Guest left my house smelling of weed

[Liesl6]

My house is a non-smoking house and explicitly stated no 420 smoking.

Renter clearly were smoking pot in mu house and I am not happy. Does this warrant keeping the deposit?

Do I write this detail in their review?

My house is my primary residence with my 2 children and I am appalled.

Thanks for you oppinion/advice.

Liesl

[Maia29]

I wouldn’t mention illegal or non illegal drug use by your guest, because it could be a violation of Airbnb’s review policy. 

It’s best to mention in your review that this guest is better suited for a hotel and leave it at that. 

i get it- I live in my Airbnb as well in a separate unit, so I understand your distress. 

You can, however, charge for extra cleaning (ozone machine, carpet cleaning) that can be deducted from the deposit. 

Be sure to submit an extra cleaning claim with a detailed invoice before the next guest checks in though. 

[Anonymous]

@Liesl6  In Airbnb there is no such thing as "keeping the deposit" because Airbnb does not actually charge or hold a deposit. It's totally fictional. If you want to try and charge the guest for additional cleaning related to the smoke odor, you have to initiate a Resolution request, and if the guest doesn't agree your initial charge, you'll have to submit evidence such as cleaning invoices to an Airbnb mediator who is unlikely to take your side. The guest can meanwhile retaliate with a bad review.

If you want to pursue compensation for odor, you must ask yourself if it's worth all that hassle.

I do recommend mentioning in your review that the guest did not obey your House Rules and that you would not host them again. But be careful not to specifically mention drug use, as the likeliest outcome of this would be that Airbnb will just delete the review.

[James2566]

I’ve never had issues getting compensated for smoke smells, even when the guest burned mosquito incense products that smelled like campfire, the guest disagreed and AirBnb refunded me for having the air conditioning units professionally cleaned to remove the smell from the filters ($100 each) and extra cleaning time for my housekeeper to remove smell from upholstered items ($90). 

[James2566]

I do appreciate when reviews mention smoking because I can address the penalties and rules before pre-approving the guests and have that on file. I don’t have trouble getting the additional costs refunded, what’s a pain is another guest is arriving and the place smells like campfire. For that I invoice the guests (usually AirBnb) for emergency commercial air purifiers (I recommend having a company on speed dial) which is hella expensive for the guests, so I like an opportunity to mention to smokers with previous reviews that if we detect smoke, it’ll cost the entirety of their US500 deposit to have it treated. So what I would say is that a smoke product was burned indoors which required urgent commercial cleaning.