Hey guys! Thought I would update you on my situation.
I ended up paying 25€ today…for the broken bed. AirBnB told me I do not have any proof I did not break the bed. From what I understood, I should have take a picture of the missing column. 25€ is not much and it will not hurt me but I am truly upset that he won. He provided a bed in a bad shape…
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Aw, glad it’s resolved and you can move on, but that totally stinks about paying the 25. Yes you can’t prove that you didn’t break the bed, but can they prove that you did?
Lessons learned - I hope your next experience is much better!!
Nancy
So tell us… did this 25 E fee happen after resolution or before? Did you deny and then they sided with him and they claimed off your deposit? I’d be bummed out too, sorry you had to pay for his piece of junk bed. Use Wimdu next time you go to Germany!
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Katy, was it in Germany??? If yes than I am not surprised. Germans are famous for being clean freaks sorry German people, though I love Germany but that’s the fact. I travel with Airbnb all the time. I get 5 stars reviews 100%. Once only this once when I was in Munihc instead of a hotel I stayed in a guys appartment, which was full of his personal things, and was far from perfect. There were stuff everywhere, he didnt know how to use his own TV, there was no toiletries even soap.
He left me a review that I left an appartment in unexeptable condition, and that the toilet was messy. I stayed at his place for 2 night, never actually spending time in there. I am a woman and I consider myself very clean and tidy. I was simply shocked.
I don’t think you owe him anything for that spot, you are not even sure if it was you who put that spot there. And candy rapper is just ridiculous. You should see what my guests leave in their rooms. I had guests for a few weeks once and they never took their garbage out, never. I found used condoms under beds and leftovers of food. Don’t worry, you were a very good and tidy guest. And heis just being too picky. Don’t stay with him again
Yana, it seems like with everyone else, you are focusing on what the poster says were candy wrappers. The host was actually upset about stains to the sofa, but did not charge her for these stains - obviously he was able to remove them thankfully. She did however admit to breaking the bed, although she claims the bed was not made up correctly.
Actually, after having been through the resolution process, I can tell you in unequivocal terms, that airbnb does fully assess the damage through photos, and also requires the host to submit the make and model of the bed for comparisons. They would have clearly been able to see if the bed required a middle leg, which I strongly doubt. IKEA beds do not use this method at all. Queen beds have a support system in a kind of diamond shape under the slats, and use two twin bases for a king. It is clear that the host was using the correct resolution channels all along, as he only had 48hrs after her booking to submit for damages. Any messages to her, we’re obviously to direct her to the open case she was clearly not attending to. $25 is indeed a small amount, as clearly she had broken the slats, which are not an expensive thing to replace, but totally fair for the host to claim for. Personally I wouldn’t claim, but I can only imagine the host had his reasons.
This is the second time a guest has come on claiming to being treated horribly by a host (this poster claims she was blackmailed through text, while it was clear he had gone through the proper channels and was trying to get her to resolve it before airbnb had to step in), the other poster claimed that her hosts left a rude review about her using a strong smell that caused them to have to replace a mattress (no penalties to the guest). On this forum, she adamantly denied it, and I eventually said she was hard done by, although with all the other things in her post I could smell a rat etc. Then I saw her review elsewhere, where she actually admitted to using a strong menthol product that may have gotten in the bedding, and also that the wife was pregnant (none of this mentioned here, just how cruel the host was to write a negative review). Her list of complaints about what sounded like perfectly reasonable behavior on part of her hosts showed the guest to have unreasonable expectations.
If people are going to respond to people’s posts, I really do wish they would read the post properly, and the issues therein. The host in this thread was never upset about a candy wrapper like so many have carried on about. He simply found stains on his sofas (which he was understandably upset about), and wondered if they were from the candies and empty wrappers he found scattered about the sofa. Of course no one gets upset about a candy wrapper being left on the floor. He was also hoping for a response on his suddenly broken bed. A guest that stays, breaks something and seems to think it’s perfectly alright, or starts saying the item was rubbish to begin with, is not a great guest in my experience. But hey, that’s just my experience. If it was myself, and I wanted to continue a good relationship and stay at this place for future travels, I would have paid the small sum for the damage, and moved on. I find it pretty unbelievable these days, that a guest would stay in someone’s home, break a bed, say ‘ah, it was a crap bed anyway’, and refuse any kind of contribution. This could never be my behavior in a million years, even if I did think the bed could be better quality, especially if he was only asking for a measly $25. But then, I wouldn’t have bothered squabbling with this guest over that amount either. We’re all different.
Sandy, I totally agree, it attracts attrntion those candy rappers but I think the reason is that it’s petty. I would not even mention it. Honestly I would not even mention stains if they were totally removable. Bed issue puzzles me. How can you even break a bed?? Unless you jump up and down like a 3 years old that weighs 300lb.
Exactly Yana. After being a host for a while, nothing will surprise you. Some guests actually DO jump up and down on beds, and what if the guest was quite overweight, perhaps in the realms of weight range that could damage the springs in mattresses, break slats, or other furniture. Despite being a bit embarrassing, I would truly hope that a guest like that would ask me if my beds or furniture could handle an obese person. Some furniture and bedding can, others may not so well, and some hosts would like the option to choose. I know in hotels everything is built to expect larger body types, but even many hotel beds give out very quickly. I hear they replace mattresses yearly, and even still you often get some in rough shape, even in places like the Ritz Carlton.
I had a couple who managed somehow (we still can’t workout the maneuver) to collapse our bed. It looks like an antique four poster, but it is actually a steel frame, with solid steel slats that connect very firmly into the base. Whatever they did (obviously rough sex involving one person holding the posts somehow while another shoved roughly in the opposite direction - but it would truly require significant force - caused this very solid bed to collapse gouging our antique hardwood floors as it crashed down. Their response? ‘Oh, the bed just broke while I was reading on it’. We can just move into another room when we get back from dinner. We said we would fix it for them. Unbelievably, they left piles of their underwear, inside out jeans, shoes, all around the bed so that it was barely even possible to get to it - hadn’t even done us the basic courtesy of moving their crap out of the way so that we either had to struggle and trip through it, or toss it aside in a pile. It was like a bomb went off in there. Neither had made an effort to put that slats and mattress back on after what they’d done, because we the maids were for that, well, they thought they’d try another room, and give us two whole rooms and sets of sheets and laundry to do for their two night stay I guess. We put it back together only to find a remark in the review saying ‘the bed collapsed, because it’s antique I guess, but they fixed it for us so it was no big deal’. (Why mention it then?). This bed regularly holds all kinds of sized couples who, I’m sure enjoy intimacy during their stays - these were a fit young couple. So, it is indeed with experience that I tell you people do things on beds you would imagine inappropriate in a hosts home, even acting like 3 years olds. After my experiences I tend to give hosts the benefit of the doubt, as I truly believe we have more at stake and at risk than guests. A guest can simply leave if they don’t like a home. Unfortunately we get stuck with whoever arrives, no matter what they end up doing here - short of something unlawful.
I know you mentioned you only spent time out in the living room sorting through your luggage and stuff you bought. Did you happen to place your suitcase on the sofa? The reason I ask is because guests leave black tar looking marks sometimes when they place their luggage on the bed, etc.- it’s from the dirty wheels. I am not suggesting you did this…I am just saying if you couldn’t figure out how you could have possibly left a stain - this would be something to consider.
Anyway, just want to give my opinion on the discussion of staining sofas and sheets/comforters in general. To me, if a guest chooses to drink or eat anywhere outside of the kitchen, then they should expect to be charged for leaving stains. You know you are taking a risk of spilling something. I have had so many people eat and drink in bed, allow their kids to even eat in drink in bed. Luckily I was able to remove most stains and didn’t have to charge. The few I wasn’t able to salvage went to another use.
Some guests took it upon themselves to wash and dry the items, only to set the stains in (mostly towels). So instead of just letting me know, they chose to try to fold it and put it away so no one would know. Well do they really expect me to have my next guest use stained towels? I know if I was visiting my friend and sat on her couch with a glass red wine, and spilled it - I would expect to pay to repair what I did. One of my friend’s will say “come over here and sit on the couch.” I always say I won’t because she has white carpet and I am not going to risk spilling red wine on it. Accidents are a different story and I am willing to absorb the cost for that. But eating drinking everywhere is intentional and everyone knows a spill is bound to happen.
And yes, I understand a spill is an accident. But a spill is foreseeable.
I won’t even get started on my makeup stained towels rant.
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Lol 
Accidents happen. My skinny 15 years old was babysitting and broke glass table in their house. Mother got mad at us and was asking for money. Similar situation with bed here. We refused to pay. I was trying to reason with her and told her that my tiny daughter who weighs 90 lb couldn’t possibly brake the table by simply leaning on it. I told her that she should be gratefull that my daughter didnt cut herself with broken glas and she doesn’t have to pay for medical bills. Only much later I found out from a common friend that a week prior to accident a 200 lb man fell on this table being drunk and everyone were terrified that he crashed the table and hurt himself but that didnt happen. And then my daughter leaned on it and it fell into pieces .
In this case how do we go about damages? The bed in question should be sturdy enough for ANY person to sleep on it. That’s the responsibility of a host, not a guest.
Cabin, I don’t remember if I shared this with you…but I am a magazine features writer who has profiled more than 200 homes and homeowners here in Hawaii. One of them was a home that had been converted to a five-star B&B. The owner said she constantly had the make up problem and finally found a supplier who offered BLACK towels with the insignia that said, “use me for makeup removal.” She said it handily solved the problem!
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Thanks for sharing Kona. I was providing a basket of rolled wash cloths to remove all makeup and the benzoyl peroxide products that Billy mentioned. Some people just did what they wanted anyway. Now I haven’t actually lost that many due to damage because I work the stains out, but I just find it to be disrespectful behavior. I mean these women don’t do this to their own towels at home.
So I was using white wash cloths and rolled them in a basket. That helped. And then I changed my house rules language to say that any towels/linens that cannot be salvaged will be charged to the guest. That seems to have nipped the problem in the bud. At one point I said that guests would pay for stained towels but then that just caused guests to do my laundry and set in stains. So saying if they cannot be salvaged seems to be the sweet spot. No more guests doing the laundry and more guests being careful.
Billy Bob - this is what I recently found at Sam’s: http://www.samsclub.com/sams/bleachsafe-13-x13-wash-cloths-brown-24-pk/134537.ip?navAction=push
I too prefer colored towels. I have the large brown bath sheets from Sam’s - one did get destroyed to the benzoyl peroxide and it found a good home. I really like the wash cloths in the link. I replaced the cheap white wash cloths with these. I have only had them for a few weeks but they look so lovely after you wash them. I rolled them in a basket and put a sign to use to remove makeup and all skin products. And they are supposed to be resistant to everything, including the bleaching product. They also have then in hand towel size. I don’t like the words bleach safe on them…but I can live with it. I just roll them in a manner so it doesn’t show. I do worry about an entire family using proactive and ruining all of the bath sheets. Half of mine are white and the other half are brown.
Colored towels here too… Red and black with yellow accents to match my tropical decor… no guest destruction for some reason…can’t explain it. Unlike some hosts here, I’m a budget place and my towels are Kmart specials. I have to replace them maybe once every six months. Sheets seem to be more of a problem and I have been resigning myself to replacing once I see a stain that seems set. Have not heard of the acne stain before…
LOL, did you ever think you’d be talking with a bunch of strangers on a public forum about sheets and towels?!
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Kona,
Is there a way to private message in this forum?
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yes… I’ll send you one!
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Good to see people are conscious of hygiene. Did you know the host guarantee with airbnb only covers you for damage and not things like bedbugs?
We regularly clean our bed after each guest, bit also now seriously considering getting a natural latex topper pad as well:
“When consumers encounter bed bugs in a hotel room, whether it’s Motel 6 or the Hilton, they don’t keep quiet about it. They spread the word on review sites like ConsumerAffairs – and may even report it on special sites like BedBugRegistry.com.” - http://feeling.zaanta.com.au/airbnb-hosts-and-users-reduce-dustmite-risk-and-stay-hygienic/
Don’t want these little critters spreading all over our house, because of one guest.
Hi guys, I see you are very active Airbnb users. It would be really great if you could fill out my survey on Airbnb for my Master thesis! I need active users to participate :)! I would highly appreciate your help! Thanks a lot in advance!
Best
Felicitas
Being a mid-size cleaning provider in Vancouver, BC, I’ve seen a lot of different cases and states guests left the place. Some of guest would clean and do the laundry, where others would leave it in a state where even two cleaners have to spend hours to bring it back to suitable state.
We did experiment a lot with pricing and cleaning feed, and after putting together all the stats, came up to a simple flat rate based on number of bedrooms and bathrooms. And it all makes sense now, since you don’t need to charge too much and it should never be your stream of extra money. Just keep your cleaning fee what it costs you to be competitive. Stats made it all and brought our pricing as low as $35 per cleaning visit! https://www.bnbcare.ca/airbnb-cleaning-vancouver/bookings/pricing.php
No spam allowed, sorry.
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If things are so great, why are you begging? I can introduce you to a few panhandlers if you ever get to Toronto. Margaret is a nice woman who used to be a book-keeper. Denis & Waboose are Objibway brothers-in-law.
Next time you stay with me if you travel to Frankfurt, except that mine is a sharing apartment as I live in it. Wow, he is a complex and picky host, avoid him and report him to Airbnb.