Broken room lamp etc

[Ray197]

My recent guest has broken a bedside reading lamp. It is one of a matched pair.

I will not be able to replace just one of them so a new pair has to be purchased.

How do you feel about the guest paying for the new pair of lamps?

Do you feel it is fair for them, or for me, if you don't think they should pay for it?

I realise they probably will give me a bad review if I ask them for payment but thats just human nature.....

A few damged parts in apartment. They taped the blinds closed and peeled paint of the walls when removing the tape.

One holland blind put back up on wall backwards/inside out

Cutlery damaged. Nicks in the walls .

Will need to repaint at least one wall.

Hasn't been the most successful  booking.

He has admitted the lamp breakage and offered to pay "something" towards the replacement.

Thoughts??

Ray

[Sarah977]

@Ray197 Had it just been the accidental breakage of a lamp, I'd be likely to just chalk it up to normal wear and tear if not an expensive item (but nice, responsible people do offer to pay for breakage and if they did, I'd gratefully accept), but since there is an extensive list of things this guest damaged,  requiring more than a trip to the store for a couple new lamps, I'd charge him for it.

And try to buy lamps and other things that are easily replaceable without having to buy a "set" that can't be matched. I.e. all the same color towels and bedding, or mix and match style, so you don't have to chuck stuff and buy another whole set just because a guest damaged part of it. Ikea is good for this- you can buy dishes, bedding, lamps, that you can easily replace one of.

How does one damage cutlery, I wonder? 

[Sheila276]

I have not been able to utilize rhe security deposit feature.  A guest who was issued full refund trashed my home while and gave a bad review.  New users with no previous ratings have been honest and pricing hasn't impacted reviews in my experience.

I was originally planning on listing all my homes on Airbnb as an alternative to lease agreements which make evictions time consuming and expensive.  The idea of setting security deposits which only need to be paid if damage occurs would be excellent if it worked.

A man with 6 public reviews gave me a bad review after trashing my 2nd listing.  His refund counted as a decline and my review is hidden.  My rating had no impact on his average and his profile makes him look great.

AirBnb has a lot of potential if customers had accurate ratings, refunds were limited to legitimate cases, there wasn't bias or the security deposit feature works.  I'm curious if the security deposit feature works for guests who are not refunded.

I have not had the chance to find out because no other guest has caused damage or made a mess.

I would test the security deposit feature if it looks like he damaged your property on purpose.  I'm also curious if reviews which warn of bad guests are concealed in all cases or if it's as common as I suspect.

The guy who trashed my home in order to take pictures for a refund should have several bad ratings by now.  It's strange that the only destructive visitor I had has more good reviews than the rest of my customers combined.

AirBnb will lose to competition if hosts are to afraid of bad reviews to attempt to make people pay for vandalism or give them a bad review.  He can't see your review until he reviews you.  This means you might as well give him a bad review if he fails to volunteer to pay for the damage in full.  I'm curious about how extensive the practice of hiding warnings about bad guests is.

I wabt to know if you write a bad review and it's hidden on his profile.  I'm also curious about the security deposit feature because the combination of the misleading ratings with a fake security deposit system would make AirBnb completely worthless.

We can't see accurate reviews on visitors.  This means the ability to make them pay for damages is critical even though less than 5% of users are dishonest.  A bad review from a customer doesn't matter if the security deposit feature is as deceptive and fake as the ratings on the profiles of people who trash homes. 

Please keep me posted and I'll do the same.  So far the guy who trashed my home and brought down my average has a flawless record on display.  I had to change the locks on my front and back doors afterwards because he lives in the area and proved untrustworthy.

Was the guy who damaged your home local or from another state/country?  All my visitors from other states and nations have been excellent so far.  It's too bad either certain or all users are able to get away with doing enough damage to eat the profits of over 7 other guests.

[Sarah977]

@Sheila276  There are plenty of bad guest reviews that are not removed. If a host keeps the review professional, factual, and non-emotional, and doesn't write anything that could be construed as discriminatory, it will usually remain visible. If the review is really nasty, slags the guest as a terrible person, etc and the guest complains, Airbnb will often take it down.

Unfortunately there are a lot of hosts who are loathe to give a bad review because they don't want to be "mean" and are scared to give a bad review because they consider themselves to be nice people.. Some newer hosts don't even understand that the reviews are blind- they think the guest can somehow see the review before they have submitted one of their own, so they think if they give a bad review, that the the guest will be able to retaliate with a bad host review. And some listings are run by faceless property managers who never meet the guests and give generic "Nice guest" type reviews.

It's definitely reported on these forums that hosting locals can be disastrous and many hosts refuse to accept bookings from locals. There are exceptions, like maybe a guest is having their own home remodelled and needs a place to stay while construction is in progress, but what I've read here on these forums is that more often locals throw wild parties or behave in a disrespectful and entitled way.