Guest burnt 12 incense sticks, and lied about it...

[Andre12327]

I had a guest stay for 4 days in my 2-month old AirBnB studio I have been renovated for the last 12 months on weekends to my perfection.

The second day of her stay I smelled this strong sweet odor coming through the HVAC that also serves my separate living space and asked the guest about it - no response.

At check-out I asked again, and she said I was over sensitive and it is probably Febreze. Well, when I started to clean, I continue smelling this strong scent coming from the kitchen cabinet, and from under the kitchen cabinet! I decided to look through the trash and found 12 burnt incense sticks!

Now, this is a "super host" who brags about being a super host, and she treated my place with such disregard, and then lied about it in my face! I am now on Day 7 and still trying to get rid of the smell! 

What does AirBnB do with guests like these after you reported the guest  who refused a request for additional cleaning and repair fee?

(Next time I will surely ask the guest to leave immediately, but I did not recognise the smell of incense soon enough this time round.)

What is the right way to handle a guest who behaves like this?

I have to say it is a very deflating experience!

[Trayce0]

I've had great luck getting smokey smells out with a product called Ozium. I bought it at Walmart (I think it was in the automotive section here in California with the smelly car freshener things). It's in a tall, thin can. A friend told me about it. Spray in the air and leave. Come back in several hours or next day and clean. Worked like a charm to get the cigarette smoke smell out of my Jeep after a friend borrowed it and unthinkingly stunk it up.

[Andre12327]

@Trayce0 I read up about Ozium and there are quite a bit of warnings against this product as well - trying not to replace one toxin with another toxin just to cover up the smell. I believe boiling vinegar and using baking soda is a safer way, even though more effort is needed.

The issue when smoke pulls into a material like wood, and slowly emitting as air blows over it, that any spray is only temporary, and not addressing the root of the issue. To address the wood emitting the issues, I covered it with paint, to "seal-in" the smell, but unfortunately there is still a percentage of the smoke escaping. The only solid solution is to replace the wood...

[Sudsrung0]

@Andre12327 

She was bang out of order burning them things inside of your property it gets into the curtains and furniture, we use them a lot in Thailand but we burn them outside.

You will come across many bad smells as a host I advise you to buy a small Ozone machine they are cheap enough from Amazon, you only need a small one that will do the job.

[Andre12327]

@Sudsrung0 thank you for the recommendation! Yes, typically one would burn 1 incense stick - this lady burnt TWELVE under the kitchen cabinet which is why the outcome is so bad. When you stood at the kitchen sink the smell emitting from the cabinet was overwhelming!

I ended up painting part of the cabinet to "seal-in" the smell which seems to have worked to reduce the smell by about 80%. There are however spaces between the cabinets where the smoke entered and had to fill these up with news papers , and then seal the ends.