Our property is located in an old port city. The house itself is well over 100 years old—charming, exposed wood beams, modern kitchen and original wood floors. All of this invites the occasional critter from time to time. However, we do everything to mitigate this (regular deep cleans and sanitization between stays, monthly pest control, garbage removed from the property, etc.)
We just had a guest who, very late on their last night stay, reported to Airbnb they had found a mouse and separately saw a mouse trap and didn't feel safe on the property. They didn't reach out to me, although I talked to them only an hour earlier. Airbnb obviously sided with the guest, gave them a full refund for their entire stay and is giving us 96 hours to provide documentation of cleaning and pest control or they will cancel all our future bookings and remove our listing from the platform. Since this cleaning and pest control is routine for us, we can provide this. The reaction from Airbnb feels extreme and unfair to the host. They are not willing to share any documentation the guest provided, citing privacy concerns. The guest is also not willing to share the documentation. I can't help but feel like this guest is scamming us.
Airbnb's response to me was that the guest was not aware there could be mice. My question is, how do you make guests aware of the chance sighting and routine precautions taken to avoid mice to:
- make the guest aware
- avoid a mandatory full refund to the guest
- not get booted off the Airbnb platform for mentioning that you may encounter a mouse.
It seems like a black and white issue for Airbnb, and despite years of five-star reviews, one mouse is basically an infestation. So how also do you get any support from Airbnb when they represent only the guest's interests in an issue.
I'm not disputing that mice are gross, and no one wants to see one. I just don't know how to arrive in the middle ground. It seems like having a mouse, having traps to prevent mice, or mentioning mice all violates Airbnb Host Standards.