Yogurt's missing...Really:)

[Sharion0]

I had a lovely 20 something gal stay with her mom last night for one night while on their road trip. Daughter made reservation with her account. My breakfast is served at 8a, I hear mom up and about at 5:30 am. I get up at 7:30 to make breakfast, mom says no, just coffee, I notice an empty yogurt container on the counter. Daughter says no she is eager to get on the road, she's been in the room acking up all morning. They leave at 8, I start the clean up process because I have additional guests checking in later today. I open the fridge...and there's 9 missing yogurt cups...what??? I 2nd guess myself, didn't I shop yesterday for yogurt...yes, I did, there were 11 yogurts in the fridge. How do you open someones fridge,take out 9 yogurts, put it in your bag and walk out??? I'm 100% sure it was the mom:), so I'm nt ging to write a negative review on the young girl's account...it's just too wierd:)  

[Jeremy100]

The way I see it is that if you leave it in the house (whole house listing) be prepared for it to be broken or go missing.  I'm not saying that's a good thing but that's the way some people live their lives.  I am thinking of either increasing my cost to cover for these situations or install an airport style detector together with full body search upon check out.  Happy days!!

[Ann3]

I had a somewhat similar situation with one of my very first bookings.  Daughter booked for herself and her mom, and they checked themselves in very late at night, so I never met them in person.  All communications with the daughter were fine. About 1/2 hour after my checkout time, I walked up to the Airbnb property and saw a car with the hatchback open, license plates from the state the guests were from, etc. Figuring they were my guests, I introduced myself politely.  Mind you, they were late checking out...so it was a little awkward, and got a lot more awkward when I noticed the huge packages of TP and paper towels I had purchased just prior to their arrival sitting on top of their luggage in the back of the car.  Yikes!  The daughter turned red and ran inside, and the mother just sort of stood there.  

I took a deep breath and said, "I'm sure you're aware that my checkout time was 1/2 hour ago. Are all of your belongings out of the house? No? Well, my cleaning helper will be here any second."  I looked very directly at the unopened packages of paper products in the car, and turned on my heel, pretty ticked off, but at a loss for just a second.

I walked down the block and took a few deep breaths, rehearsing what I would say, but they had driven off when I returned.  Lucky for me, they had tossed the paper products in the front door.  Now I lock supplies up.  Sigh.

[Mimi13]

I have to ask - where DO these people come from? No one in their right mind would assume large multi packs of paper products, in a contiuously rented place, were meant for them. They clearly knew it was theft, because the daughter chose to hide her face. I don't mean to make light of this attempted theft, but if I was going to steal stuff, I sure as hell would be out of there before check-out time! LOL

FYI - Walking away, after what you had said, sounds like the least confrontational way to solve a difficult situation. And it led to your desired result. Cheers to you!

[Ann3]

@Mimi13, I know!  It was crazy.  I was so very new to hosting then, and not as savvy. So new, in fact, that I didn't review them (nor did they review me!).  I just wanted them to leave the paper products and go away, and I'm lucky they did. It's not that I was afraid of confrontation, I was just shocked anyone would behave like that and didn't quite know what to say. Of course things have gotten easier with experience AND good screening.  Sheesh.  

[Linda-And-Richard0]

I have been lucky so far with regards to broken or missing items.  The Airbnb listing is not our primary residence so guests have use of the entire house.  I limit number of rolls of paper towels, bars of soap, toilet paper and other such items to what I think guest would use based on the number of days they will be staying.  My house rules also include not to rearrange furniture.  All extra supplies are in the locked garage.   I always meet guests at the property for check-in and do a check-out walk through when guests are ready to leave.  So far, no problems.  

[Linda108]

I cannot help myself (retired psychologist) but wonder about the mind set of those guests that take stuff not meant for them.  I admit I love collecting ALL the shampoo, conditioner, body wash and lotion when I stay at a hotel that provides such.  If there are shower caps, emergency sewing kits, or extra tea bags...SCORE!

Now, what is happening in shared housing listings or even in entire apartment spaces is not the same entitled mind set.  What comes to my mind is related to road rage.  People suspend their usual behavior and engage in "if I can get away with it..."

Most of us live a life of selected contacts of friends and family.  Then we open our homes to strangers but still think that friends and family are staying our space.  Well, the public might not be similar to our circle of friends.  Many new hosts' rules include, "treat my home as your would treat your own home".  Doesn't work because of the diversity of homes.  No judgement, but we all have different relationships with out homes.  Sigh...

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Linda108

I'm guilty of collecting those cute little amenities from hotels too 🙂

I especially find the emergency sewing kits and tiny lotions very useful. 

[Deborah82]

@Linda0

@Jessica-and-Henry0

That's hilarious. I too collect those items...and guess where they all end up? In my cottage for my own guests to use! Lol.

[Blanca36]

Wow I had a similar situation with a guest that took all my mangos from my mango tree and claimed they was never mangos and as they are about to leave the daugther bag ripped and there goes all my mangos we all just started laughing ! 🙂

[Lisa658]

This is hilarious @Sharion0.  

Thanks for the great post!  The most memorable weirdness that springs to mind for us is a wedding party that broke one of the outdoor tables.  Instead of just telling us - they took it home with them!  The housekeepers called and said, "The outdoor tables and chairs are missing".  Welcome to the twilight zone!  Maybe they thought we wouldn't notice?  Who packs a broken table and chairs on top of their car when they head home from a wedding function??  When they got stroppy and said the husband was a lawyer in a menacing tone, we let it go.

Happy days, Lisa

[Hilary-And-Ed0]

@Sharion0,

Super weird, and annoying...but I guess in order to keep positive, there are other things she could have taken and didn't that would have been much worse..

[Beckie1]

Wow, all great stories.  We are one year into renting our vaca property - and what I get a kick out of are the guests who must have broken our beach umbrella - or they liked ours better - and left me their own but never a message from them.  So far no theft of anything but since we aren't there and we have a cleaning service come in after each guest, I just made it a rule they bring their own TP and paper products.  I do ask them to at least leave a roll for the next guests. Ha. So far its worked.

[Todd-and-Reese0]

Things people have helped themselves to: towels, plastic containers, toilet paper, a bed sheet (!), our beer, eggs, milk, condiments, snacks/chips, breakfast bars...and this is just from recent memory. Luckily, these are small things and I mention it in their feedback. We put a lock on our liquor cabinet and I provide exact counts of linens now. We did have a couple somehow knock a piece of art off the wall so hard it pulled drywall out with it. They also left the room in disarray, so when one of the guests said she forgot some things in the room and wanted to come back for it  I told her that would be convenient for me to give her the repair bill and didn't hear back. 

[Sharion0]

@Todd-and-Reese0, Now that was funny:), yes come on back, I have a bill for you lol:).