Guests trashed kitchen and living area

Barry289
Level 1
Aviemore, GB

Guests trashed kitchen and living area

Been hosting for 6 pretty uneventful months, the odd breakage, a bit of general guest mess but nothing too serious.... we are used to hosting families with children and them also following the house rules .......   until we saw what was left by our latest guests.

We got a call from our cleaner, after guest check-out this morning, in tears, asking us to come over now. What we were met with I can only describe a scene of culinary carnage and destruction within our normally sparkling clean flat. The kitchen alone was what we could describe as a hovel, following guests being in for only 4 days.

Sunflower oil coating all the walls, work surfaces, cooker, floors and cupboards and even in the fridge. 

Raw meat and uncovered (chicken, pork and beef) left on every work surface, including within the fridge.  The kitchen stank off "off-meat". This was our biggest concern due to food poisoning and cross-contamination across all the units, door handles and appliances.

The top of the cooker looked like someone had been murdered on it with the amount of burnt food, oil and debris left swimming there. 

The guests used the floors in the bedrooms, the corner in the living room and kitchen floor and units for disposing of everything, ALL rubbish. None of it was in the bin. Our cleaner had said she got to the front door and found a bag of half eaten food and rubbish left on our door handle.  My towels were used to mop up the kitchen floor, which we found flooded and slippy with grease.  I have had to organise an emergency industrial cleaner to get the flat turned around in time for a further booking. Due to the holidays and availability of companies, we have had to get someone in outside our local area, incurring additional costs, 6 hours worth of deep cleaning. The cooker, walls, fridge, sink, work surfaces all had to be disinfected and sanitised due to the raw meat preparation and potential for bacterial growth.  There is general mess that you accept, but this was disgusting and a health hazard. Not one single dish was clean, everything had half-eaten food on it.  The sink had and drains had to be degreased. They completely ignored every single house rule. The cleaner said she came to somewhere that looked light Blackpool illuminations as they had left every light on within our flat, the heating was turned up to its fullest (30 degrees plus). 

The bathroom, well, I shall leave that to your imagination but the loo and the surrounding walls had been well-decorated in a variety of bodily fluids. It is not a big flat, sleep 4, but these individuals had actively gone our their way to act like juveniles, with no parental guidance, to tell them what to do and how to behave and treat someone else's property.  Part of our bedding has also been stained with an oil based turmeric based substance. With any luck, the laundry shall manage to get these sheets cleaned or we will be facing the prospect of purchasing replacements.  We take pride in providing good and comfortable bedding. 

 

So I suppose we come here asking The Community for some advice on what to do next? We have now got a rather large cleaning bill, over and above our normal charge alongside travel expenses to get to our flat for the company concerned.  There's reasonable wear and tear and then there's sheer wanton vandalism. How do we register a complaint against the guests with Air B n B and see whether we can re-coup some of the significant costs that these guests have incurred to get the flat clean again.  

 

10 Replies 10
John1080
Level 10
Westcliffe, CO

@Barry289, I believe the new standards are in place now and those include the ability to now make a claim for excessive cleaning. Go to 'request money' and fill out the form. Include photos and the bill for cleaning. If the guest refuses to pay, Airbnb will then get involved, after 3 days I think it is (but don't quote me on the exact number there). 

Yes @John1080 , guest has 3 days to respond to your claim @Barry289 . If not, ABB will call you to ask what happened (even if you fill out the form and describe the situation).

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Barry289  Hopefully you can claim successfully on the extra cleaning and any linen replacement required. And however this turns out, make sure to leave an honest review to warn other hosts of these animals. Don't mention any Airbnb involvement in the case, or they will remove the review, just be professional, factual and unemotional- no need to go into every gritty detail, just make it clear that the place was left in an unbelievably shocking state, requiring the hiring of an industrial cleaning crew to deal with the filth and fully sanitize the unit, and that all linens had to be disposed of, if that turns out to be the case.

A 1* rating should ensure they can't IB in the future, and hopefully will cause other hosts to decline their booking requests, if Airbnb doesn't entirely ban them from the platform.

Amanda660
Level 10
Auchenblae, United Kingdom

Oh dear this sounds just horrendous, where were these guests from?  

 

I’ve has success in the past re a claim for bedding, mattress, duvet etc when drunk male football fan peed the bed during the World Cup.   Good luck and as others have said, lots of pics and bills/invoice from the cleaners. 

@Amanda660  They're from the United Kingdom, apparently. Must be a filthy place. 🙂

Lisa723
Level 10
Quilcene, WA

@Barry289 for Airbnb back up, you must file your claim before the next guest checks in, or within 14 days, whichever is first. Submit photographs and receipts.

 

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/264/what-do-i-do-if-my-guest-breaks-something-in-my-place

 

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/361/how-do-i-request-reimbursement-under-the-host-guarantee

 

Pat271
Level 10
Greenville, SC

@Barry289 I’m so sorry this happened to you.  It’s such a violation, and makes one wonder how certain folks were raised, to have such disrespect for people and property.

Barry289
Level 1
Aviemore, GB

Hi Guys 

Thanks for the amazing reponce .

I have phoned Airbnb and they need me to send all the pictures and Invoices to them so I can put in a claim.

The person that booked was 

Sowon Shi
Joined in 2016
Lives in Sheffield, United Kingdom
Facebook Connected account
 
2 reviews
September 2019
The room was tidy, Thank you!

 
August 2019
Agreeable people who left the flat very clean and tidy.

 
These were the reviews that were left before , I thought yep that's good.
I will see how it goes .
Thanks for the Advice 
Regards
Barry Taylor

@Barry289  Very odd that the 2 reviews tell a very different story than your experience. But if they've been members since 2016 and only have 2 reviews, I'd bet that other hosts who got the same scenario you did either declined to leave a review or were so upset that they wrote an emotional review calling the guests horrible names which got removed. Or it's possible, unless you checked ID, that this was a third party booking and the account holder wasn't among the guests who stayed.

Branka-and-Silvia0
Level 10
Zagreb, Croatia

@Barry289 

OMG 😞

I just hope you made a lot of pictures and I hope you informed Airbnb about this before your next guests checked in.

I hope you will be reimbursed

Good luck