Guests take a $150 bed blanket to use at the beach

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We have 2 young guests, a woman and her boyfriend, who arrived yesterday afternoon. We have a stand alone Casita, located in Baja California Sur, Mexico, and the property is enclosed with a fence. There is a 100 yard path to the beach which passes by our own house and through our property.

This evening I was on the beach at sunset walking my dogs and I saw our new guests come through the beach gate and lie down in the sand on the beach. I walked over to say hello and noticed that they had covered and wrapped around themselves with a $150 bamboo blanket that is used for the bed in the Casita. I mentioned that we didn’t allow items from the Casita, except for beach towels, chairs and umbrellas, to be taken off the property and that we would give them an extra large, double sized beach towel that they could use on the beach and that they could stop by our house and pick it up on the way back to the Casita. When the boyfriend stopped by to pick up the towel, I asked him if they had read the welcome guide at the Casita which explains everything about the Casita (we’re solar powered and off the grid) and also reiterates the house rules which are also posted on our Airbnb page.

"9: All amenities (see amenities list on website), except for beach towels, chairs and umbrellas, are for use only at the Casita or on its porch. Please do not remove them from the Casita property. We have plastic tumblers, plates and forks, located inside the cooler bag in the pantry, that you can take to the beach with you.

He said that they had read the welcome guide and I asked “and” he then told me that it said that they couldn’t take anything off of the property. Even if that was what it said in the welcome guide, once you walk through our gate it is no longer our property. When I explained that the Casita property ended when you walk out through the gate which surrounds the property and could he please shake the sand out of the blanket before he took it back inside the Casita he got upset, took the beach towel and walked away.

I’m not sure if I handled the situation correctly, since nothing like that has ever happened to us before. I’m concerned that we’ll get a bad review (we presently have all 5 star reviews) and I would like to know what my options are if they do write a bad review and what kind of review I should give them. Likewise, I have to give them a little leeway because of their age, mid to late 20s, but it seems that they should be old enough to have known better, especially if they read the house rules.

Should I speak to them again and apologize if they thought I seemed too harsh, or should I just let it pass and hope for the best?

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There are some things I might tend to give young people leeway on, like an 18 year old not really knowing how to clean up after themselves, but mid-late 20’s isn’t that young. And this isn’t a case of them just not knowing any better- he made it clear he was perfectly aware of the instruction not to take anything but the beach stuff off the property, they just decided to ignore it.
You have nothing to apologize for. And apologizing isn’t going to preempt a bad review. Either they will not mention anything about it in the review, or they will.

One thing I’ll say is I wouldn’t have a $150 blanket in a beach casita.

As for the review you leave, as far as this incident, I would just say “guest chose to ignore house rule they confirmed to me they were aware of.”

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I wouldn’t speak with them again. Once was enough. If they write a bad review, you can respond to it. If the blanket was damaged, send a request for payment through the resolution center (I think that’s what it’s called). Moving forward, replace the blanket with something less expensive. I’m sure others have also taken it to the beach but you didn’t notice it.

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Thanks for the input. I agree about not having expensive blankets at our beach Casita but the blankets, (there are 2 of the same), were housewarming gifts from our family given when we first started hosting so that’s why we have them and use them. Personally, we would never purchase any expensive item to use in the Casita.

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Honestly, I probably would have handled it the same way. It’s your stuff, and they should respect the rules. I wouldn’t apologize, you were clear about the blanket. Just document everything in case they do leave a bad review. Mention the blanket incident and that they didn’t seem to respect the house rules, be honest but polite.

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I guess that a measured response will be all that we can do if we receive a bad review. Do we have unlimited time to respond to a review? We’ve never responded before. We were looking back at some of our previous reviews and it looks as though we’re still able to respond to any of them, even ones over a year old. I was under the impression that we had a limited time with which to respond to any review, good or bad.

If the blanket ends up being damaged then we will definitely send a request for payment, although we have little faith that CS will side with us instead of the guest.

It’s kind of difficult not to speak with our guests, at least in passing. The path from the Casita to the beach runs right next to our patio, and we usually see our guests on the beach. For us it would be rude not to greet them and at least ask if everything was fine at the Casita and if they needed anything. Also, as with all our guests, if asked, we give suggestions on where to eat, what to do, directions, etc. so you can see that not speaking to them again might be a bit difficult

Once the blankets are no longer usable, we will definitely replace them with something less expensive. As I mentioned to Muddy, we are using them now because they were a gift from our family for use in our Casita.

Anything is possible but it’s highly unlikely any of our previous guests took any bedding to the beach. First because only recently have we had any type of cold weather in the afternoon, (cold here is 65˚ F) so there has been no reason at all to have any type of blanket with which to keep warm at the beach. Also the blanket has a type of weave that makes it near impossible to get all the sand out of it, something we would definitely notice when we were cleaning.

At the end of the day it’s not so much about the blanket as it is about the guests confirming that they had read the rules and then breaking one of them anyway. We must be lucky because we have never before had guests who willfully broke any of the house rules. We’re just hoping that after they leave at the end of their 5 day stay, that the Casita and its solar power system are still in good shape.

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I think what Ritz meant was not speaking to them again about the blanket incident, i.e. bothering to apologize. Not speaking to them at all in passing, given the fact that you live right there, would be a snub and make matters worse, IMO. Letting bygones be bygones and carrying on as if it’s over and done with, when it is, is the best thing to do, in hosting as well as other relationships.

Relationships become antagonistic when people either say nothing about it at the time, and just harbor anger, annoyance or resentment, or keep bringing up something that happened in the past because they never talked it out and came to a mutual understanding at the time.

As a homeshare host, I once had a guest who did something unacceptable the first night of her stay, which I let her know wasn’t okay at the time. She
apologized, and we never spoke about that again for the remainder of her stay, but we certainly spoke to each other about other things, or just exchanged daily pleasantries.

She actually never left a review, and neither did I. (That was early in my hosting years, and I just hemmed and hawed about whether to mention it in the review until the review period lapsed- at that point, I wasn’t aware of hosting forums where I could ask for other hosts’ advice)

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Muddy, you’re correct. I was referring to not speaking again with guests in regards to the blanket.

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This seems reasonable, crystal clear and like it was a pleasant enough exchange. It also accomplished your goal.

So I don’t understand why you said it again (and with snark no less) when the guest showed cooperation and understanding by stopping by to get the towel:

All you did was unnecessarily chide your guest. There was no reason to dig in and repeat it and use a pejorative tone unless the guest proved uncooperative by taking the blanket to the beach a second time (even then there is no reason to use a pejorative tone or snark with a guest).

I won’t be surprised if it affects your review (and it should) but it is because of your attitude toward your guest and because of how you treated him and not because you didn’t want the blanket going to the beach. You have guests, not wards. You’re supposed to provide hospitality, not hostility. You’re creating your own problems.

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Off topic, but speaking of reviews, I got a really sweet whatsapp message from a first time guest who checked out just over 2 weeks ago. I never messaged him about leaving a review, as I figure guests get Airbnb reminders and they’ll leave a review if they want to. (He was a really nice guy who I was happy to be able to leave his first guest review, 5 stars)

“Hey Sara, thanks so much for the review… and I must apologize for my lack of review… the app said I had until February 11 to write the review so I marked it on the calendar but when February 11 came it said I could no longer write one…I thought I had till the end of the day on the 11th but apparently I had until the end of February 10th to write one… I emailed customer service, but there was nothing they could do…I feel awful about that… I screwed up but just want to say thanks again for everything and I can’t wait to come back.”

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I had the same reaction as the other commenter. And in the future, I suggest leaving a beach blanket or double wide towel in the rental.

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Did you miss this part?

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If the blanket was damaged, file a compensation claim through the resolution center. Should they leave a negative review, you’ll have the opportunity to respond. To prevent similar issues in the future, consider replacing the blanket with a less expensive alternative—this will likely happen again. One conversation was sufficient; there’s no need to reach out to them again.

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Turns out that they reached out to me, on the Airbnb app, saying that they were very sorry for using the bed blanket on the beach and also thanking me for providing the extra large beach towel/blanket

I’m still waiting for a review from them. Who knows what it will say. Hopefully it will be good. They asked if they could have a late check-out and since we didn’t have any guests arriving for 5 days and the cleaners wouldn’t be coming for 3 days we gave them a late check-out time of 3:00 pm (instead of 11:00 am). Should be a point in our favor.

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Sounds like they are afraid of getting a bad review due to the blanket incident. I suspect they won’t leave a bad review.
And in the review, if you do mention the blanket incident, be fair and also say they apologized for it.

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End result. We gave our guests a 4-star review that mentions that there were minor rule infractions (they also left our property gate unlocked overnight on 3 occasions) but attributed it to their age (early 20’s). They never left us a review, which I guess is better than a bad review. Also, ours was only their 2nd review. We used to have a minimum age of 25 for the principal guest, but I guess that is no longer possible to enforce.

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