People Taking Advantage of Our Hospitality

[Becky341]

Hi! We have a small cabin up in the woods. I supply all spices, fresh farm eggs, flour, sugars, coffee bar and different teas. Most guest use some the stuff while they are here. I make sure I that they know not to take anything with them to leave some behind for the next guests. Well I went up to clean and restock after folks had been there for five days. Oh my goodness. They emptied out most of the spices. No flour or sugar left. The ketchup and mustard containers were new and now they are empty. No oils left! They took all the tea and emptied all the different coffees. Nothing left. Plus they emptied the shampoos and soaps! What in the heck? Do we charge them? Can we charge them? It is going to cost me a small fortune to restock everything. I had just enough to restock the basics with me. But I couldn't restock the rest! Plus they left the place looking like a pig sty! Mud and all. I was in tears! I take great care and love our little cabin. Never in the two years have I seen such disrespect and plain thievery!

B.Moore

Oregon

[Anonymous]

@Becky341 While it's poor guest etiquette to deplete all the kitchen/bath supplies, there's not really any basis for charging guests extra for using up the consumables. 

[Helen3]

How frustrating.

@Becky341  going forward just estimate what is needed for a guests stay and just leave that.

[Mark116]

@Becky341   That's a shame.  Give them the review they deserve, but don't say 'steal' just say that the cabin is stocked w/XXX, and that during the guests 5 day stay every single item was completely used/gone out of the house, and mention they did not follow your rules and left the place unclean.  One star across the board.  But, I don't think you can get any $$ from them, since technically what is in the unit is 'complimentary' for the guests.

[Kath9]

@Becky341 be brutally honest in your review of them. No one wants guests like these. You could send a request for money through the resolution centre, but I highly doubt they will pay. Sorry to hear about your experience.

[Sandra856]

@Becky341 Some guests are just so rude :-/. I would also as suggested by others review those guests according to their behaviour. I would never ask for money unless we are taking damages for a lot of money as you then would be asking for a bad review in response.

When you review they won't be able to read your review until after they have reviewed you - so you can be completely honest in your review and warn future hosts 🙂 

[Stephanie365]

Going forward, you may want to designate one closet in your house for supplies, and lock it. Put out only what you think is reasonable for your guests to consume and lock up the rest. While minor compared to yours, I had one overnight guest take all 12 teabags I'd put out with them. Honestly, I was trying to get rid of them anyways; I just didn't expect then all to disappear at once.

I used to put out eggs and other things for my guests to consume, but no one ever did.  So now I put out muffins, a couple of coffee k-cups, a few tea bags, a few drink mixes for bottled waters, 1 bottled water per person, and prepackaged condiments. I have a sugar bowl and a set of salt & pepper shakers.  I put out a reasonable amount for each person that I would expect them to use and always have left overs.  Same with paper towels and TP. 

It would be really hard to put a price tag on raw goods, but definitely a note in the review to the effect of, "I am puzzled why these guests chose to deplete all of my supplies.  I mean who empties out people's salt and pepper shakers and takes 5 lbs of flour from a B&B? "

[Susan1404]

@Becky341sadly there will always be a certain type of guest(s) who think that everything is free for the taking.  I highly suggest not leaving such generous supplies for future guests.  After one similar experience such as yours, I stopped leaving a lot of rolls of toilet tissue, paper towels and soap because a particular set of guests took all of them home with them.  They weren't messy like your guests and were actually good guests except for that, so I left them a 5 star rating, but sent them a private note that I was not happy with the loss of all the supplies.  Of course, I never heard from them, nor did they even bother to leave a review for me.  Don't leave your guests a 5 star rating - they do not deserve it.

[Jacqueline842]

Hi there i had a guest stay for a month. They were my very first guest on airbnb. The guest booked only  for one guest but brought home a new partner each week for sleep overs. On my listing it states that we charge an extra 10.00 person per night which they completely ignored on airbnb  requesting the extra payments.  I had a conversation regarding the extra charges but I got fobbed off.

Halfway through their stay the tv was no longer working with the internet and running slow so I stupidly gave my own personal Netflix account to them just to make them comfortable because I wanted a good review.  But they gave my email and password to several people to use my account on their phone's which I had to eventually cancel my account In the very end. On the day that they meant to checkout they lied to my husband and said they were meant to leave the following morning.  When they left the home was filthy. Stolen items from the kitchen,broken  and damage to a brand new fridge freezer. 

[Laura2592]

My first ever guest came in a truck and loaded up all of our firewood that was in a stand on the porch. Lesson learned. We now leave out only what we can stand to lose for each guest. We also ask guests to let us know if we need to replace any items that ran out when they check out so that we can be sure that there is enough for the next guest. That gently tells them they should not take everything that is available as others need to be able to enjoy it too. We also only leave a single duraflame in the fireplace 🙂