I’ve heard of ppl swapping out their old shoes for a better used pair at thrift stores, but not toasters in a rental!
1 Like
I’m still trying to get my head around the fact that there are hoards of people (well at least two) travelling the world with manky old toasters just in case there’s a nice one at their rental. 
10 Likes
I usually push back when people want to blame the cleaners, but I concur this looks like a racket by someone who has access and is hoping you don’t notice. Try a different cleaner and see if it continues.
5 Likes
Right? Who goes on vacation with a gross toaster! I feel like the next swap should be something really good like a SMEG toaster and not these junky ones
1 Like
Right? They actively would have had to go garage sale hunting on their vacation to swap this out because it has to be from the 80s at best. At least this time it’s clean? The first one looked like the people deep fried it.
1 Like
I have had a pillow swapped out and I noticed it right away, I had seen on camera the person bringing in a pillow when they checked in. I called the guest who was still close by and said hey you grabbed the wrong pillow please come back and swap it back I will leave it on the porch. I knew right away because the pillow case was off white and stood out.
It was not a good pillow, IDK why they brought it unless the plan was to find a better one!
RR
2 Likes
This made me laugh out loud. The funny thing is that we have an old toaster I think we ought to replace. It looks a bit worn. It works fine. I’d be perfectly happy if a guest would choose to swap it. Guests happily use it, but they don’t ever attempt to steal it or swap it.
My husband seems to have such an affinity for this toaster that he doesn’t want it replaced. I appreciate his loyalty, but I might just put one in the cart on Amazon and not tell him.
I have no advice but I can’t stop reading this thread. Can you put a tile tracker on the bottom of the newest toaster? I want to know where it goes!!
7 Likes
Book a stay at my cottage and just swap out the toaster just like that you will have a new one
3 Likes
This is a great idea. There used to be a website that tracked dollar bills. Maybe I should make one up www. Whereismytoasterat .com
6 Likes
No, I am about 30 minutes from town which makes this even more baffling. Someone would either have to be bringing these to the house or driving an hour plus shop time round trip to go get a new one. That’s actually why I stay pretty booked - beach cottage 30 minutes from town - quiet fun escape from it all. Except toasters, I cannot escape the toaster swaps
1 Like
Maybe make an innocent, confused remark to your cleaner.
“It’s so weird, people are taking the new toaster and leaving an old one. Guests are so crazy! So I called the police for advice and they said to get one of those engraving pens to mark everything with my ID. What do you think?”
2 Likes
we’ve had batteries taken out of the remotes. I’ve also had a cushion taken. not expensive but it was a matching set so that was a bit annoying.
I accidentally took a pillow from an airbnb I stayed in last April, we stayed there a month and had our own pillows/towels, and when we packed up in the end i couldn’t remember if the single bed had 2 pillows on it. luckily we live in the area (we were str whilst waiting for house to settle) so i was able to return the pillow to the owner without fuss.
However, swapping out a toaster is Next Level!
Actually, I’ve had people leave behind small appliances that are better than the ones avaialable in the apartment. However, my guests generally stay for an average of 14 days, so if they want a special toaster that can toast a bagel perfectly well, they go and buy one and leave behind.
1 Like
I agree with those who think somebody on the cleaning crew is actually doing the swapping. There are a lot of STRs listings where the owners are hands off and that are managed by property-managers that have so many listings they would never be able to tell. The person swapping out the appliances is banking on it.
3 Likes
I agree with others that suspect the cleaning team. I don’t think a guest would swap toasters because they would have crumbs all over their luggage plus folks travel light. Are there other things being swapped? A toaster doesn’t have much value so perhaps the person is a klepto. Maybe it’s also passive aggressive behavior. The person is trying to get back at you, maybe she/he feels underpaid.
1 Like
I agree with @jaquo . I can’t understand why guests would swap out a toaster, but I can understand a cleaner seeing your nice new one in a cupboard (because you don’t have a pic of it on your listing?) and thinking “Hey, they’ll never notice and the guests won’t tell.”
3 Likes
This caught my attention as I just had two king size bamboo brand memory foam pillows swapped out, for some crusty yellowed off brand fiber fill somethings. Why would someone in the midst of covid want a pillow of any value from a short term rental that has obviously had a few customers. As we are a public facing biz, we are subject to the vagaries of humanity. Anyway… To the guests credit, the mom checked with the son… The story is all in texts… The son’s friend who visited, took the pillows… He was ordered to go to fed ex and mail them. Exactly how the pillows got inside our two double pillow cases, was only explained by the mom saying, “I’m too tired to explain.” When I asked for a photo of the fed ex tracking. I got a photo of the pillows going into a box and the credit card screen at the fed ex store showing a shipping transaction, but no tracking number. No sign of the pillows and this was a week ago…
2 Likes
I agree it might be the cleaning team as well. I’ve had sheets at my property go missing and reappear. Then when I said to the cleaners, how odd, I was missing a whole set, then 1/2 a set, then had 2 flat sheets. Suddenly one cleaner found 2 fitted sheets on a bed and the extra flat sheet was gone. I now have the whole sheet set back. And not sure which cleaner it is. The one who claims there were 2 fitted sheets on the bed, after previously finding 2 flat sheets on the bed? Or the one who cleaned most often and was arrested for shoplifting in the past? Both times the missing sheets reappeared after saying something to the cleaners. I don’t think guests snuck in to return them.
3 Likes