Hello fellow hosts,
After five years of hosting and 43 stays, we had our first bad one this past month. The guest was bad enough, but I feel the support I got from AirBnB was less than stellar. We need some others to weigh in.
We are on instant book and this guest wanted to break two house rules right off the top and was forced to contact us for her requests. We are a no smoking property and we don't take cats. Guest wanted us to accommodate her in regard to both. She was booking for 30 days, so the money was substantial. She said the kitten was well behaved, and if we allowed her to smoke (pot), she would only do it outside. We agreed to make a designated place for her on the patio of the rental apartment, which is the entire ground floor of our house. We live up above. Also, included in the rent is weekly cleaning. This serves two purposes; it allows us to change out sheets and towels, mop, dust, etc. It also allows us to see if anything bad is happening.
The guest was young (early 20's) and very personable and we got off to a good start, until the day of the first cleaning. We ask the guests on long stays to pick a day of the week of their choosing for the cleaning. We ask them to leave for a couple of hours so we can do the work.
Our apartment is quite lovely and not furnished with what I would call rental apartment furniture. It's actually the guest suite for our own visitors, when AirBnB folks are not in residence. It's furnished like our house.
Anyway, we walked in to do the clean and the place was a shambles. It looked like a border had moved in. Suitcases we're open and spilling over, clothes thrown around the room in heaps, clean and dirty. There was a path on the floor just wide enough to get from the front door to the bathroom and kitchen. The cats food bowl was dirty and bits of dried food we're all over the floor. The litter box in the bathroom was full and litter was all over the floor. The tiny kitchen was a mess and the bed had taken the full brunt of someone peeing in it. Sheets, wool blanket, coverlet and brand new pillows. Shame on me for not having a waterproof cover on the mattress, but when we took the mattress pad off, it was clear it was toast. All we could do then and there was flip it.
It was also evident that kitty had used the arms and cushions of two upholstered chairs as a scratching posts!
I did not challenge the guest with what we found that day, other than to say that it looked like someone had an accident in the bed. The guest blamed it on the cat and feigned ignorance of the event. One week into a 30 day stay; we just didn't feel like starting something with this guest. But in any event, we were now on alert.
Second week was the same story, only this time the bed was still soaking wet. We pulled off the mattress pad and the stain was twice as large as the week before! At this point, I took photos and sent them to the guest via the AirBnB platform. I advised her that I would need to claim the damages done after her departure. She feigned ignorance again and offered a soft apology.
Meanwhile, the guests outdoor smoking routine lasted for about the first week, at which point she moved indoors for the remainder of her stay. We lived with the smell of weed permeating our house for three weeks. We're not confrontational types, and again, it was a long stay for a lot of money, we sucked it up.
Third week, wet bed again. Whomever was responsible, the guest was not modifying the behavior. She stayed in the apartment for days at a time, just she, the cat and the weed!
The fourth week, I received a message that the guest intended to depart four days early, Wednesday instead of Saturday. Wednesday was cleaning day. The guest did not ask for a refund on the four days, We took this as an apology for the situation and her attempt to make it right. We were cognizant of this and appreciative. She and the cat left and we went in to assess the damage. Went out that day and bought new mattress, new pillows, blankets and coverlet. Had our cleaning crew work double time.
Than came the day I had to write the review. I didn't want to rip her to shreads, so I gave her four stars and a totally non-committal verbal review. Also checked that I would not host again. Then, I re-read the five previous host reviews that I had used to make my decision to accept the girl as a guest. They were all 4.5-5.0 stars! Really??? It's like we had a different person here entirely. We held our breath for the guests review, and **bleep**, if she didn't cut us off at the knees! We've never had a rating less than 4.5! She gave us 3.0 and said some very unkind things, some of it was an outright lie. We were gobsmacked.
When I called AirBnB to protest, they said there was nothing they could do about the review as it did not violate any of their guidelines. It was her word against ours! We felt completely abandoned by the corporate support staff.
The issue for us is not so much the damage, but the lack support from the AirBnB staff. We feel like they really don't want to get involved in these resolutions. Everything is great while there are no problems, but you're on your own when something like this happens.
Have others of you had a similar experience and how have you resolved it.
Thank you,
Steven & Carlos
