Problem AirBnb guest left massive amounts of fast food in my recycling bin

[David3418]

I had an AirBnB guest who left today.  was working 9am to 8:30pm weekdays and on the weekend so not much interaction with him at all. After he left I discovered he had put massive amounts of fast food: pizza, hamburgers etc in the recycling bin. I had to fish it out and put it in garbage bags and put it in the general rubbish bin, which is now completely full and does not have enough room in it to hold my week's garbage. Potentially I may even have to pay someone to take the extra garbage I will have this week. And my recycle bin stinks now.

And have another Airbnb guest coming tomorrow.

He also ate in his bedroom every day (against my rules) and left dirty cutlery and food scraps underneath the bed etc.

I am a bit reluctant to write a negative review because he knows my address.

What is best option to deal with this? eg Just write the negative review? Phone AirBnb and talk about it?

Also, I recently reduced my daily charge from $27 per day to $24 per day due to getting less guests because of covid international border closures. 

I've heard you get a "different demographic" if your prices are cheaper. And all my previous guests generally pretty good. So, could my cheaper prices be something to do with it?

I've put my price back up to $27 minimum now. Don't want to take any more chances.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@David3418 Unless you leave an honest review you are contributing to the problem that guests do not get called out for bad behaviour.

Totally agree with putting price up as  discounting = poor guests in many cases

[Anonymous]

@David3418   There's no reason to phone Airbnb. This is an undesirable guest for sure, but there's nothing that customer service can or should take an action on.

If you're certain that you're going to be charged extra for the garbage and receive a physical record of the charge, you may initiate a Resolution Request for the excess. But you'd have to get the ball rolling before your next guest's check-in date, and the amount would have to be worth the hassle. If the guest declined the charge, it would likely be DOA because Airbnb doesn't consider it physical damage.

Unless you've observed something scary in the guest's temperament, it's extremely unlikely that he would retaliate against you physically for leaving an honest review. They're just not invested in their reviews the way that hosts are. You should definitely post one, but you don't have to go into the dirty details - it only needs to convey that not all your rules were observed and more than the expected effort in cleaning and waste removal was required. You can sandwich that in between whatever positive qualities you observed.

On the question of how to prevent incidents like this in the future, I don't think price adjustments of a few dollars have a significant impact.  You don't want to be the cheapest listing in your area, but as a shared-home host you're always limited to the Budget Travel market. This makes communication especially important - both prior to booking and during the stay. On that last point, if you observe a rule being broken and choose not to act on it at the time, the guest will assume that you're OK with what they're doing and the problem will only get worse. 

[Dale711]

Hi @David3418 ,

If I were you, I would flag and block the guest those violated the house rules and not respect my home.

I’ll not host this guest again.

Yes, you can leave an honest review to the guest,  aligned with the Airbnb Policy to help future hosts and the Airbnb community.

Please do not forget to visit the link below, 

Airbnb's Review Policy

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2673

Airbnb's Content Policy
https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/546

As your price is more than reasonable, you can consider adding a small cleaning fee to the listing.

Ways to go!

Happy Hosting!