Alert! Bad Guest: [guest] from Italy running away after losing our house key

[Nicole331]

Hi community,

I've just encountered a guest named [guest name] from Italy who ran away after losing our key and left my space at a mess. We now could not get in touch with him at all & have to pay for all the charges relating to lock & key replacement (almost 400 EUR). The last message we got from him was that: "That was the risk you will have as a host" and then he disappeared.

I wondered if you have encountered anything similar like this before. For us, this is a terrible experience & we want to share with you all so that you can be alerted of such guest. Also, AirBnb should really have a solution to protect the host as well.

**[Personal information hidden for safety reasons]

[Karen1]

@Nicole331  Did you contact Airbnb to make a claim against your security deposit? Do so immediately and take photos of the mess. This guest should have to pay and Airbnb should block him from future bookings. (This is not the right forum to get the help you need.)

[Wei-and-Ting0]

Hi Nicole, sorry to hear what you went through but this is not the right place. Host Voice is meant for things like feature requests and suggestions to improve the platform. But since we are here, this what you do:

1. Calm down, you have 60 days to make claims.

2. Document everything. Take lots of photos and keep all your repair and cleanup receipts.

3. Request money from the guest with the evidence you collected, if they ignore it for more than 72 hours Airbnb will get involved.

4. Leave a bad review for the guest in question, and maybe warn hosts in your area by contacting them directly.

5. Think about changes you can make to protect yourself in the future. We've had people lose the keys a number of times, but we have spare keys and copying them was like $3.

6. Focus on your next guests, better ones are coming.