Same thing happened to me too... I was home that week and went to the house the day the cleaners came. I made sure everything looked good, left snacks and a whole basket of goodies for their stay in LA. The guest called to complain that there was a horrible smell of cigarette smoke in the house. She called customer service at 3am, and they said that they would refund her the whole week if they did not hear from me by 10am. Well, i called at 4 am when i got the message. But seriously... 10am? If i just didnt see the message till 10:05 then they make a unilateral decision?
I have superhost status, the guest before her gave me 5 stars and the guest after her gave me 5*, and every guest since then too. There was no smoke or any other smell. Yet, airbnb CM's decide to uphold the decision to refund her entirely. Case of the squeaky wheel gets the grease! How does airbnb not look at former reviews and say, there has never been any complaint of smoke or smell? How do they not look at my solid 5* reviews?
So to base this decision, they told me, she sent in photos... as they all do, they took photos of anything and everything to try to get out of it. She took photos of discolorations on the linoleum floor that have been there since 1962. Yes, the carpet is old, but steam cleaned. Discolorations in the carpet dont signify uncleanliness. Its a rental, and one that i allow pets in. I'm certainly not putting in new carpet and flooring. Their final ruling was full refund including cleaning costs, even though she tore it up and spent a day in there. This was based on thier "cleanliness" policy she said, and the fact that there were "severe stains " in the floor and carpet".
REally? bc i the original complaint was a smell isssue.... that didnt exist. Now its a stain issue?
I'm following up on twitter and facebook. They are replying to me fairly quickly. I want to **bleep** this in the bud. This can not happen again. We all depend on our bookings for rent and income.
Truely i think this all revolves around thier "strict cancelation" policy. What they need to do, is have the guests check a box, saying that they acknowledge that this is a SC policy and other leagalease to ensure that the guests are informed and consent, and we are covered.
Oh and PS... out of curiosity, i looked her up on FB... guess what, she was now 3 hour away in Ohai spending the week. Imagine that. How convenient was it that her trip to Ohai came up, just when she had to cancel her reservation.....