Guest complaining of cold water and "gas leak alarm"

[Meredith-and-Jason0]

Greetings.

We are new to Airbnb. We had a guest contact us and request a BETTER DEAL than priced. I orginally thought this was bold and actually offered 10% off. 

When he said it wasn's enough, I recommended him to a couple of nearby hotels. He reconsidered two days after telling me I should reconsider, and accepted the offer. 

Three days after his stay, he sent a message claiming   that the "gas leak alarm" had gone off in the middle of the night and that after he and the other 5 adults guests had filled up our giant jacuzzi tub and taken consecutive showers; that they ran out of hot water. With these two "unconveniences", he now wants some kind of "remediation".

My initial thoughts were -

1. We don't have a "gas leak alarm" in the bedrooms. If the smoke alarm went off, someone was causing it to go off, i.e cooking badly or smoking in the house. He said the alarm only went off for a minute then stopped.

2. We lived there for years and never had an issue with cold water, or alarms that went off completely against their programming. We have only had 14 guest groups come through in the last month, both before and after his group and no one mentioned a cold water issue, or an alarm problem.

After the way the guest dealt with my pricing (and then complained it was inadequate) and then did not bother to contact us during their stay to solve issues- despite possessing both my and onsite emergency contact numbers... makes me think the guest is simply trying to shake me down.

The question is :

How do I respond to such an inquiry? (My desire is to simply say "No." or to ignore the request completely. Help?

[Sarah977 · Accepted solution]

@Meredith-and-Jason0  Another scammer.  Don't give in to requests for discounts in the future- those requests are almost always a red flag as to the type of guest it will be.

"XXX, normal hot water tanks, even large ones, will not provide enough hot water to fill a jacuzzi and then have hot water for 5 guests taking long showers consecutively. Most people understand this. Our hot water isn't connected to underground hot springs. There is no gas leak alarm. There is a smoke alarm which will go off if someone is causing smoke when cooking or smoking indoors, which is clearly against our house rules."

Or just ignore him.

[Letti0]

@Meredith-and-Jason0  You need to address this. Use @Sarah977 message above. You need proof because this guy is going to request a refund from AirBnB I will bet on it. Do not ever give in to discounts you get a bad guest and usually a bad review mix with demands for things you clearly do not provide and then refund requests because you didn't supply what they wanted. Document every thing with these guests in the AirBnB system to protect yourself. 

[Sarah977]

@Meredith-and-Jason0   If they're battery powered smoke alarms, as opposed to being wired in, I think they can sometimes do a short beep to indicate that the battery is low. You could check your manual to see if that's the case.

[Linda-And-Richard0]

I found the best way to handle someone asking for a discount is with a simple reply of No Discounts.  Such persons are often a problem just looking for a place to happen.  And yes, he is trying to get you to refund him some money.  Advise Airbnb of all correspondence from this person ASAP.