Refunding guests due to pool issue

[Nicole2592]

Hi fellow hosts, we are in San Antonio TX and having a CRAZY spring with pollen and leaves, etc. We had guests arrive last night saying the pool was green & our pool cleaner was scheduled to arrive the next morning. He was supposed to do a regular cleaning the day before too but we found out this morning he had a death in the family and we weren’t told until today. 

We let the guests know that we would have a new team out today, which we did but the pump was so clogged with pollen that they need to come back out tomorrow. So the guests arrived Thursday evening and we will hopefully have it all sorted Saturday morning. They’ve already asked what discount they will be provided. We do feel bad and have worked as quickly as possible o get things sorted out. But they expect a refund and do not was an additional free night stay we offered already. They are there 4 nights in total. Just trying to determine what’s reasonable 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Nicole2592 if you let Airbnb handle it then you will be lucky to get less than a 30% refund offered to the guest. Is this fair? Possibly as you must of known there were issues with the pool and perhaps could have got someone out before the guest even arrived.

[Fred13]

Perhaps is best to discuss it right up front before they even unpack. Ask them if 'X' amount is reasonable, if they are delusional or the passive-aggressive types you will know right off the bat the reservation is not going to work and best to have them cancel the reservation and you can get the pool prepared for the next guests. Things happen, everyone knows this.

This beats wasting 4 days of your life and ending up with little or nothing at the end. This also keeps Airbnb out of it.