Guest requesting refund due to unexpected construction

[Mehnaz0]

Hello fellow hosts! 

A guest of mine has booked my place for 30 days (booked in 8 day intervals), and after the first night, they are asking for a full refund due to construction. 

The construction is happening right outside of my home and was very unexpected, even I was surprised. The due date was July 22nd but the construction will clearly remain for the next little while. 

Although I do understand the reason for the refund, I wanted to ask what other hosts have done in similar situations. 

I have been a host for almost a year, have received only positive reviews, this construction was completely unexpected and is supposed to end today (but is delayed), and the guest is requesting to cancel all 30 days and to offer refund for 8 days for the current trip. 

I had all of these days booked out so I will be losing out on a lot of income for the month. This guest was primarily my only guest for a month and a half so I am not sure what I should do. 

Many advice is greatly appreciated! 

[Emiel1]

@Mehnaz0 

If the construction work will end soon, there is no reason to cancel the remaining bookings, so the applied cancellation policy will decide about a refund (if any). Regarding the current reservation: It depends how much impact the contruction work has on the well being of your guests. You can offer them some compensation for the inconvenience. If they want to leave right away, they need to cancel the curent reservation and contact Airbnb for a refund (more then the cancellation policy is offering).. Or you can contact Airbnb and ask for cancellation (penalty free) due to "unexpected circumstances" and let Airbnb decide about the refund.It woud be nice if you could provide to the guests and/or Airbnb the date when the construction work will end, so they can make a good decision.

[Mark116]

@Mehnaz0  That's a tough one.  I would be angry if there was a loud construction site next to me that I didn't know about....it really depends on if you realistically think it will be finished in the few days or will it drag on another week or more.  Can you ask the construction workers?  If they say they are done in 2 or 3 days, maybe offer a discount of 30% for the days where the construction was ongoing.  If it's going to be ongoing for weeks, then, maybe you should refund them and hope you can rebook it.  Or you can stick to whatever  your cancellation policy is, and hope that airbnb backs you up.

I don't know if anyone has experience in if airbnb usually would side w/a guest on this type of refund request? 

PS...it looks like a basement  unit, so I wonder how much noise they are really hearing or what is their specific objection/issue with the construction?  Your listing isn't a vacation house type of thing, where guests would be planning to hang out all day, if you know what I mean.   Is it possible they decided they didn't really want to stay there and are using the construction as an excuse?