guest complaint

[Marisabel0]

I have found myself in unsual waters here, I have an apartment in a island off Colombia (south America) lately is has been raining a lot and the infrastructure of the island does not have the capacity to deal with this much water, now my issue is that I have a guest complaining of bad odor from the bathroom, this is the first time I have had somebody complain about it, everyday she tells me the smell is horrific and she cant handle it anymore, but the thing is that she send me a whatsapp chat to tell me this, never trough airbnb, hasnt complained to them at all. Everyday she demands to know what I have been doing about the smell, I dont live in the island but I do have a fantastic manager for the apartment and he has been telling me that they have gone everyday to clean for her and to pour bleach on the drains to stop whatever smell she is complaining about. Now she wants a refund for her whole week vacation. I have been very reasuring with her, but she has been the only one to complain, even the person that left the same day after she arrived had nothing to say but wonderful things about the apartment not once talking about any smells. On top of that when she made her reservation she told me that she was leaving on a much later flight and that she wanted to know if she could stay on the apartment until her time to leave, I told her yes as long as there are no other reservations. Of course we have one and I had to tell her about it and reminding her that check out time was at noon. Now she has send me a message stating that she will leave at 1pm and that she needs me to keep her bags and to assure her that somebody is going to be there at 11pm to hand them their luggage. What on earth do I do? I will give her a partial refund but Im pretty sure my ratings will take a nose dive with her review. Should I give her a full refund? in really at a loss here, first time this happens in over two years of renting the apt. please any advice would help 

[David126]

You did not mention if there is a smell?

How come she is still there if it is so horrific?

[Marisabel0]

There seems not to be any smell at all, bleached bathroom  everyday and both my cleaning lady and property manager have said that there is humidity in the bathroom but there is not a terrible smell coming from anywhere. I actually send her a refund but I am very troubleded by her actions, I mean why stay there if the "smell" was so horrifying? and why not contact Airbnb about it?  I have never had this problem with any guests... im a little mad about the whole situation.

[David126 · Accepted solution]

She complained and go a free stay, so from her perspective a result.

[Marisabel0]

It just blows my mind that people do this to get a free vacation, very sad the only good thing is I will flag her so that future hosts dont go trough the same thing.

[Gerry-And-Rashid0]

@David126 

She has stayed for a week so it cannot have been that bad. I assume your manager has confirmed there was an issue and you also mention it was down to the amount of rain, etc.

I would offer a refund, but do it though the platform, making the point that it was very unusual weather conditions, she did stay for the entire week and used the property fully, however you are prepared to give her xx to acknowledge that there was an issue at times with the odour from drains.

I would not offer a full refund. You will probably get a bad review, but just be professional (and a lot more concise than your post please) mentioning the extreme weather, efforts to help, partial refund in recompense, and also...thank her for staying for the full week.

[David126]

@Gerry-And-Rashid0

Refund has been given, seems likely there was no real issue.