I'm in a quandry

[Mark349]

I haven’t had a bunch of guests yet, and my rental is a fairly large 5th wheel R.V all self-contained with two queen beds, full shower, TV dining room etc.

I just had two guests leave who reserved the R.V right before we had a terrible cold snap.  The cold overloaded the heat pump and it blew a breaker...  The RV got quite cold.  They reserved for one night, then realized they had made a mistake and I had to go in and redo the reservation to make it two.  The day before they were to arrive I found the power was out, and switched to the RV furnace that doesn't use 120 volt electricity, and turned everything back on, but it takes some time for things to heat up and the temperature was maybe 68 when they came in.  they arrived WAY later than I expected, drove around behind my property, unloaded their stuff and turned on the heat pump in the RV.  WITHOUT KNOCKING ON MY DOOR OR CHECKING IN AT ALL.  We didn't even know they arrived.  I went out and found them flipping switches and turning knobs they didn’t know how to use yet.

So of course they popped the breaker again.  I switched hot water to propane, suggested that they stick with the radiator heater I had in there and that due to the cold the heat pump just can’t keep up.  sincere apology, but it is an RV and it is below freezing!  I asked them to let me know if they had issues and I would gladly come address them.

I heard nothing until after dark the next night.  They called me from dinner saying they didn't have hot water and that the RV was too cold.  AFTER DARK.  I was available all day.

I went out.  re-started the water heater (easy task, the pilot switch) and went inside.  It was almost 80 degrees.  I don't know how anyone could have gotten it warmer.

Banana peels on the wooden table,  chewing tobacco spit in the sink, wintergreen tobacco smell everywhere, mud on the floor, dripping raingear on the couch.  I was appalled!

So, it is warm, they have hot water.  The place is a mess, so it goes.

Now they want a refund.  It smells, it needs a complete wipe down, they didn’t check in before they moved in.  They could have broken something by just starting to randomly flip switches,  I offered to be there for any issues as they come up, but they don’t say anything until after.  The worst guests I have had. 

Do I refund them?  Is this going to ruin my review rating?

[Helen3]

When you say a refund what do you mean - a refund for the whole time? or just a partial refund.

From what you covered in your post they did have hot water and heating throughout their stay. Just had some issue getting the hot water going.

If you showed them how to do this/had a guide that told how to do this, I think you are covered.

Hopefully you messaged them through BNB in terms of what happened so there is a record that they arrived without checking in and this unfortunately meant they tripped the switch for the heating on arrival.

If you want you could offer a small refund for inconvenience but confirm that all issues were corrected as soon as they alerted you, that they were never without heating. and they continued to stay.