I have a house that I'm renovating that has an apartment/suite on it separated with a two car garage in between. The main part of the house is under renovation. It is closed up, and I never work on it while guests are there. The suite was the first thing I renovated. I'm talking repairing walls, replacing appliances, installing a washer and dryer (outlets, pipes, etc.), repairing busted pipes that froze during the winter, repairing walls, painting, repairing floors, etc. I do NOT charge a cleaning fee. I know there would be an argument that I should do so, but we have our own feelings and theories on it - whether we're right or wrong, I don't know, but I'm doing this to pay for medical treatment for my daughter that isn't covered by insurance (I know, more information than you need), so running the AirBnb is very important to me for my daughter's life. I clean like mad and do all the right things for my guests. I've let things go regarding guests quite a few times despite the fact that my house rules have been broken or maybe there's a mess that shouldn't be left, but the latest guest - I just felt my heart drop when I walked in after he left. This guest violated all but one rule in my house rules. If it had just been maybe one thing or two, I don't think I would be this angry.
He booked for two guests, stated he was traveling to fix cell towers due to tornadoes we had here and had his foreman with him. He then tells me that his girlfriend is going to meet him there. It's obvious he had three guests (or more) and didn't book for three. On his last day there, he asked me if he could have an extra hour and a half AT checkout time. I allowed him to do so since I didn't have another booking that day. He told me how much he loved my place, and asked me how long I was going to keep the AirBnb open so he could book again.
The garage, which is not part of the AirBnb rental, was used. My garage door was tampered with and was disconnected from the garage door opener so they could manually open it since the way to open it was in the other garage where they had no access When I arrived at my AirBnb, the garage door was two inches off the ground and left that way...with a pile of cigarettes laying right outside the door. There were matches that had been lit and dropped onto the floor of the garage. The garage was doused with cologne and smelled like a bar...cheap cologne, stale cigarettes, and alcohol. I'm sure the cologne was used in an attempt to cover up the smell.
At this point, I have to mention that I leave paper towels, dish soap, dish cloths, and dish towels on the premises. I walked into the kitchen and was greeted to a pile of dishes that were "washed" (I use this term loosely as there was smegma on everything, and I had to rewash it all). Whatever they dripped on the kitchen table was left on it. I opened the refrigerator which had a strange bluish purple substance on it that took some time to remove, and a pot I left there was in it and closed. I opened it to find a picked chicken with one of my knives in it...along with 5 out of 6 beer bottles left as well. There was egg yolk on the oven, and grease dripping from the rack to the bottom. The drip pans that had been spotless were also not clean. I do expect some of these things, but bear with me on this....
I looked into the living room, and there was an empty bag and dryer sheet on the floor. This wouldn't cause me to write a bad review in itself, but as I moved forward to the main bedroom, that is when my heart sank.
It was trashed. I mean, trashed. A heavy wood, antique dresser was drug across the hardwood floors and moved six feet away to the window (I have a rule stating not to move the furniture due to floor scratching). I can't understand the reasoning behind this being done. There was no way to get to the window or walk in between it around the bed. On top of it, a wet towel, brown bag like is used at liquor stores, and a packet of chicken gravy. The end tables had odd green stuff stuck on them (I have a rule about not eating in the beds- there's a table in the kitchen where people can eat). There were glass marks on the end tables (also state to use the coasters I provide). Also, an empty bottle of energy drink...five hours, to be exact.
The end table on the other side of the bed was moved forward. As I made my way to that side of the bed, I note the laundry basket from the other bedroom closet was on that side turned upside down on the floor. I looked behind the end table, and my lamp that had been on the end table was on the floor. I picked up the end table to move it, and there were empty water bottles and garbage on the floor. The decorative pillows were tossed on the floor and under the bed and had greasy looking finger prints on them.
Then, I look to the right because there is something odd going down the wall and on the heater....as I move things out of the way to see what this is, I realize it's some sort of melted green and chocolate ice cream (my guess is mint chocolate chip). It's on the wall, down the baseboard heater, and puddled onto the floor...and just left there...on the hardwood floors. As I'm removing the bed sheets, and cleaning everywhere and moving furniture back BY MYSELF with TITANIUM IN MY SPINE, I see MORE ice cream on the hardwood floors and on the living room wall.
My rules state not to wash the towels or linens. As many know, when someone does that, stains may set in that we are prepared to remove. When I went into the twin bed room, I found a bunch of wet towels sitting in the dryer. An entire bottle of Tide laundry detergent had been used. The guy was only there for TWO NIGHTS.
I have trash cans in every bedroom, in the bathroom, and one in the kitchen that is between the kitchen and living room. The kitchen also has a recycling bin. It's really easy access to a trash can. However, these guests decided the floor was an equally great place to drop garbage. Yet, in the garage, a HUGE construction bag was FULL of garbage. I'm five foot, eight inches, and this thing came almost up to my shoulders. Next to it, was one of my kitchen bags full of trash. Well, this is how it goes - I had to haul all of that smelly trash in my car with me. The construction bag (I do not leave construction bags) was SO heavy, and I'm a relatively strong person. I put these in my car on my way out that evening, and had to go through that bag because our trash collection will not take construction bags, and there were recyclables piled in there. So, I'm going through this taking liquor bottle after liquor bottle out. There were two spray bottles not totally empty of armourall in there. There were a lot of dirty cloth rags in it, an old heavy sweatshirt, WINDSHIELD wipers, a box for a camera, lots of Dunkin Donut cups, containers for fast food, some sort of storage container by Rubbermaid, and old food. I came to the conclusion that this guy cleaned his car out and discarded everything he's had in there for well over a week and left it to me to dispose of it. My real response, "Wow, you could clean out your car, but couldn't pick up after yourself in my house?"
The bathroom? Oh...apparently, they weren't sure how to flush the toilet. Also, it appears there was a haircut done...over the toilet. I don't even want to know.
Two nights this guy stayed. Two days and over six hours each day it took for me to clean up after him. TWO DAYS of HOURS of cleaning and washing and cleaning and washing. Cleaning walls, cleaning out an apartment sized oven (they aren't self cleaning), cleaning all of the drip pans under the burners of the oven, cleaning my walls of ice cream, scrubbing this ice cream off the floor, heaters, and end tables, picking up cigarette butts, picking up water bottles, bags, plastic wrappers...and I have ALWAYS been kind to my guests. I've ALWAYS tried to accomodate when I can. I have NEVER even had the desire to leave a bad review until this guy. I felt so disrespected by his piggy ways. How DARE you treat someone's house like this? Like I said, I don't even charge a cleaning fee.
With all of this, I feel like I really need to warn others regarding hosting. I don't want anyone else to have to experience the mess that I had. How much do people want to know with ALL of this? This will be the first negative review I write. You know what's odd? This is his first time booking an AirBnb, but he told me that a former girlfriend use to do the bookings for him. So, I'm his first review, and this is what he does to my house? No excuses, he's stayed in an AirBnb in the past. Am I too mad over this? I've had people be messy before, but NOTHING like this where I felt like he thought I was his maid service and to hell with me. Nothing like someone smoking in my garage, throwing garbage on the floors, and just totally being disrespectful to my house. If another person had been scheduled within a 48 hour period, I wouldn't have been able to host because of THIS guy.
To add insult to injury, there was a quarter left in plain site on the desk. A quarter...was I getting paid two cents an hour to clean up after him?
Thanks for letting me vent, but, again, the quesiton is....what would YOU want to know as a host?
