Being protected when guests steal from you

[Marguerite65]

I had a guest who provided government ID. He and his girlfriend trashed our place and went through storage areas and stole jewelry. I filed a police report, but got no where as they could not locate him, which makes me wonder if the name was right. Air Bnb would not release the government ID or give it to the police so the file was closed. And to boot I got nothing for what was stolen. You have to have a receipt for everything you own to claim it. Who has receipts for everything in their home, like jewelry that was bought years ago or given to you?

So how to you protect yourself? Apparently the insurance Airbnb says they have does little for us in these situations. So clearly a guest could empty out all of our furniture and we wouldn't be protected as who has receipts for a coach we bought 4 or 5 years ago?

Love to know if anyone has had this experience and felt as let down as I do?

[Laura2592]

@Marguerite65 I don't know what you can do at this point except check local pawn shops for your jewelry and other stolen goods. I once had an $8500 ring stolen by a cleaning woman (nothing to do with Airbnb) and faced a similar situation where I knew what had happened but had no evidence and a very uncooperative cleaning franchise manager who did not want to admit his employee was at fault for fear of losing his business reputation. So lessons I learned and other suggestions are:

1. get a safe and keep it well hidden. 

2. rent a safety deposit box at a bank for any valuables you don't use a lot. 

3. check your guests IDs at check in

4. Put locks on any doors where valuables may be kept.

5. Get a dog who will alert you if the guest is going into parts of the house that they shouldn't

6. Get more coverage on your home owners insurance and appraisals for anything of value. Keeping receipts works too, but things like electronics and purses don't generally get you 100% reimbursement unless they are brand new. 

[Marguerite65]

All good advice, thans. A bit hard to protect everything we have in our homes especially when we live in them. I guess I also need to find out what my own house insurance covers when we are using AirBnB. I think I now realize that the AirBnB insurance assurance isn't going to protect me. I'm not sure in what situations it does protect us? Does anyone know? Curious about other hosts experiences. It would help me sleep better after this experience.