Fellow hosts,
We all hope we will never get bedbugs in our listing, but if we are hosting lots of people, it's inevitable it will eventually happen. I want to share our case and how we managed to deal with it in a productive way with Airbnb.
I found most other posts quite discouraging and implying that canceling due to bedbug suspicion would leave the host in the difficult situation of paying a cancellation fee for doing the right thing. This should not be the case and I'm happy to report that Airbnb does not require hosts to pay cancellation fees for doing the right thing when dealing with bedbugs.
The initial bedbug report
A few days ago, we got a report from a guest that they were being attacked by what seemed to be bedbugs in our listing. This might have been brought by a prior guest a few days before. Hard to really know.
We immediately proposed the guest to reimburse the full trip and pay for the last day of her travels in a nearby hotel to avoid them having to be attacked the last night. She was also a host, so she empathized with us and declined the offer as too generous and suggested a partial reimbursement. We ended up simply reimbursing the full trip to prove our goodwill.
Informing Airbnb
After this stay we had 3 stays coming up. The first one was just one night, so we decided to take the hit and cancel it. We were initially charged the $50 minimum cancellation fee.
However, we had 2 more stays coming up for more days and the cancellation fees would probably be much higher.
We decided then to inform Airbnb of the issue. Fahredin, the support agent was extremely reassuring and gave us the trust to share the full story with Airbnb. He mentioned it was not usual for hosts to inform Airbnb of bedbugs. Guest are normally the ones who do this very aggressively. I'm glad we decided to immediately inform Airbnb.
We shared the conversation exchange with the guest who reported the bed bugs and asked him to waive the fees for the first cancellation. After reviewing the case, Airbnb agreed and waived the cancellation fee.
Dealing with the problem
We hired a pest control company who shared a written report indicating that we indeed had bedbugs and outlining a cleaning plan. We shared this with Airbnb and they proceeded to cancel the remaining two reservation within the blocked period and waived the cancellation fees. Airbnb then proceeded to block our listing for 21 days and requested us to inform when the plan proposed by the pest control company is complete with a report indicating that the infestation has been eliminated.
We also bought bedbug proof mattress encasements and pillos protectors to avoid this happening again. Airbnb also indicated they would cover the first inspection visit, so we had to ask the pest control company to give us a detailed breakdown of the visit costs.
Tips for hosts that find bed bugs
Yes, bedbugs suck. But our case proves that Airbnb understands the issue and although some expense and loss of revenue will be inevitable, cancellation fees and punishment by Airbnb does not have to happed if we as host do things the right way. Here are our tips for other hosts:
1. Refund the guest that reports the bedbugs and go overboard to make them right
2. Inform Airbnb immediately of the issue and share this exchange with them to get cancellation fees waived
3. Hire a professional pest control company and get a report in writing with the cost breakdown for the first inspection, which Airbnb apparently can cover
4. Share the progress of the cleaning with Airbnb to get your listing reactivated
If you do this, you will most likely get all cancellation fees waived, part of the cost (of the first inspection) covered, and the cancellations will not impact your superhost status or progress to attain superhost status.
I really hope this helps other hosts when facing the devilish bedbugs. We all hate them, but until we find a way to globally eradicate them, they will appear from time to time.
If any one has any questions about our case, do let me know!
Cheers,
Felipe
