Guest wants a partial refund for smoke detector dead battery alarm - WWYD?

(aww Faheem,…you are tooo cute.)

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Faheem, you are just like one of the characters in A Passage to India. I mean that in the best possible way. It’s one of my favorite books. :smile:

I don’t follow. But don’t feel obliged to explain.

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I would provide a hefty refund. I had a family at the home when the AC went out early evening. It was 100 degrees and it took till the next day to get it fixed. I refunded them $200, the cost of one night. They left a glowing review.

We always change detector batteries twice a year – at the Time Change to/from Daylight Savings Time in November and April. Simple to remember. Doesn’t work if you live in Hawaii (hi Kona) or Arizona where they do not use DST.

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That could have been a line from the book.

uhh, Robert…that is not a comma after the word ‘follow’. Whereas, Faheem is making a statement about himself in the first sentence, his next sentence is obviously a response directed to ‘konacoconutz’.

Just sayin’ ~

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I think you should offer ‘something’, but my issue is that the guest refused @barefootNM offer to have the battery chirping dealt with immediately. If this issue is really destroying you peaceful stay, wouldn’t you want it fixed asap?

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Sorry Jaquo I fear this is terrible advice! You should never wait until your battery starts to die to change it, unless you’re happy for your house to burn down. Smoke alarms should be professionally tested every year and batteries changed for brand new when this is done. It is the law where I live and saves lives every year.

Since it’s a one night stay, I’d say if they want a partial refund just give it to them.
For one night it’s not worth the problems not refunding them could cause you!

I would not ask for refund for this matter but people do it.
I am staying in one nice hotel in Cancun now for 1 night and there is no hot water here. I need to wash my hair, it sucks but things happen. I am not asking for any refund anyway, your guests probably would
500$ sounds like a lot of money but in fact it’s only 60$ per person.
If I was them I would let neighbor come in or used ladder instead of listening to the sound all night long. For me it would not be a big deal. Well for them it’s obviously bothersome enough to ask for refund. OR… They are just these kind of people who do it on a regular basis using any circumstance to save money. Either way ask them what they want and offer them what you think is fare and not painfull to you, may be 100$? I think more than that would be to much. I offered refunds twice myself. Once when pool heater was turned off by accidents and guests arrived to cold pool though they specifically asked for it to be warmed up before their arrival.I gave them 100$.
Then when AC was malfunctioning.

Incorrect. The battery is only a back up in the event of a power outage. Therefore the length of time the battery will last depends on how many power cuts have happened.

When the battery starts to chirrup, it doesn’t do it constantly (as in the OP’s scenario) for several weeks. The first time, it will beep just once or twice a day, gradually becoming more frequent as the battery dies. When I start to hear the beeps in my own apartment, then I know to change the one in the rental during the next turnover. Because my own place and the rental are in the same building, then I know that the batteries’ power outage status is the same.

In all the years we have rented out the apartment, no guest has ever reported any beeps at all from the smoke alarm and yet I am confident that the alarm works as guests have occasionally set it off due to burning toast and so on.

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Ken has a good idea.

Why is this even debatable?

The standard is fresh batteries every year. I’d rather have a properly working smoke detector with fresh batteries than a clean duvet or an electric kettle.

Different smoke alarms work differently. Our smoke/carbon monoxide alarms have an extremely loud woman’s voice “warn” that the battery is low about every 30 seconds until the battery is changed and yes, the alarms are hard wired. The one and only time we let the battery run low my husband was out for the evening and it’s too high for me to reach. Our dogs hid in the back part of the back yard until my husband came home and changed the battery.

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Perhaps best to kill the one that is high, and put another easily reachable with a couple of batteries by it, so then eliminates the reason for discount and any hassles. Honestly, the last thing I would ask for is a monetary discount, but that is me.

We have a ‘Nest’ Smoke/Carbon Monoxide detector. It has a battery and I can monitor the charge of the battery on my Nest app. Maybe think about a ‘smart’ smoke alarm?

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Doesn’t matter. I have hard-wired ones in my house and they each have a 9v battery that needs to be replaced when it starts beeping. Jeez I hate the sound. The solution is to just remove the battery.

Really? Did you somehow miss the fact that OP wasn’t even aware there were batteries that needed to be changed? Now, obviously, he or she knows and I’m sure will take measures to make sure this doesn’t happen again. I don’t recall he or she ever saying that paying for batteries was any sort of issue.

I’m sorry. This forum, as others have at times pointed out, if for hosts to come together and help one another with the many, many challenges of hosting. While it’s fine to be straightforward and perhaps even blunt with the help you have to offer, at least try to keep your facts straight and not go out of your way to chastise people when it’s not necessary.

Battery drain on those things is highly dependent on heat, the higher they are the shorter the battery life, so oftentimes making it tricky to tell when they will dissipate.

The guests didn’t want to disturb the other guests by bringing a ladder because it was late, so better to have the maddening beeping remain all night for all to ‘enjoy’; but ask for a discount; some would consider that an unnatural act.

@barefootNM, when those ‘wonderful’ guests leave, get a shotgun and shoot that thing ( :grin: ), and put a portable one within easy reach to eliminate the potential ~hustle~ on the part of such types of guests in the future.

I have been wondering if the guests really did get up on the ladder themselves, but told the host that they would “suffer through” so that the other guests wouldn’t be disturbed.