Filing a claim after all the sheets, pillow covers and duvet cover were heavily stained with blood.

Johen-Eric-Rafaelo0
Level 2
Oranjestad, Aruba

Filing a claim after all the sheets, pillow covers and duvet cover were heavily stained with blood.

Hi I would like some advice on how to proceed after this scenario.

 

I had  two guests (male and female couple) stay at my place for two days, and all interaction was done on airbnb chat (except for one small personal greeting from me at their arrival) and went smoothly as always. After they checked out and I went inside to check the place before my cleaners came, I noticed they have taken all the white sheets pillow covers and white duvet cover off and were put in a corner. When I went to check them, all but one pillow cover were heavily blood stained. I mean not a small once per month stain, but all over the place with blood splatter and all. This was not brought to my attention by them.

 

My friend thought that maybe it could be wine, but knowing blood stains from the past I was pretty sure it wasn't wine. So to take the doubt out, I went to check in the trashcan to see if maybe they did have red wine. But no red wine bottles were found. Instead I found an empty box of "thunderbeads" (sexual toy for **bleep** pleasure) I really hated doing this but I just wanted to check that if there was a small chance it was red wine, I could still bring the sheets to a professional laundry to get the stains out. But after discovering the empty box there was no doubt of what scenario played out and why the sheets looked like somebody was badly cut and bleeding on them. Even if this was the case I would expect that the guest could have been nice about it and say something about it or offer themselves to pay for it. But never said a thing to me or I never heard anything from them until until this notification that "Guest has reviewed you". 

 

Since after 35 reviews with a perfect 5 star rating and mostly raving reviews it dwelled deeply on me if I should mention something or do something about this. I knew if I did something about this it could cause the guests to get angry and give me a bad review with a bad rating. But after reading a some experiences with stained white sheets on here, and taking in consideration how badly stained the sheets were and its not safe to reuse them or for me to try to clean them I decided to follow a model of one of the host here. I decided to sent him a nice message about it and say I would make a claim and he just have to approve it and we will be all set.

 

message follows.

 

Hi, **********,

Thanks again for staying with us!  It looks like there are a lot of stains on most of the sheets and pillow covers, and for everyone's health and safety, stained sheets need to be disposed of.  Luckily, Airbnb's security deposit system makes it easy to add the replacement cost to your booking after we provide documentation.  
If you'll approve the security deposit charges when we submit them, we'll be all set. The sheet and pillow set is 19.99$ and the duvet set is 24.99$ for a total of 44.98$.

Thanks again, and all the best.

****** & ****

 

I filed the claim on airbnb for that amount with pictures and receipts. The 72 hours for the guest to approve or decline hasn't past yet (1 day to go) and he hasn't approved or declined it either and he didn't reply to the last message I sent him. Just now I get a notification that he reviewed me. I have a strong feeling it is going to be a bad review with lies and a very low rating. I haven't reviewed him yet and I want to hear some advice here from you. I also contacted airbnb costumer support now via live chat but they are very busy and wait time could be 24 hours. 

 

I hate for a bad rating and review to have a negative effect on my business. 

 

Any recommendation how I should proceed?

1 Reply 1
M199
Level 10
South Bruce Peninsula, Canada

@Johen-Eric-Rafaelo0 

 

Sorry to hear you had that experience.  I had a quite but not as bad experience in my first month of hosting.  My husband quickly pointed out that it's part of the hospitality industry.  Don't mean to be insensitive, but it's a business.  I would recommend that you review your pricing to include the cost of replacing the damaged sheets.  It's a lot easier than trying to make a claim of approximately $50.