Guest left an item I thought it was trash and throw it away

[Lili28]

Hello

This is my first post as a host. I am looking for your advice to this situation. 

My previous guest checked out around 8:30 in the morning and I have another guest coming in the afternoon. When I was cleaning the room, there was a plastic dental crown in the cabinet inside the mirror. It was super old, all worn out with dirt, cracks, and holes on it which was considered as impossible to be "in usage" by me. It was so dirty and disgusting that I put on a glove to throw it away. And it was wrapped in a toilet paper, there's no box or anything to help me judge it is not a plastic trash. 

So I throw it away. 

However, around 10 PM or even later, the guest text me asking for this plastic dental crown. I said I disposed it as a trash. She argues she was still using it because she did not throw it into the trash box. And she asked me to pay for a new one.

I appreciate your advise! 

Thank you!
Lily

[Gerry-And-Rashid0]

@Lili28

You are not liable for it, nor do you have any obligation to hang on to what looks like trash left behind by a guest. You can tell the guest that if you thought in any way that it was important, valuable or essential to anyone you would of course have retained it for safe-keeping. Sounds like you really didn't even know what it was and threw it out as part of your usual cleaning routine. It's up to guests to keep their property safe and remove anything they wish to retain when they move out. 

[David126]

You could mention where the trash was thrown so they have an opportunity to go look for it?

[Andrea9]

@Lili28

If it was me I would say that I had not realized what it was and because it looked quite dirty I threw it away as trash.

Sounds like she is trying to get money out of you. Do make sure your exchange is on the message page and that in your defence you state you thought it was some kind of trash (the way you describe it in your post above) because it looked so dirty. Airbnb can look into the conversations to judge what to do if for ex. a guest asks for a refund or other monetary resolution. If your exchange was off the site, please repeat the conversation for the record ("As I told/wrote you per Whatsapp...") through Airbnb messaging.

Answer her clearly once. The 2nd time refer her to contact Airbnb and then don't react to any more messages.

**[Merged from duplicate post]