Help with missing Guest's belonging

[Jesslyn1]

Guest reservation was on 29th of April 2022, check out at 30th of April. On next day, guest talk to us on his iphone charge which was left at our unit. He was asking when he can pick it up, we told him to do so before 4pm on the day (1st of May) as the cleaning office is only available until 4pm. Guest had no reply until 14th of May 12pm, he asking again to collect on that day. We ask for the time and propose that we put in the mailbox and he can dropped by to collect it, and i will only provide mailbox passcode through airbnb chatbox when he arrived. He agree to the proposal and telling us he is waiting for his friend to reply on what time his friend can help him collect. Eventually we wait until 5pm, guest has no reply and my cleaning stuff decide to lock the charger in mailbox (the very end of mailbox) and inform them to go take it as soon as possible. 2 minutes later, guest inform us that he could not make it and ask us to post to him. Immediately we ask for postage address and telling him we can only post it on early June. However we did not get any respond from guest again.

My stuff only manage to take the charger from mailbox on next day (15th May) early morning. However the charger already gone missing. We were assuming the charger has already taken by guest's friend as the passcode did not change since he stay till 15th May. Unfortunately, we didnot follow up with him which also one of the stuff we did not do well.

2months+ later, 20th of July, guest suddenly reply with his postage address. But the charger already gone. What can i do in this case? Can i still file airbnb ticket/report this incident to Airbnb? This is my first time hosting (starting Feb this year), and i am quite lost what can i do in this case. 😔

[Anonymous]

@Jesslyn1   If we could take a time machine back to 30 April, I'd suggest that you send the guest a Resolution request for the cost of postage and mail it to him after he accepts the charge. Giving a third party access to your mailbox and getting cleaning staff involved made the whole thing a complicated mess, and I'm afraid all you can do now is tell the guest what you know: the charger was removed from the mailbox during the period his friend had access to it. Apologize, and end the conversation.

There's no reason to make a report to Airbnb, because neither you nor Airbnb are liable for items left behind by guests. Offering to return them is purely a courtesy, but it's the guest's responsibility to take all their stuff with them when they leave. Fortunately, a phone charger is cheap and replaceable, so your guest hasn't suffered an unbearable loss.