven't personally tested this theory) that if something changed with a guest ccard situation between the hold being run and the host trying to charge the fee, then Vrbo will pay out the amount due and go after the guest for recouping the costs. IMO this is still leaps and bounds ahead of what ABB offers

[Charlene191]

@Super47 Agree, who should collect and manage their security deposits and Airbnb really has no business doing that.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Inna22 

Thanks for the informative posting.

[Ginger76]

@Inna22 Thank you for the post!  We just had our first encounter of a party experience in a booking that was no accident, they had it planned and even brought in extra speakers and extra people.   Our listing states our home is on a quiet street, not a place for a party etc and they ignored that and other house rules such as smoking, and now we have burns on the carpet as well.    As I researched the process to report damage, it seems like a big waste of time to message the guest , however, your post and the comments following unfortunately show it has to be done in the resolution center.   We'll get this reported today before our next guest checks in Friday.

[Inna22]

@Ginger76 I am sorry you are dealing with this. Yes, to be successful, make sure you are following all the steps

[S14]

@Inna22  Hi there, thank you so much for putting this together. I'm still mulling it over to see what I can and cannot do. A few comments:

Just like you, we have ALWAYS found evidence and we always take photos immediately, good clear ones.  It's amazing how people don't even try to hide it.

Unlike you, we have certain market constraints here. You see, although most people in the US don't smoke, most people in many (most?) other countries do smoke. The thing about NYC tourism (when we're not in a pandemic) is that people come here from literally all over the world. Many of them are totally addicted to smoking, but actually don't mind smoking outside, even prefer that in many cases. We provide an ashtray with guest seating in our front courtyard garden. The way these old NYC brownstone style houses are set up, the door is upstairs, on another level. I've never had a problem with smoke getting inside the house when people smoke outside. However, we would never be able to survive on the reduced bookings if we didn't provide this amenity. The competition for Airbnb guests in NYC is mind blowing. You see, Airbnb over-advertised looking for hosts here some years ago. So, the number of listings is crazy high. BTW, that drives the prices down crazy low. (It's cheaper to rent a BnB in NYC than in the middle of the USA! Did you know that?  Strange, right?)  So, we need to stay booked most of the time, which we do, in order to make ends meet. Why do people choose our spot instead of other comparably priced spaces? Well, we keep it nice and the photo's reflect that. We have good reviews. We also provide certain amenities that many people require. Outdoor smoking without going onto the sidewalk is one.  (A lot of tourists are secretly frightened to be in NYC and they feel safer behind our fence rather than on the sidewalk it seems.) Almost everyone is happy to smoke outside, even in the winter. It's only the party kids who act out and want to smoke inside. It's generally pot because it's not legal here; so people want to do it inside instead of outside. Everybody who smokes tobacco gets it about smoking outside.

So, I do get housekeeping invoices for their extra charges -- and yes, Airbnb reimburses for that.  And starting with Covid, we wash everything anyway.  Here's the problem: There's always another booking, almost always coming the same day. We have four hours between checkout time and checkin time. And we use all of it. If we were to wash down the walls (excellent idea) and wash the curtains,and go to Home Depot to rent a carpet shampoo machine, we would not have enough time. And no, we're not able to create multiple days of vacancies for cleaning between every booking. If we did that, we'd have to find a different way to make a living. Our market is for short vacation stays of 3-12 days, sometimes 14. We cannot do long term bookings in NYC because anyone who stays 30 days or more is legally entitled to the Tenant Rights laws in NYC which are basically 100% in favor of tenants and intrinsically 100% anti-landlord. (That's why we do Airbnb instead of just renting out to tenants.) So, with short term rentals, we have to get them out and get them in. No time to do more than a bit of extra work. Before the pandemic, I'd say that 40-60% of our bookings were made six months to a year in advance. You can't just tell someone -- oh, please go somewhere else for a night or two because we need to wash the walls.

BTW, as an aside, Airbnb has a total monopoly on bnb's in NYC. Vrbo will no longer show any listings in NYC which are for less than 30 days. The reason is that NYC now requires these companies to give the city our names and addresses. I don't care -- we're legally registered with the City anyway. Thankfully, Airbnb is doing it, but Vrbo didn't want to bother with it, so they just won't list any of us. We got very little business from Vrbo anyway, but now it's really a monopoly.

Back on topic, there are logistics involved in getting housekeepers to come to a residential neighborhood in Brooklyn. I used to live in the Midwest -- everyone had a car, so everyone could go anywhere very quickly. Not so here.  You HAVE to schedule housekeepers in advance here. BTW, I am elderly and cannot wash walls myself. No one in my household can do it.

Anyway, I don't expect you to have answers to all my problems LOL. Just sharing that every market has its own peculiarities.

I really appreciate the heads up about the Ozone Machines. I had not known of that before. The housekeeper and I will be speaking about that this week. The ozone fumes are toxic. Even if you wait a certain number of minutes before you come in to open the windows, you're getting exposed to it. Spaces in NYC are very small, the opposite of what I have seen in the rest of the USA. So, a little gas -- eh, I'm just not sure how safe it is for us. Of course, if we could run it and wait a day before coming inside, it would probably be fine. But we almost never have a day to wait.

[Inna22]

@S14 two things I can suggest. Can you make the window between check in and out longer? I know you say the market is competitive, but if you can- it gives you more time plus you can charge for late check out or early check in. See if there is an emergency cleaning service out there. It is NY, fastest moving city, I bet you there is such a service. If it takes them an hour to take a bus there, they still have three hours to help you. I have almost no rugs or curtains. Everyone's style of hosting and decorating is super different but this has worked well for me for several reasons. I know smoking remediation is extradentary hard, I do want to down play it but if you are ready, it is so much easier.