boiler broke down during guest stay

[Joanna309]

After 10 days renting our property the guest at 8.30pm in the evening contacted me to say the gas boiler that operated the central heating and the hot water had gone off.  I instructed the guest to put on the gas fire which is in the lounge - the fire is new and very affective. 

Because it was so late in the evening i arranged for a gas fitter to visit the property along with the property manger . The following morning at 9am the company informed me that i needed a new boiler.  I immediately contacted the guests that was working in the area and informed him that the work would start that day (which may i add was the morning after he reported the situation) i informed the guest that the work would be finished within 48 hours - i offered to relocate the guests but he said ''no we are fine we can use the gas fire for heating and also we have the elctric shower , so no problem)

the boiler was fitted within record time 

re-cap. the boiler went off Tuesday evening 8.30pm -  and working by Thursday 1pm . The guest working in the area was not inconveniced at all by the work as the guest was out of the property all day. 

Now the guest is asking for compensation for 2 nights stay, they are now complainging that the house was freezing and no hot water - she also said the property was very expensive and what compensation would i give to them. 

My feeling are 

1. I offered to relocate and they said no 

2. There was heating in the house - gas fire in the lounge. 

3 They said they would be happy to use the electric shower, the dishwasher, the kettle 

4. The said the property was expensive - they might think this because they have booked for 3 guests to stay in a 6 guest accommodation. 

I feel reluctant to give them compensation - but as i gesture of Good will i was going to offer them 50% off the two night price. does anyone think i am being unreasonable. 

I know that they will put a review on the property - even thou the property has met to their satisfaction, but i do know that they feel they have paid too much money and a comment like this is not going to go down well. 

[Sandra856]

Hi @Joanna309 🙂

They are unreasonable. I think they are horrible. You did everything you could and even offered to relocate your guests. I think I would compensate them for the 2 days they ask and just "play the game" being the thoughtful,  extra sweet host to prevent a bad review. Then afterwards I would write a very honest review to warn future hosts explaining exactly what happend. Sweet revenge! I hope everything will wotk out for you 🙂

Best, Sandra

[Sandra856]

Hi again @Joanna309 🙂

I can see you are a new host and you need good reviews. There is a lot to know about being a host especially when things like this happens. When you review for instance your guests wont be able to read your review before after the have written one themselves. So you can be brutaly honest. And it is important to write a honest review in order to warn future hosts. 

If you need any advice on writing a review then ask this community. It is important to write a professional -non-emotionel review. It really is a game when you get guests like these. It happens - but luckily not that often. 

[Joanna309]

Hello in view of them saying they did not want to be relocated and then ask for compensation does upset me. With regards to an honest review - these guests are part of a medical unniversity and they are on a placement.  Last year we had a further 2 bookings from the unniversity and one of the group of guests left the house very untidy - the second group left it really nice. 

to leave a review about a group from the unniversity then it might then jepadise me from future bookings. 

for this reason this is why i feel giving them 50% off the two day booking just might help. 

I have been advertising with another web portal for many years and have excellent reviews and just trying to get the same from air bnb as they have given us quite a few bookings. 

[Sandra856]

@Joanna309 you should do what ever you think is the right thing to do. But if you don't take the responsibility to warn future hosts about guests like that then they will continue their unfair behaveour. Wouldn't you have liked to know about their behaveour before you accepted them?

[Joanna309]

Hello yes you are right, i am going to message them today and see what comes back, at the moment they are not holding a complaint, they just asked was there compensation - if it turns in to a moaning or a complaint then of course i will put what ever happens as a review. 

thanks for your feed back. 

[Alexandra316 · Accepted solution]

@Joanna309 I would also suggest that you leave an honest review in respect for your fellow hosts.

I would hope that the university would not get involved with a private matter if one of their students is legitimately a bad guest.

I had an almost identical scenario come up a couple of weeks ago. My boiler broke down at around 3 pm, and it was fixed by 8:30 pm. I also offered a space heater (not as nice as your fireplace, but there was still heat available). I was debating over whether or not to refund them for one night to compensate them. They had also been high maintenance guests. On checkout, I was happy that I hadn't refunded them, because they left a huge mess in the flat that took our cleaner ages to clean. If you do decide to offer money, I would wait until after checkout to send it, honestly.

I personally wouldn't refund them. They do sound absolutely horrible: you did everything you could to assist.

[Joanna309]

Hi thank you . yes i was thinking of offering them 40% off a 2 night stay, but i will do as you suggested and wait until the cleaner goes in to pay them the money. 

thank you most helpful. 

[Alexandra316]

No problem @Joanna309! Hope it all works out for you.

[Joanna309]

Well in the end i sent a short email to the guest explaining about the offer of relocating her and the job was done in a short time, we offered them 50% off the two night stay and low and behold she accepted this without any problems. | think offering them something did help and stopped the complaint from esculating , after all they did not have hot water for a duration of their stay and i felt that i should at least give them something back for this. below is her email to me. - thank you all for your support which was a great help.  

Hello Joanna, we do appreciate the quickness that the situation was dealt with.  The compensation would be great, thank you.