Wow, after reading the posts in this string, I guess we should be happy with the settlement offer we just got from AirBnB! In late March, we had nightmare guests, a husband and wife who came with 2 children aged 2 and 12 for a 3-night stay. (We allowed kids at that point, but have since tightened up -- no more little ones!). They had told me in advance that they were coming for a concert in Aspen. I naively assumed (being a new host) that they had made good arrangements for their kids, had relatives in the area, etc. When they arrived, it slipped out that in fact they had tickets for all 3 nights of concerts that weekend and had hired a babysitter they found online to come stay with the kids. They seemed nice enough, and their kids seemed well-behaved, so I didn't turn them away (nor did I feel I had grounds to do so, since we had not yet made a "no babysitter" rule part of the listing), but did emphasize that they and the sitter had to read our guest sheet, revisit the rules, etc.
Well, the parents must have partied hardy at their friends' concerts, because their 2-year-old son got up early the last morning while the parents were sleeping and found a dark green marker in their luggage and scribbled all over our almost new tan leather couch. And marked a throw pillow. And made small marks on two walls and one bed sheet, the latter of which would not wash out. A permanent marker!
Though the guest initially apologized profusely by phone and offered to replace our couch, he of course thought better of it once he got home. He ended up only paying $220 toward the total damage (the couch alone will cost us $2,000 to replace -- repair would be iffy from what we understand, given the extent of the stains). AirBnB has now offered $746 toward the couch, which they say is fair market value on a barely used item (oh, how quickly things depreciate!), with a total payout, including the other damage, of $1,072.90. Like I said above, a much better deal than others have gotten recently. But not exactly the "host guarantee" we thought we would enjoy when we signed up.
It's been a huge time suck dealing with this, and it took AirBnB much longer than promised to resolve our claim, but my son, who owns the loft, is philosophical about it. "Lesson learned -- no young kids and we'll screen guests on their plans even more rigorously than before." In the end, I suppose it's just the cost of doing business ... and we have fared better than others, quite obviously.
(Oh, and just to add insult to injury, the guests broke the "no smoking" rule (there were butts in the garbage and ashes in a flower pot on the deck), the "limit of 4 guests" rule (the babysitter obviously stayed over at least some nights) and the "no sleeping on the couch" rule (bedding in living room belied that breach). People can be so weird, but our 15 other guests so far have been great.)
