Guest left his luggage for four years

[Yinchi0]

Hello everyone, 

I had a guest who stayed with us four years ago in summer 2017. When he left he left his luggage in our garage and papal me 60 dollars as storage fee. A year later in October 2018, I emailed him and ask him for his address and offer to use 60 dollar he PayPal me as part of shipping fee. He responded that the luggage is so heavy and would cost too much and he has lots of “valuable” stuff like skateboards inside... he never gave me his address. So on goes by 2019 and 2020, we had since then forgotten about his luggage and had professionally cleaned and repainted the garage. All bulky trash items are gone or donated including his luggage. Now four years later he emails back and said that he PayPal me 60 dollars storage fee and he will pay for his luggage to get shipped back. What do I say to him? 

[Ann72]

@Yinchi0  The guest abandoned his property, and you did make an attempt to get it back to him.  You could sincerely apologize and see what he says, or you could consult a lawyer ahead of time in case you’re worried the guest will react badly.  You could also simply not answer him, since he seems like a person who might not be persistent about the matter.

[Alexandra316]

@Yinchi0 Ridiculous that the guest would leave luggage that long and still expect it to be there. However... I can see it becoming legally problematic because he paid you a storage fee. If you didn't specify the length of the storage period, I'm not sure what the law would say. In the case of left luggage places, there are really strict terms they can point to, i.e. luggage left over 3 months will be disposed of. The fact that he's already mentioning the storage fee is a bit of a red flag to me (call me suspicious). 

I would consider consulting a lawyer before you respond to him, or just ignore and see if he pursues it any further. 

[Helen3]

Did you give him a time frame by which he needed to make arrangements for collection or luggage would be disposed of? How long was the 60 dollars meant to cover @Yinchi0 ?

[Yinchi0]

@Helen3 @Alexandra316 @Ann72 

Thank you for your support and taking the time to read my problems. I consulted with a lawyer friend and he said there is no legal grounds for any case here. And I wrote a very sincere and courteous email explains to him that I no longer have his luggage four years later. I also reminded him that the 60 dollar storage fee was verbal agreement for him to return in 6weeks. He wrote back a nasty email inciting that I kept his belonging by telling me that he will not report to the police if I give him back what is left of his luggage. And I simply just ignored his email with no response. I have not heard back for one month. So I think this situation resolved itself. And I also learned a great lesson from this. This guest used my kindness and tried to rip me off and threaten me with calling the cops. In the future I will not let guests over step my house rules and definitely no more storing luggage under any circumstances. Thank you all for your suggestions, the whole emailing back and forth also shows that this person have no regards for other people’s time. I’m glad it’s over and ready to move on. Thank you!! 

[Sarah977]

@Yinchi0  I had a friend, an old man who has since passed away. When he was young, he ran a commune in Northern California back in the 60's. He told me that when a new person moved into the commune, he would tell them, "So you are welcome to stay as long as you get along with everyone here, but whenever you decide to move on, take everything you brought with you. Don't expect that you can leave your belongings here and come back for them some other time. Anything that gets left behind goes to the dump or passed on to someone who can use it. If you leave it, it's not yours anymore."

I've had a few guests leave a shirt or something, and I have no issue with letting them know.  Some say to just keep it or pass it on, some would like it back and I find a way to do that. But 4 years? What a brat.

[Ute42]

.

@Yinchi0 

Well done. The good thing is that the guest will not be able to leave You a bad review after 4 years.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Yinchi0  we have it written in our house rules - We are not responsible for items left behind.