Smoke up Johnny, AirBnB don't care about host no smoking policy

[Amy-and-Brian0]

Guest smoked in our non-smoking unit. Literally underneath a sign that is embedded in our wall that says "NO SMOKING".

Used our plates, cups and other things to put ashes in. Burnt a stain in our freshly painted balcony.

Put in for an extra cleaning fee for Fabreezing everything, washing everything and paint touchups. 

Keep in mind, someone was checking in only 4 hours later....

Surprise! No response from 0 review guest. No payment.

Surprise! Escalated to Airbnb = "We'll get back to you at some point in the future." No payment on damage deposit.

It's been over a week since the guest checked out and we've already paid the cleaning folks for smoke remediation.

AirBnB wants 5 star cleanliness but that includes pillows not stinking like Marlboros.

But that's not their problem apparently. It's  yours.

[Alon1]

@Amy-and-Brian0 

Very sorry for your unfortunate situation.

Sadly, Airbnb response not surprising.

Please see this thread from a London host 6 weeks ago.

Warning about "Host protection insurance" - DOES N...

by Eric

[Pete69]

People like this should be banned from Airbnb.

Was this a same day booking? Avoiding same day bookings will weed out some of the bad guests.

My last guest was smoking weed in my guest suite even though mine is a non-smoking suite. Before checking out they apparently tried to mask the smell by spraying cologne in the room. That made things 10X worse. Had to run my rug cleaner. Fortunately my next guest wasn't scheduled to check in for 2 days. I blame myself for ignoring a recent review in which a host complained of this guest smoking pot in the room. In the future I will be more discriminating about guests who ignore host rules.

This was a same day booking. I've stopped accepting same same bookings. During the peak season I might accept same day bookings but only after manually jacking up my price for that same day. Higher rates will scare of a lot of the riff raff.

[Ben551]

I'm sorry you had to deal with an issue like this @Amy-and-Brian0 and the level of support sounds totaly inadequate.  In my experience (from reading about situations like these) the only way to get a fair and equitable outcome is to head to Twitter and Facebook to make known that Airbnb aren't making good on their promise to honour the Host Guarantee.

From what I have read, Airbnb's approach to tobacco smoke is that it is a 'cleaning issue', when in fact it is a hazardous chemical issue.  The smell is in fact toxic, therefore the smell itself means the guest hass caused damage to your property that can 'harm' future guests.  Recent studies have shown that tobacco-smoke residue that lingeres on furniture, curtains and house dust and can still be harmful after the fact... even many weeks after the person who smoked as vacated.

Here is an article that describes why it's a health issue:

http://theconversation.com/tobacco-smoke-residue-that-lingers-in-furniture-curtains-and-house-dust-c...

Until Airbnb start treating smoking as a health issue, not a cleaning issue, I don't think hosts will find much in the way of support from the platform provider.