Home damage and non-adherence of my house rules

[Tessa53]

I recently hosted a group who totally disrespected me and my home. I have a no parties rule on my listing as this is my OWN home. When I have guests I go stay elsewhere. I take my valuables with me, but there is obviously still things left behind in the house.

As soon as I entered my home after their check-out the stench of booze overwhelmed me. There was a broken head massager on the coffee table, they flipped down personal photos in the living room, there's vomit stains on the main floor toilet and the wall behind the toilet, the floor are repulsive (making it very apparent they wore their shoes inside), liquid stains (floor to ceiling) on almost all the walls and kitchen cupbaords, they broke a pot and plant and just threw it all away (never contacting me about it) and swept the dirt down the stairs to the basement, broke two barcelona chairs (minimum $1,000 a piece to replace) I have so that the chairs are unuseable, rummaged though basically every closet and shelf in the house, wore my clothes!!!, broke a pair of my sunglasses and wore another pair, left chewed gum on the floor, there is stains all over my night stand and they had burned my candle on the nightstand letting the wax run off of it (thank god they didnt start a fire). They ate my baking chocolate?? Very weird guests but I can only assume they were on drugs by the weird things I found.

This was meant to be a booking of 4 people and they consumed A LOT of alcohol that I found in the recycling bin out back.

The guest declined to pay for the damages claiming that they "did their best" to clean the house. I am in the midst of getting this resolved with airbnb but this is NOT something I should have to be dealing with right now.

Overnight the guest no longer has a profile picture and it is just a grey avatar.

My inquiry to the community is what happens to guests who clearly have caused havoc? I haven't been able to find any posts about this. I am wondering if this guest has deactivated their airbnb account or whether airbnb 'kicks' them off. If the guest deactivated the account would airbnb be able to see that this was done and does it make the guest look suspicious? I have this guests facebook and the facebook of at least one other guest that was staying just in case I need to take legal action but I am wondering how airbnb deals with these types of guests.

I am absolutely repulsed by this and as soon as I saw they had rummaged through my personal clothes I felt totally sick to my stomach because this has been an incredibly awful invasion of my personal things.

[Alexandra316]

@Tessa53 Wow, they really sound like horrible guests.

Airbnb does kick off bad guests in some circumstances, but there is no way to tell if Airbnb kicked them off or they went of their own volition. In this case, the picture is gone but the profile is still active, so neither has happened here.

There are a couple of red flags for this guest, and I only mention it because it may help you to avoid other bad guests. One, their profile says that they're from Calgary. Local guests often spell trouble because they're just looking for somewhere to party. I don't host locals unless they have a very good reason for staying, like a home renovation.  Secondly, if someone claims to be honest and trustworthy, they are almost certainly not. Most people use their profile to tell a prospective host a little something about themselves, not give a laundry list of things they think a host wants to hear.

I really hope you're successfully able to collect some money, but it can be extremely difficult if the guest doesn't agree to it.

[Tessa53]

The only reason I didn't consider it a red flag was because in the intro message it was stated they would be visiting from a town outside calgary to see siblings. There was really no reason for my to question it at the time.

Thank you for your pointers, if I decide to continue my listing I will definitely look for these things in the future!

[Heather152]

They sound horrible.  I am also sending a severe warning to Calgary hosts to watch out for ****.  He and other people trashed my place, operated some type of illegal credit card or gift card manufacturing operation, smoked and left ashes and butts everywhere, even in the dresser drawers, kept my set of keys, and stole half my stuff including my towels and cleaning supplies?!!  I had to scramble to clean, re-key, repair and replace everything before the next guests arrived.  Estimated $4000 in damaged and stolen goods.  Here is my mistake so others can learn:  He booked last minute and I didn't take the time to check that he had no reviews.  Also, he didn't have a photo on his profile.  Their story was believable ... they were home for a family reunion and the place they were staying at was a little too tight and they needed something right away.  Never again will I book with no photo, no review, and local.  Now just discovered they trashed the next Calgary booking after mine even though I raised the huge red flag with Airbnb to stop this person. Watch out as Jesse appears to still be at large.

**[Personal information hidden for privacy reasons–in line with the Community Guidelines]

[Sarah977]

@Tessa53    Leaving your entire home where you normally live and have your personal things, to guests is really not a great idea. I know it's tempting to do for the extra cash, but as you have sadly found out, it can in fact be a good way to lose money. Maybe you should consider just renting out a bedroom or two if you have extras, and being an on-site host. Way less problems. I can't imagine renting my home, with all my stuff in it (even if I did take the valuables) to strangers. When I travel for a month each summer, I know I could make money as a whole house rental, but I never would- I get someone I know and trust to housesit.

Good luck with your claim.