Hi,
I am in a bit of an odd situation and need some advice. I recently stayed in an apartment with my husband in London for a couple of nights (17-19 August) then went to Italy for a few days. Since the London apartment was cheap, we decided to stay at the same apartment again when we came back from Italy (23-28 August). So overall it’s two trips in the same Airbnb apartment in London.
When we left the London place the first time, my husband realised he left his very expensive brand new suit in the cupboard. Since we were coming back in a few days, I messaged the host immediately to tell the cleaner who was coming at 11am (I messsaged before 8am) to please either leave it in the cupboard or put it somewhere safe till we return. The host said they would tell the cleaner.
I followed a couple of days later since I hadn’t heard anything and the host said they hadn’t managed to get in touch with the cleaner yet. I thought this was strange as it was probably just a case of a phone call. Anyway, I just let it go since we were back in a couple of days and the host wasn’t really answering my questions, so assumed he hadnt told the cleaner and the suit would be right where we left it.
On the way to the London apartment for the second trip, I get a message from the host saying the cleaner never found the suit (bear in mind this message is 5 days after I messaged initially asking the whereabouts of the suit). I ignored this message as we were nearly there and could check for ourselves (just thought she probably missed it or something). Then finally when we got to the apartment the suit was missing (we checked everywhere).
It was clear that there had been guests who had stayed after us that had threw a party (laughing gas cannisters everywhere, gum stuck in the carpet in one of the bedrooms, what looks like half a joint on one of the bedrooms floor, etc.). Anyway I messaged the host saying maybe the cleaner put it somewhere safe or the last guests had taken it, and they basically replied saying the cleaner never saw it (impossible) and they have left stuff there while guests stayed and it wasn’t taken. I replied saying this was not acceptable as I messaged as soon as we realised and had we have known that he would not take the effort to keep it safe, we would have made arrangements for someone to collect it or have him post it.
So now I would like to know, can we get Airbnb to make him give us compensation or something? I know they probably don’t cover left items, however I messaged the host through Airbnb so the message logs are there to show that we tried to recover it/keep it safe.
Apologies for such a long post but it’s a weird situation and I don’t know if we have any rights.
Best,
Aisha
