So I had this lady and her family stay at my property for 9 nights. The rent is not cheap, I would say. Everything went relatively well until the end. It started with her request for me to buy her groceries as they had an early day 1 and arrived late the night before. Odd request, I thought, but I obliged since I’m trying to be a good host and well, I could.
During their stay, her and I communicated back and forth and all was OK, but the few times I did ask to meet her went ignored. She also caused a bit of a difficulty (not too much, actually) when I requested for roofers to come and add insulation to the attic in order to cool down the upstairs bedrooms. She said she valued her privacy, that she didn’t want strangers in, etc. But we went back and forth and she obliged in the end. Fair enough.
After she left, a couple of hours later I went to the house and noticed that one of the bedroom windows was cranked open, but the window lock was still on. The lock is at the top, the crank at the bottom, so the bottom of the window had opened and the top was still locked in place. This was most likely the cause of the crack that I now was staring at on the window. To be fair, I did request that she leaves a few windows open prior to leaving.
Anyways, I decided to make the claim with a quote I had received for fixing the issue and go to airbnb resolution centre. Her attitude became somewhat hostile, claiming things like as a result of my claim, she’s now stressed out while traveling and this is causing her much grief. She also denied the claim and the claim amount. At her request, I allowed her to ask a property manager come and take a look. The guy basically took a minute to look at the window, and then explained that my theory on why the window had broken is wrong, and bolted out. Literally bolted out. I had to run after him and catch him on the street, asking him ‘what about the quote?’, to which he replied to me with a smirk that neither the window guy nor I know what we’re talking about. It became apparent that there was only one reason for the property manager being there: to discredit me. My fault for being nice.
And of course the guest wrote back, suddenly sounding very well informed, saying the window cracked because of this reason, or it could’ve been because of that reason, but not because of this reason, etc. So I had another window guy come in and confirm that I was most probably right, and refute her explanations, some of them which were downright silly. The second guy also gave a more expensive quote (around $550 for the first quote, $700 for the second one).
Anyways, now I’ve asked airbnb to get involved. Hopefully it’s resolved. I agree that there’s a chance that she really didn’t break the window, but the probability points to her. But what if I’m wrong? I’m also sure she didn’t break it on purpose, so this whole thing has left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
She has a damage deposit, so if airbnb decides she’s at fault, then it’ll come out of that. But still, not a good experience for only my second guest.