My guest has smoked in my non-smoking house.

[Amy24]

THey have now checked out but I"m not sure what to do.  I have other guests arriving soon and the room smells terrible.  What recourse do I have?

[Luis-and-Tati0]

@Amy24

Urgh! smoke smell is terrible...

Buy spray for smoke smell removal (we have ZEP here in US) and anything else you need to freshen up your place...

Open a case on the resolution center BEFORE the next guest arrival and upload the receipts so they can pay you back for the extra cleaning...

I see you don't have any security deposits on you listings... luckly they will be able to collect the money from your guest...

Is recommended that you have at least 1 night worth as security deposit

Luis

[Amy24]

Thank you Luis,

I am worried that this person will leave me a bad review.  I have alrady left their review where I was very kind but told them privately what a problem it was.  I didn't tell them about the cost implied as I hadn't appreciated that leaving the windows open all day wouldn't work.  If I submit this to the resolution centre, will my reviews be affected if they opt to give me a poor review?

[Monica4]

You can ask to have the review removed by Airbnb if it is a retalitary review to a claim for damages. If the claim is visible to Airbnb that should not be a problem.

[Alex357]

That is a lie, I have had retaliatory bad review left, and airbnb refused to remove it. DON'T give false hopes.

[Matt577]

Not false hope. I've had a review removed for cause. Just takes some persistence and sticking to the facts of the situation.

[Stormie2]

I would like to know your strategy - I have only one bad review, and it is retaliatory as they broke something and I asked them to pay BEFORE they wrote the review.  Always a bad strategy.

[Sarah977]

@Stormie2  It isn't possible to start a damage claim before the review period is over. Read the Airbnb articles on the procedure for making a claim. It has to be reported within 48 hours or before the next guest checks in.

This is policy that all hosts object to. It's basically Airbnb's way of discouraging hosts from making claims.

There really isn't any strategy you can use to get around this.

[Fred-Élie0]

False. This happened to me several times and airbnb is not removing anything

[Momi0]

HI @Amy24

I actually caught my guests smoking IN my house because they thought we had gone to bed.  We allowed them to stay but reminded them that its a NON SMOKING house only.  Well, sadly they were caught smoking again the next night, just outside the kitchen, and the smoke went everywhere in the house because we keep all of the windows open.  We asked them to leave.  They refused and Airbnb was contacted as well as the police. They were removed from our home, and booking was cancelled.  But somehow, they were able to leave a nasty review, which I discovered just minutes after it posted.  Airbnb removed the review and called me with their apologies. 

Im curious, why didn't you write the review to include they broke the smoking rules so other hosts would know about this as we can't read the private stuff you wrote?  Or am I missing something because you do allow smoking? Its extremely important for other hosts to know who is breaking rules in case we get a potential booking from them. 

The guests from China who did this in my house were actually removed from the Airbnb platform, so they can't even do this to another host in the future. (This is also the same guests who fractured 3 of my toes)  so they were removed for more then just "breaking my smoking rule".  

Keep in mind, whether or not someone leaves a bad review, you do have the opportunity to leave a PUBLIC response right under their review that appears on your listing profile to address any of their "concerns" or to thank them for being such great guests who left a wonderful review. I write a public response to everyone.  Good Luck.

[Amy24]

Thank you! I left a private review because the woman whose profile booked it is actually their agent who had had a very good rapport w me and I didn't want to tarnish her reputation. Also when I left the review, I had thought the damage was not that bad and leaving the windows open would sort it. When I came home after my cleaner had been and the Windows were open I realised how bad it was. That's when I contacted Airbnb. In future I will delay writing a review until I'm satisfied there has been no damage.
Good to know Airbnb are so ready to help. I have offered my guests tonight an alternate guest room as the existing room is too smelly.
Amy

[Alex357]

Unfortunately, because "material" evidence cannot be preseneted to airbnb to prove that your guests smoked, airbnb will refuse any compensation. 

[Inna57]

Truth.  I hired an ozone cleaning company and they quoted me $1200 to clean the house from weed and smoke smell after bad guest.  They only covered $400 and allowed the bad review from those guests to stay on my profile.  No amount of arguing could sway them 

[Stephan2246]

How did Airbnb come up with $400 of the $1200 in cost?

[Zak207]

Furthermore, ozone will damage all rubber and plastic in a room it is used. And blankets are made from plastic (polyester) so it damages like everything ozone for smoke removal is very nasty.