I'm a Superhost from Montreal, who has been doing business with Airbnb since June 2016. We hosted, so far, more than 90 reservations. Lately I had major issues with one guest. The initial reservation was for 2 guests but they were at least 5 people. Which we have proof, since it was caugh on the outside camera. The person who did the reservation was not present everyday of the stay. As usual they did the party on the last day of the reservation.They smoked in the unit, even if it's strictly prohibited by the house rules. They left cigarettes butts on the wooden floor, burned the sofa and left a hole on it. They left burned marks on the living room table and on the master bedroom table. Additionally they broke the iron frame of a leather chair and broke 3 glasses of wine. They smoke an amazing amount of cigarettes in the unit.
Worst then the problem itself, the way Airbnb has handled this situation is a real nightmare.
We called them, and told us that they handle this situation only over email.
So we wrote to them, a first time : no answer.
A second time : no answer.
A third time : they sent us a prewritten response, like an automatic email response.
We wrote to them again and again. and then they sent us an other automatic response. Everytime this process is taking 2-3 days to have an answer.
So we wrote to them again, and then the answer was that after considering all the informations and documentations we gave them the conclusion is that they cannot pay for any damages, since we had an other guest who checked in before we filled the complaint.
From AirBnb : Hosts must submit their request either 14 days from the guest’s check out, or before the next guest checks in, whichever is earlier
The thing is that our unit is almost always rented, so the same day they checked out , we had an other guest coming in.
We cleaned as fast as we could and tried to fix the maximum of damages.
If something like this happen to you. I would suggest to you to cancel the next reservation and not rent to anyone until the situation has been resolve by Airbnb.
So to them it doesn't matter at all if the guests ruined a couch , a chair, did a party and smoke in the house. We had a 1000$ deposit for this apartment.
We asked for 1698$ Canadien dollars and they offered us 0$. Final decision.
Things are handle in a more humain way with every other competitors of Airbnb.
To treat a Super host, like this, who invested more than 400 000$ for this unit, makes us think that maybe we did a mistake by choosing Airbnb over the competition. Choosing an other option for our business is now something we planned on doing in the future.
Do you have any suggestions on how to reach out to them?
Do you think its normal the way they handle the case?
They say they gonna back you for a 1000 000$ but they dont even give you the deposit.....normal?
Thank you for your help.
Sent from my iPad