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.