So my last tenants just left yesterday morning and we went over to check the house and found a cup sitting on the wooden table with water all around leaving a buckle in the wood. See Photo.
Also, they left alot of food in the refrigerator, dirty dishes in the sink, and they drove into the garage, even though my husband unplugged the garage door opener, they manually raised and lowered it because when we got there it was still up several inches from the ground. Tire tracks everywhere on our painted garage floor. It specifically says in our house rules, No parking in the garage. It was 3 men surverying something so a business trip.
The garage cleaned up okay and the door seems to be working. My husband said that they must have manually disconnected the door from the track chain drive to raise the door.
I am wondering how I should proceed.
I would treat it as you would any other claim for guest damage.
Document (do you have CCTV for evidence of garage use).
Follow process for making a claim on Airbnb Help
https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/264/what-do-i-do-if-my-guest-breaks-something-in-my-place
Get quotes for repairs/replacement.
Thanks Helsi,
I do not have CCTV but I am more concerned about the dining table. I will file a report.
Nail them in the review and thumbs down for manually disconnecting your garage door and using it against house rules. (Hmmm, what didn’t they want someone to see?) See if Airbnb will pay for cleaning, but good luck during current craziness.
As for the table, that to me is wear and tear. Put a pad or cloth on it going forward. You might be able to use an iron then set a brick or books on it to flatten the veneer. There are other more extreme suggestions (slit then glue, etc.) probably easy to find online.
If you host remotely (sounds like you do), I would say CCTV is pretty much an essential in terms of ensuring guests don’t bring in extra guests/pets and as you have seen by the latest guests regarding guest damage outside your property.
I am on it. I am pretty sure another couple brought their 2 children in through the garage. The tire tracks were obvious.
Good suggestions. I will try that.
So I found this product for dining tables and I think this would be a good solution going forward.
I hope this helps someone else.
Not defending them but perhaps their equipment is very expensive and they are very lazy and didn’t feel like emptying the vehicle.
Totally rip them a new one in the review (diplomatically of course).
Hopefully you can repair the bump in the veneer.
What slobs.
You can put a padlock through a hole in the garage door track to keep anyone from lifting the garage door. I do this in my own home when I go on extended vacations.
Ok so the garage is a recurring issue. Not sure why you really do not want people parking in there but I assume you have your reasons.
Bottom line is “lock anything that you do not want guests to have access to”. And perhaps a polite sign “sorry no guest access”.
Always assume that every guest will try every door, cabinet, drawer, etc. If you don’t want it used, then it must not open 
@Victoria_Dolci. I agree with @dpfromva. Msg guest “We hope that you enjoyed your stay, etc”. Then pull a passive aggressive and blast them in the review.
Possible draft review for your consideration:
"Would not host Name again. Broke multiple house rules. Violated Host Only Areas. Left kitchen an absolute mess. Dirty dishes and leftover food. Awful.
IMO, the table is “wear and tear”. It is not reasonable to expect all guests to use coasters. If you put a lot of mats and coasters on the table it “encourages” their use" but these things will happen. Sorry but it is what it is. Before trying any repair - let the wood really dry out. It may settle down on it’s own in time.
Yep- every drawer, cupboard, storage area that can possibly be opened and closed will be inspected. Being antique furniture, you need to know how to close them, so it is screamingly obvious that everywhere has been ratted. I always wonder what they are hoping to find 
That bowtie shape that is in your table top, where the damage occurred is called a “dutchman”. It is a type of repair, a patch for a part of the wood that was either already damaged, weak or missing. Because it is already a weak spot and has seams, it is just begging for damage - e.g. any liquid near it or spilt will easily run down in it and cause warping. E.g. You have warping because of your table not because of your guests. So, it is okay if you want to use such a table for a dining table, but you have to expect that it may get further damaged. Also, I rarely agree with @Jefferson but concur that you can’t expect guests to use coasters. Cost of doing business and poor judgement (and I hope you got a discount on that table 
Then there’s food in the refrigerator, dishes in the sink and tire tracks on the floor of the garage…???
Was there also trash in the trashcan?
Totally cool. But bear in mind that I was “just agreeing” with @dpfromva. So … you actually agreed with him and not with me
Do you include a cleaning fee in the booking?
I originally had a house rule to not leave food in the refrigerator, but took it out after a few weeks because I realize a lot of people have issues with throwing stuff away. It doesn’t take me more than a minute to get rid of anything they leave behind and occasionally, there’s unopened stuff that’s usable.
I kept the rule for guests to do their own dishes simply because I had a very well-stocked kitchen with dishes and cookware to make meals for 12+ people. If a group left every dish and pan dirty, it would take many hours to clean. Even with that, it was relatively common for guests to leave a few dirty dishes in the sink (and even more common to put dirty dishes back in the drawers and cupboards). I only brought it up in a review once for the guest group that threw a party left an insane mess and almost every dish in the house was left dirty in the sink or on the counters.
This is an interesting one because she said “no parking in the garage” was in the house rules. Maybe they just pulled the vehicle in for a few minutes and unloaded something, etc. Technically, this is not parking. As @Jefferson pointed out, any area you don’t lock you should expect to be opened and entered.
This!
We leave small jars of candy in our unit for our guests and we have been keeping the main supply tucked away in a cabinet, which we use to replenish the jars when they are empty - on more than one occasion, guests have taken the entire supply of candy with them when they left! Obviously they went digging around and felt like it was OK to take or use anything that was in the unit…Our fault for leaving it there or not locking it up and I don’t really care that much because it’s only a few dollars worth anyways, but it’s the principle
Did you confront the guests? I can’t believe they would use the garage when it’s off-limits in your house rules - and non-operable with a remote. I would NEVER go to that extent personally. I do agree with the others though, you really need to lock it if you don’t want people to enter. Obviously if someone drives in there, marks will end up on the floor at sooner or later. I personally consider that normal wear and tear for a garage, but I wouldn’t ever judge a garage floor as clean or dirty. In my mind, a garage is dirty and the floor is marked.
The biggest issue I find with people in general is that they don’t read the rules - they may have thought it was a manual garage and they were allowed to park there. Is there a sign in the garage??? I had someone show up with a few kids unannounced. They went above my maximum “person” allowance. Then they tried to lie about it even though I have cameras. You should get a camera, and confront these people. Lock it in the future. Without proof, it’s hard to say they did something to the garage. I know the marks, but, they could lie…
Yes! It’s a perk Also, Sometimes we take stuff to our local homeless. I prefer to decide what to throw out or not, it seems too wasteful to ask people to clean out the fridge, IMO.
Of course. We have the same type of kitchens, I completely understand. And I most definitely get annoyed if guests don’t do their dishes, but it doesn’t fall under any type of “proceeding with damages” to me. It doesn’t make sense to go after the guests for it and it’s not something that I host would be paid out for anyway as “damages”. e.g. it’s irrelevant, regardless if it’s annoying.
That was my point for all of it. It doesn’t seem like any of it would be paid out by airbnb as damage. Airbnb will see the same “proof” we do if @Victoria_Dolci files for damages. They will see dishes in a sink, food in a fridge and tire tracks in a garage. Maybe maybe they will charge for damage to the table, but ultimately that table has a patch (the dutchman) and even without that the table is used for dining so I think it’s a stretch to call it damage just because a guest left a cup sitting on it.
Yes, house rules were broken. I have also felt the pain of broken house rules, but broken house rules are not payable as “damage” in and of themselves.
edit to add: It is my answer to the OP’s question of how to proceed…don’t, just clean up and move on.