Unreasonable guests demand compensation after pool guy asked them not to use the pool for an hour

[Danny627]

Long story short, the guest is obviously trying to abuse us. Got a message stating that pool guy came and told them not to use the pool for about an hour to let the chemical circulate. Spoke to pool guy and my camera feeds and the guests were on their way out not even close to using the pool. Also he said he's added just maintenance level and not shocking the pool but he just wanted to let the guests know. He didn't have to and it wouldn't even matter at that level. 

He demanded compensation, I said what do you want, he first said late check out, I would always give this but I have guests coming in so I said I can't now he wants $200 for 1 hour of no pool use LOL. I said I don't think so and it stayed quiet. 

As I'm investigating this whole pool guy situation, I caught one of their children peeing around my pool equipment area with an obvious sign do need enter. Pretty annoying

What would you do?

[Danny627]

I offered them $50 and he rudely responded no thanks blah blah

Anyways, they check out tomorrow but I feel like kicking them out at this point. Can I use the ground of someone in his family peed around my pool equipment area with a keep out sign?

[Shelley159]

Hi @Danny627 

It sounds like these guests are looking to take advantage of you, but one can also understand how it's a bit of an invasion of privacy if maintenance workers unexpectedly show up to service a private area during their stay. Perhaps they are actually annoyed for that reason? It's an ongoing battle for all hosts, trying to get everything done between guests. It's especially difficult to get the timing right when outside parties are involved. It would be easier if you or the cleaning staff could treat the pool between bookings?

[Danny627]

@Shelley159 During the summer, we have back to back booking. It's nearly impossible to schedule for the pool guy to come on our schedule as they have the routes. We do put on our listing the days the yard and the pool guy comes. I guess nothing we can do about these entitled guests but to leave them the approppriate review. 

The pool guy only service the pool because no on was using the pool and the guests were on their way out. He's been instructed to do this at the very least. I reviewed my camera footage and confirmed that no guests were at the pool before he started it seems like he ran into them at the driveway as he was coming in. He was just having a friendly conversation with them and was trying to be helpful. 

[Shelley159]

@Danny627 you can consider perhaps making it more prominent in the listing, as I didn't find the information. Making it clear before booking could maybe prevent a similar issue in future and could also allow guests who don't want to be there on the stated maintenance days, to book other days of the week. Hope it helps!

[Jenny349]

Pretty.breathtaking! I sympathize !

No way round it - if you have a pool, you have to have regular maintenance. There’s just no way a guest can expect total, unfettered, undisturbed use. Even a hotel won’t/ can’t offer that.

Not sure how you can best handle these folks, but as you‘ve probably realized yourself, you may need to add some more info to your listing about pool maintenance, if only to protect yourself against entitled guests in the future! Good luck!

[Danny627]

Thanks everyone. House cleaner report some serious damages to the ceiling below our upstairs bathroom where there's a whirlpool tub.  It appears that the guest did something to flood it causing water to leak to the lower floor. 

Intentional or not we can't say but we've reached out to Airbnb. Going to be filing a claim on the guest. 

During the 2 nights stay, they used my dryer 6 times with several back to back and all of our towels were used up. I bet their kids screwed up and they were trying to clean it up but it was too late. Makes me wonder if this was just a stunt they  pulled so I don't file a claim on them. 

[Kia272]

@Danny627  I'm sorry this happened to you- these guests don't sound like very nice people. 

However, what I suspect is that this has something to do with the cost of using your pool. It seems REALLY high, and that's likely what the guests are upset about, although they are using the pool guy as an excuse. 

Personally, I don't think it's fair to charge that amount. If a pool isn't comfortable to use without being heated, then it's not really an amenity if you have to pay extra. At $140/day ($150 if less than a week), that's a lot of extra money. These guests were likely simply annoyed at the high charge. 

Have you considered trying to work some of that cost into your nightly rate? Or simply lowering the price? I can't imagine it actually costing that much per day, even with high electricity charges. 

I suspect that this will catch up with you with your reviews. You seem like an excellent host, but I think this will come back to haunt you in some way. Good luck. 

[Danny627]

@Kia272  These guest did NOT pay for the pool to be heated. It's an optional service. The pool use is included with thereservation. My pool heating charge is OPTIONAL, heating the pool wasn't even offering last summer and we only added the option last fall when we had a lot of guests requested for a heated pool during the winter. When it's paid  for  we keep the pool at 89 - 90 degrees for the guest, this feel like you're in your tub. 

Not everyone rent ourplace for the pool, working the pool heat cost into the nightly rate is not fair for those who will not be using the it and make my nightly rate less competitive. We charge an average nightly rate but provide the guests the option to use the pool at normal temp or have it heated. Also during this time of year, it is not necassary to heat the pool. The water temperature is swimmable w/o the heater turned on. 

I don't know if you own a pool but to maintain a pool is very expensive and in California, everything is expensive including energy. I did not opt to  heat the pool last year because it's expensive and I could not control the high cost of energy here. When a guest ask to have the pool heated, the pump runs at 24 hours a day, the gas heater will have to be turned on at least 2 days in advance and it runs 24 hours a day before reaching optimum temperature.  In fact, on shorter 2 days stays, the rate I'm charging sometime doesn't even cover my actual cost to heat the pool.