House rules violation

[Michael1288]

Hello - I have a guest that checked out today. We discovered on camera that guest hosted at 18th birthday party and there were a lot more guests than declared. Furthermore kitchen faucet was broken. We clearly state that we do not allow parties and events. How do you handle this situation. TIA 

[Pat271]

Get estimates and receipts for fixing the faucet, all dated before the next guest checks in. Contact the guest on the Airbnb app with this estimate and attempt to have it charged against the security deposit (which really isn’t a real security deposit, but that’s another subject).  If the guest refuses (which he/she probably will), report it to Airbnb and provide the invoices and estimates also before the next guest checks in. If you have before/after pictures of the faucet that would be helpful also.

As far as the extra guests, do you have spelled out in your description and your House Rules any fees for bringing extra guests? Do you have video of the extra guests coming in? If you have specific fees for extra guests, tell the guests how much they owe you in fees. If they refuse (which they probably will), you can probably work with Airbnb to get refunded.

As you can see, this isn’t an easy process, but all the steps above have to be done, in the right order and with the right timing, in order to get help from Airbnb.

[Michael1288]

@Pat271  Thanks Pat for your input, exactly how we want to proceed. Our only gripe other than the obvious inconvenience, dishonesty and damage this has caused is how these guests with 0 reviews (who we gave the benefit of doubt to be accepting their initial reservation request) can now give us a review when they broke our house rules. Airbnb should null & void this ability for them to review but I doubt it. BTW, really want to visit Greenville, SC soon, heard only good things about your city!

[Sarah977]

@Michael1288  Your cameras are there to alert you to what is happening when it is happening. It doesn't do much good to only look at them after the fact, when the damage has alteady been done. In the future, look at your cameras when guests check in, and if you see extra people going in, you should demand that they leave immediately, or evict everyone. 

[Michael1288]

We check our cameras often but this was the w/end and also a v. short stay so the real point here is guests need to be honest which this group were evidently not on a number of issues and now we need support from Airbnb.

[Sarah977]

@Michael1288  Well, of course guests should be honest, but not all are. And customer service and host support has taken such a deep dive that prevention, rather than remediation, has become really important.  That was my point.

And it seems to me that very short stays, especially on a weekend, are the most likely to be the ones that attract partiers who lie about their intentions. 

[Linda108]

@Michael1288   I see that you have 7 listings so I wonder if there is a way for you to be alerted to a certain level of activity, either by entrance activity or noise level or both.   Keeping track must be a 24/7 project I imagine.