I need advice

[Gregg11]

Hello all, I am a new Air BnB host and I've already dealt with a few issues.  I would like to say though that overall playing the role of host has been great!!!

So two of my guests stained and thereby ruinned the comforter on the bed they used.  I sent a money request for the price of a new comforter and the request was denied.  I chose to have "Air BnB get involved" and that was it.  Now when I check the status of the claim it says that Air BnB settled it.  The problem is there was never any payout???  I have serached the website in an attempt to contact either by email, phone, text etc to ask about it and have been unable to find any sort of contact info anywhere.  Am I missing it or has anyone else ran into this problem???

Also I keep a lockbox on the frontdoor and supply my guests with the combonation.  My last guest failed to return the key.  Personally I don't feel comfortable knowing that someone may have a key to my house (whether it be the guest or whether they lost it).  I have submitted another money request ($59 price of new door lock) and as of now there has been no response.  My other question is Has anyone had to deal with money request and claims, am I being unreasonable?  Should I just chalk these things up to part of the role of being a host???

Any and all advice or help is much appreciated.  

thanks 

[Scott80]

For the thing about the comforter. Does the resolution say that AirBnB ruled that the guest owes you money? According to this page https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/767/what-is-the-resolution-center the arbitrator will make the final decision. Several things could have happened, they could have ruled that the guest was not responsible, they could have ruled that the guest was responsible but you did not prove loss. Or they could have ruled that the guest was responsible but are unable to collect the amount owed from the guest. To figure you how the case was resolved I think you would have to call AirBnB.

As far as keys/lockboxes. I would not bother with keys, they are cumbersome and as you have experienced, are easily taken or duplicated and rekeying the lock is expensive. I use a keypad lock and while it is a little more expensive initially, there is a lot of peace of mind in knowing that each guest has their own combination, which is easily added before their stay and easily deleted after their stay. There are no keys for guests to lose but if the owner prefers to use a key there is an owner key This is the one I use and recommend: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B000NJJ1MQ There are fancier ones, but the one I use does not require WiFi or a smartphone and manually programming the codes takes less than a minute, but it cannot be done remotely.

For the guest that lost the key, you can send a resolution center request for the cost of rekeying, but as you have experienced making a request and getting paid are two different things.