Breaking house rules

[Fabrizio744]

Hi everyone,

I am hosting in London for 6 years and for the first time a guest broke the house rules: they smoke in the property.

There was no damage to any furniture or the upholstery though. Only the smell that might persist for a few days. Luckily, I have no other guests to check-in for a week now, so I hope enough time to get rid of the smell.

I wrote a negative review on his profile, mentioning breaking house rules and a couple more issues.

Did anyone experienced similar issue? How to prevent it?

Thanks

[Rebecca]

Hi @Fabrizio744 👋

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience with this guest. How has the smell from the smoke diffused over time? 

I'd like to invite some hosts to the conversation, who may be able to give you some real life experience with situations like this: @Kenchy0, @Lin29864, @Andrew-and-Jeremy0 and @Elena4390 - can you offer Fabrizio any support with this situation? 

[Kenchy0]

I would file a complaint with Airbnb about the guest and then have the furniture professionally cleaned. The guest should pay for this. They broke the rules and should suffer the consequences or they’ll just do it again.  Up to you, but no one likes staying in an accommodation that even faintly smells like smoke.  I’ve had to do this myself. It’s worth the effort especially if your place has good reviews and you want to keep your ratings high.

[Joan2709]

@Fabrizio744 

Many Hosts have an ozone machine to help remove cigarette smoke. Relatively inexpensive on Amazon. You can also use air purifiers. Use caution with ozone machines as not people, pets or plants can be inside when it is operating. After completing a cycle, open all windows and air out.

You can also purchase a cigarette smoke detector (not the same as a smoke detector) and they can also monitor noise. See Minut and NoiseAware as options. You do need disclose you have a noise monitor, but that is in your favor as I would also mention in the description and other details you have one as the property is strictly non-smoking.

[Mary1523]

You have done all you can - not really much else you can do to prevent it. As long its clear in your house rules and you penalised them as such, and if you are able to lodge a cleaning invoice for smoke removal that the guest approves, then thats a bonus. But its hard to prove a smell! You are lucky you had a gap in bookings because otherwise, you would have had to explain what happened to next guest, try and get cleaning in and get some compensation from the guest who smoked.

Hence investment in air purifying machines are good. I have one, not for when guests smoke, not issues we get, but when rats in our country property inconveniently die in the roof or chimney sigh. They smell.

Also try and have washable surface furniture fabrics if possible. Or wipeable like leather. Doesn't help for curtains or carpets though, but a good carpet upholstry cleaner machine can also do wonders (less than $100).

regs MK