I guest stayed Saturday night and checked out New Year’s eve. The scene at checkout was scary. How does one break a bed in half?? At least I knew how the ripped the leather on the chairs- using a hook of a hanger. Everything combined, there was a few thousands worth of damage. Furthermore, I had only 5 hours to remedy most as another guest was moving in. Even though I have read enough about host guarantee to know not to waste my time, I thought I would try it for myself once. Just so I have a story to tell. As if I don't have enough host stories already. I do have a $600 security deposit but it was obviously not enough to cover the damage.
They split my case in two. One was for all fees- smoking remediation, moving the furniture, etc. That one got denied pretty quickly on the grounds that they "did not like the invoice". Just did not like it. End of story. My repeated requests to find out what would they like to see were just not answered.
The second part was for the actual items, handled by a different person. The types of requests I got could be a chapter in a book. "An invoice from a licensed chair repair person for the cost of repair and explanation from the licensed individual as to how the guest is at fault". As you can imagine, there is no licensure in chair repairship (is that what it would have been called if existed?). And I actually double checked on that. Also, obviously this individual would not have had a clue as to how it was the guest's fault because he/she was not there. Clearly, these requests are designed for you to not be able to comply. But guess what? I got them every last ridiculous piece of paper! If you are wondering how I dealt with the chairs, I found a carpenter with a college degree in carpentry and current chair building experience to examine the chairs. I was very determined to see my experiment to the end.
Since they had no reason to deny the claim, they just denied it for no reason. Just like that. Case is closed. Experiment is over. Zero paid out.