Hi all
We are new to Airbnb - listed our cottage in mid December 2018.
We are in Constantia, Cape Town.
We've had the pleasure of meeting quite a lot of interesting people thus far and we are enjoying it.
Here's our problem:
We've had two guys from UK stay with us, which was supposed to be a 10day booking. Three days into the booking they cancelled due to apparent insect infestation at the listing. They have seen some ants and messaged me, when I returned home about 40 minutes later I immediately went to the cottage and asked them to show me where the ants were. They took me outside on the pool deck, close to where garden starts (about 8 meters) from their patio door. There was no ants - but there probably was a few at the time he messaged me.
The next day it was a bee that flew into the cottage - they were absolutely hesterical with fear.
Later that day pointed out a flying bug on the outside wall of the main house - about 15 meters from their accommodation. They told me that it's a "huge cockroach" - which it wasn't.
It became clear that either one or both of the had an accute fear of insects.
Constantia is a beautiful lush suburb with a somewhat rural setting, with lots of wine farms, stables and the Table Mountain nature reserves in very close proximity to the houses. This is what attracts so much tourists and locals to the area. Its therefore inevitable that one is going to come into contact with nature - birds, insects, wildlife etc that inhabited the area long before we did.
Anyway, on the 3rd day they cancelled on Airbnb website and said that ants and cockroaches are crawling out of cracks and out under skirtings in the cottage. They demanded a full refund as they were leaving and I responded that I will contact Airbnb to advise. After they left I saw the message from Airbnb advising on their partial refund in terms of our cancellation policy.
Yesterday I received a message from Airbnb advising that these guest lodged a complaint against us wrt an insect infestations (not to mention cockroaches). Airbnb asked for my response, I explained exactly as I did now. Tonight I received another message from Airbnb saying that the guests' claim is valid after investigating the matter and documents the guests provided having been validated. I don't understand how Airbnb got to this conclusion.
Airbnb now wants to refund all of the days the guests did not stay and 50% of the days they did.
I find this unfair and unacceptable.
We had an exterminator check the whole property the day after the guests left and was assured that we do not have any sort of insect infestation, especially not cockroaches, except for the garden insects which are normal.
None of our previous guests ever complained about any sort of insects inside the cottage. We take great pride in the cleanliness of our cottage.
How do I deal with this?
They will probably leave a bad review as well which will be completely inaccurate, and tarnishing our reputation and excellent track record wrt reviews.
Keenly awaiting some input / advice
