Tips for damage prevention

[Leslie625]

Hi there! We are looking for suggestions that might encourage people to treat our home with a bit more respect.

We have been renting our brand new 4 bedroom 3 bathroom home for only three months and the list of damages, while not severe, is quite long:

bbq grease stain on deck 3'x3'; scratches on scratch-resistant flooring; damaged tv screen; scratches on dining room table; pocket door pulled out of pocket (not a lightweight bifold door, a custom installed solid cherry door); broken dishes; garbage left on counters; outlet pulled out of the wall; scuffs and small gouges in the walls; three inch scratch on glass cooktop.

Generally we get groups of 6 to 8 booking so some wear and tear is expected but this seems a bit much. Do we raise our prices and/or add the security deposit? We don't want to put people off, we just want a little respect, y'know?

[Mark116]

bbq grease stain on deck 3'x3--[you could take the bbq out, as guests are probably just not going to clean it properly]

 scratches on scratch-resistant flooring--[this is probably unavoidable, guests are going to be dragging luggage around]

damaged tv screen--[that should not happen and might have been worth making a claim on, that is a bad guest]

scratches on dining room table--[this too will happen, we recently changed out a pine table for an antique hard wood larger table and it already has gouges, so we'll probably take the leaf out and go back to putting a table cloth on it]

pocket door pulled out of pocket (not a lightweight bifold door, a custom installed solid cherry door)--I would add directions on how to use the pocket door somehwere

broken dishes--[this is probably part of the cost of doing business]

garbage left on counters--[this is a bad guest, you can mitigate by sending a message the day before check out that tells guests what to do, where to put garbage, etc.]

outlet pulled out of the wall--[weird, bad guest, or maybe children, who as others have said bring with them much more damage]

scuffs and small gouges in the walls--[unavoidable]

three inch scratch on glass cooktop--[I tend to think that a glass cooktop is too fragile and delicate for an airbnb, but you can add directions on how to care for it, and reiterate them in a greeting message to guests]

I have found that guests don't read the listing and many don't even read a long message, so if its something that really needs reinforcing, send a stand alone message about it as well as have it in the listing and in some kind of manual in the house itself. 

[Leslie625]

Thank you everyone for all the advice! I'm so glad I found this community host page. Really wish I had done so sooner.

[Sarah977]

@Leslie625  Another thing to consider is not to buy "sets" of things, like dishware or towels that would entail purchasing a whole new set if some of it gets broken or stained beyond redemption.

If you stick to dishware that is always available and can be purchased by the piece, like the white dinnerware Ikea sells, or go with mix and match., it's way easier. My dishware is all solid or bright colors in many colors and shapes- when I see a bowl or plate or mug I like, whether it's from a second hand store, a dollar store, a yard sale, or on sale new, I'll grab it so I have some extras stashed away. Same with my linens (which are always purchased new)- I like colored towels and sheets, so a "set" of towels might have a solid green bath towel, a patterned green bath towel, a hand towel in another shade of green and a washcloth in another. It still looks co-ordinated and intentional, not like some hodgepodge of whatever was on sale. 

Or as some hosts prefer, all white towels and sheets.

I've read so many posts over time from hosts stressing about whether to charge a guest for a whole new set of towels or sheets because one piece of the set was badly stained. No need to make hosting a harder job than necessary.