We are relatively new to Airbnb and recently just hosted our first HORRIBLE guest. All of the red flags were there during booking (asking for a discount, none of the messages made any sense, and mentioning her brain damage) but the money was good, and it would be constant income for a month. (Boy do I wish I could go back and undo this)
She started out fine, but was a tad excessive with her needs. We live on the main floor and rent out the basement with a separate entrance so we are always around, but never in a shared space (other than the back yard). She often made obnoxious requests like knocking on our door in the early AM because she couldn't find her phone and wanted me to call it so it would ring, asking me to help find her car keys, constantly telling me things were broken (i.e. microwave doesnt work) and then messaging a short time later saying its not broken, she just didnt know how to use it before. But about a week before her departure things got very hostile.
On the day of check-out we sat and waited for her to leave. She finally finished packing up and took off over two hours after check out. When we went downstairs to inspect we noticed 1) there was a red liquid stained on our linens and carpeting, 2) the outside door was left wide open, 3) the place was a DISASTER. The kitchen was filled with dirty dishes, there was garbage everywhere, there was mud and dirt all over our couch. She also left a very hurtful and very untruthful note explaining how terrible her stay was because we kept coming into her bedroom while she was sleeping (definitely not true) she said we called her names and didn't respond to her requests (I have evidence of phone calls, text messages, and airbnb messages where we responded to everything she sent. My guess is she made this stuff up because she knew she was leaving the place a disaster and wanted some leverage? or she just really is delusional.
After she left, she also messaged me and said she accidently took a couple knives from our knife block and would be returning them the next day. Two days later when she still didn't return them, I sent her a message inquiring about them and she said she wouldn't be back in town for a while and couldn't give them to me until late next week. It's not a huge deal, as it's only a couple knives out of the block, but we do have guests coming tomorrow and I was expecting to have them back by then.
I was hoping to eliminate a bad review as our Airbnb is still relatively new and a bad review could do a lot of damage. Is there a way for Airbnb to prevent her from leaving a bad review if i can prove her claims are false? if she does leave a bad review how hard is it to get airbnb to take it down? If she says stuff in the review like in the letter (i.e. we went into her bedroom while she slept) which is clearly false, how can i prove that to Airbnb? Do they care?
When she left we were at the point where we were just glad she was leaving and I wasn't going to charge for the replacement linens, or extra cleaning fees (or even the replacement knives) because I didn't want to start a claim and have it turn into an even worse situation, but now I'm thinking it might cover my ass in the long run? Can I email Airbnb and explain the situation or do I let it go or file a claim?