@adrienne12 Lock away surplus supplies. Decant large bottles of toiletries
Don’t provider chargers.
Buy decent quality but not expensive items.
In three years of hosting, I’ve had the following things go missing:
big fluffy bath sheets
couch blanket
about 30 dvd’s
wood hangers (about 10)
beach chairs
pillowcases
stone coasters
tupperware
Curious about how many bookings in those 3 years.
Goodness. I haven’t lost a fraction of that in my entire hosting life.
I’ve had about 80 bookings between Airbnb and vrbo
I know it’s crazy. I had to add a line to my welcome letter. "It goes without saying, but unfortunately, I have to say it; please do not take anything home from the unit that does not belong to you. " The area is considered very high end too. I think people just think, “it just one dvd, she has so many, it won’t be missed.” But times that by ten of guests and I have a whole drawer full eventually come up missing. I really don’t care about the actual things as they are low cost to me, but I just hate a thief!
Hmm. Yes in that case it’s quite a bit of stuff. In about 700 bookings I’ve had a pillow taken, (switched out actually. They took a newer one and put their old one in the pillow protector) and a couple of reusable glass water bottles. I dont even bother to lock the closet that has spare linens and supplies most the time.
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Thinking about it, I think the reason I lock ours is because it’s such a mess in there!
It is strange though how some hosts seem to have thief guests and others don’t. I don’t know why it could be but I can’t think of any item ever that was actually stolen.
I’ve had 3 pieces of silverware, a multi-port USB charging cable, and a cheap bottle-opener/corkscrew come up missing. I think the silverware got thrown away by accident and the USB cable was borrowed and accidentally left in the guest’s rental car. The corkscrew probably broke and was thrown away.
It’s entirely possible I’ve lost a bath towel or two and never noticed because I never took an accurate count before I started hosting.
I have had towels and top sheets disappear. I suspect guests take them to the beach and they’re left in their car. It’s annoying because I keep running out a sheet sets.
Top sheets! What a pain to be left with an incomplete set!
I supply beach towels for guests and point them out during the house tour. Not in a ‘it’s a rule that you must use these and not the posh towels’ way, but implying how nice and thoughtful I am for doing so 
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The only items that have gone missing is my cool collection of local history books and a great local hiking guide. They were taken by a crazy person who in her profile says she cannot live without books. Go figure!
On the bright side I was able to replace them all.
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I had a couple accidentally take my best and brand new spa towel to the beach, where their dog accidentally chewed a hole it it, and then used it to dry the dog off and accidentally left it in their trunk. And then told me about it in message after leaving and offered to pay. Being a brand new host I said part of doing business. And went looking for it. They didn’t give me the whole story as above until after I questioned which towel was it? So new to me I didn’t miss it. Ugh. I have decided that these people obviously steal the best towel every where they go. I leaned my lesson, next time I will say yes please send me $35 to replace it thank you.
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I haven’t had any big problems either but I keep a good eye on my place and guests know that I’m aware of all the comings and goings at my home.
I had a bag with 5 lbs of fresh baked cookies though and I told some guests to ‘help themselves’ well they took the whole bag. Technically I didn’t say they couldn’t but dayum girl are you the cookie monster? 
Technically not theft though!
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Something to add here when our tech came to look at our AC and thermostats. We have three thermostats for our three zones and at some point a guest stole the batteries out of two of them.
Man, I had completely forgot about batteries. Once after a guest checked out, I found some AA batteries under a bed that I didn’t recognize and then found that the television remote and DVD player remote in that room didn’t work because the batteries were missing.
I had received a call from the guest the first night of their stay saying the WiFi wasn’t working and I went to check on it and found that the guest’s 8-year-old son had unplugged the power strip that the router and cable modem were plugged into so he could plug in his game console. There were 4 free outlets in that power strip and 4 more in the power strip that the TV and DVD player were plugged into, so I guess he’d never seen a power strip before. Anyway, I’m pretty sure I know where the missing batteries went.
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It would annoy me that parents would allow their kids to unplug everything and remove batteries then call you to say the “WiFi wasn’t working.” Could they really not have figured that out themselves? I hope they were appreciative of your service.
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