Hi,
We recently stayed at a beautiful villa. While there, there was an accident and a plant pot around the pool (super heavy one) was knocked over and went into the pool. This caused the plant pot to crack, and soil to come out and float all round the pool. We all felt awful and spent the penultimate day of the holiday trying to clean the pool, and scrubbing the entire villa clean. However despite various nets etc. we tried using, we couldn't get the soil out because it was too small and went through the nets; it was like dust.
While also there, the host had left bleach on the ground by the poolside. This cause multiple of the towels (provided), bedding (provided) and the girls bikinis to become bleached when they feel off the railing onto the bleach (we didnt know it was bleach until things landed it in, and became ruined).
We left the villa at 8am, and new guests moved in at 12 noon that day. Upon checkout we immediately notified the host's keyholder about the pool and damages. The following day, the host requested we paid 686€. (500€ cracked tile, 50€ IKEA towel + bedding, 50€ clean the pool + pool water lost, 84€ plant pot). As stated by the hosts the costs were all "estimates" and "it may be lower".
This was the first we had seen of the damaged and cracked tile. With 8 of us looking for damage, and spending the entire penultimate day scrubbing the poolside, walls (dirty, not by us, but we wanted to make things look nicer as a sorry), cleaning villa etc. I think someone would have very clearly and easily seen this crack. I think the more likely story, is that it was caused when they tried to replace the plant pot (it was heavy and took 3 of us to lift it out the pool)
Not only did we feel like that kind of damage should be covered by insurance anyway, but we'd already paid a £237.49 cleaning fee upfront, so didnt see why we should pay a further 50€ cleaning fee for the pool. The bedding + towels (of which its the hosts fault is damaged in our eyes - along with our swimwear) cost £4.84 from IKEA -> not 50€. The 500€ was an "estimate". We of course decline this payment with a very polite message to the host.
The host immediately responded the following day stating her husband received an email about the damaged tile, stating "it will probably cost around 250€ as opposed to 500€". It literally halved the minute we refused to pay without receipts.
56 days after the booking ended, the host opened the resolution centre and we got an email from a specialist called Melania. She stated she would gather information from both parties and make a decision on the case. She stated shed gather information from the host first and get back to us.
In the meantime, we did some research about security deposits, and discovered via the support centre that the reservation had no security deposit.
Anyway, yesterday (while still waiting to be contacted for our side of the story), we received an email back from the specialist. The email stated, in summary;
"Hi,
You will have to pay X,Y,Z = 484€. Until you pay, your airBnB account has been deactivated.
Regards,
Melania"
We were all a bit shocked. We were still waiting for the specialist to get in contact. I should also mention here that we were impatient and tried calling the support centre multiple times over the few weeks before receiving this email trying to get ahold of Melania. Support were useless and said they could not pass us through to the speciliast and that we would have to wait for a call!
So, that leads us to today. We have been demanded to pay 484€ on damages we do not think are fair, and the account the booking was made from has been deactivated until we pay the sum.
So, I would like to know:
1) Where do I go from here? We can't dispute if the account is deactivated?
2) Can we be forced to pay for these damages? There is no security deposit, and the host is trying to rip us off. the £4.84 link for towel on the 50€ charge and extra cleaning fee + pool water fee of 50€ is proof enough of that
Thanks for all your help,
Ryan
