Damage to yard

[Lori234]

Hi all, I had a guest that just checked out and made a mess of mud around my firing that looks like he was at Glastonbury. I know grass grows, but here in the Pacific Northwest, it will be a while. For one person to make such a mess is really irresponsible. I won’t be able to have my next guests use this nice feature of my property until the grass can take hold again. I also have to remove quite a bit of wet sticks and magazines he unsuccessfully used to light his fire. My question is, how much would you charge for loss of use of the area, clean up and putting down new grass seed. He also left muddy foot prints all over the deck. Thanks for any advice.

[Laura2592]

@Lori234 sorry this happened to you. Do you plan to try  and recover this through the resolution center? If so you will likely need an invoice from a landscaper. If the guest will pay for this offline, I would suggest calling someone in your area for a clean up quote and charging accordingly. Take lots of pictures-- hopefully you also have images of the condition of your yard before the guest arrived. Good luck!

[Lori234]

Thank you for your reply, Laura. I will probably just charge my normal $40 an hour for extra cleaning. He seems like a nice guy, but obviously clueless. He even threw banana pills in my chicken coop.

[Laura2592]

@Lori234  as hosts here will tell you, ABB resolution center will require an invoice for damages to be paid out. The word of a host that they have to do extra clean up seldom suffices. Filing a claim will result in your guest being able to pay or refuse, in which case ABB customer service takes over. They will only decide in your favor if you have documented evidence that passe muster. Good luck!

[Lori234]

I finally figured out how to make a photo smaller for Airbnb to accept it. It was raining when he was trying to light this wet kindling. He just left this with a bunch of trash underneath the sticks because it obviously wouldn’t light. Before I sent him the payment request for damage, he sent me a note saying he had bites on his skin and was implying they were from bedbugs. After I had excepted his request for booking, he kept asking me all kinds of questions and I can be extremely patient, but I was starting to get annoyed. I thought at first it was nice that he just wanted to be clear about some things and wanted to be a good guest. He treated my house like he was a careless teenage boy. 

[Brenda328]

@Lori234   If the guest is starting the bug bite discourse, that is almost a sure indicator that he knows he caused damage and is trying to scare you off - and maybe even add insult to injury by getting Airbnb to refund his entire stay!

[Lori234]

I’ll have a pest control company come over and give my place a clean bill of health to prove that if he were to say anything publicly in a review. I would most certainly have Airbnb remove the review since he would not be able to prove that and it would be false information. , not an opinion. He still hasn’t responded to the request for payment.

[Dimitar27]

Make the place more "idiot-proof". If samething can be damaged so easy, it will probably be damaged permanently.

[Sarah977]

@Dimitar27  You can't idiot proof against this level of idiocy and disrespect. You're suggesting the host not have a yard and cover it with concrete?

[Dimitar27]

Probably something can be done.

If something happens once, without adequate actions against it, it will happen again. It's just a matter of time. Call me a pessimist, but I don't believe in miracles, when it comes to human behavior.

[Sarah977]

@Dimitar27  While I agree that hosts should try to mitigate expensive damage by not having a lot of expensive things around or appliances or amenities that may be easily damaged if they aren't used in a specific way, short of hosting a concrete bunker in the middle of a concrete yard, with all furnishings being built-in concrete, a host can't avoid any kind of damage a guest might do.

If a host finds that lots of guests irretreivably stain the towels, what's the host supposed to do, stop providing towels? Tell guests to dry off with paper towels? 

A guest shouldn't have to be told not to drive all over the lawn turning it into a mud pit. 

[Laura2592]

@Sarah977 I had this discussion in my online business. Someone bought a piece of jewelry from me and HIT IT WITH A HAMMER resulting, predictably, in its destruction. They said  "well, you didn't say that it should be treated gently to wear it." Uh, no I did not say "don't hit this diamond ring with a hammer." in the description. Touche'. Nor did I say do not shoot it into space, vaporize it in a nuclear reactor or run over it with your SUV. But no one on earth would think these are activities suitable for a piece of jewelry. Normal wear and tear would not result in this item being destroyed. Hammer hitting is beyond the realm of daily use. Same thing here. We cannot pretend to predict all the myriad ways that creative guests could destroy our spaces. All we can do is guard against the most common. 

[Sarah977]

@Laura2592  Unbelievable. They actually expected you to replace the jewelry or give them a refund? Some people must have nothing between their ears but bone and blood.

I'm happy that none of my upholstery clients has ever expected me replace the cushion covers I made for them because they spilled red wine on them 🙂

[Laura2592]

@Sarah977  I don't know that they expected me to. I think they were hoping I would if they made the right argument 🙂 

My life involves a lot of emotional labor. 

[Sarah977]

@Laura2592  I once had a woman come to me asking if I could make her 10 single bed size cushions for built in concrete benches. I said I'd be happy to, and asked what was her timeline. 

She said one week (it takes a day to make one). I told her that was unfortunately impossible- even if I put in long hours to get them done, it was a week before Xmas and I was scrambling to complete the projects already on my plate that other clients who had ordered a month previous were waiting for.

Her response was "But we're hosting a wedding."