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For those of you who read my post about the guests who adhered temporary shades (“Redi Shades”) to our wall without permission, please indulge me with this separate post about the extent of what we found as we started cleaning.
I found that two wine glasses and one other glass were missing. To me this indicated breakage and possible spills. My partner, on stripping the bed, found the mattress protector and mattress pad stained with red wine. It was in and behind the crevices of the floating nightstand, in the crevices of the bed frame. But that’s not all–there’s coffee too, covering the white wall. And it won’t come out. There was also broken glass. Of course they did not mention this.
There is wine and a blood stain(s) on the sofa. We had to bring the wool area rug to the cleaner as that, too, was stained with food, wine and shoes in the house (our listing is shoeless). They got flower pollen on the white shade. And of course there’s the paint damage from the removal of the adhesive shades. And black marks on the walls in many places.
We had to disassemble most of the unit and move most of the furniture, remove nightstand, outlet faceplate, etc. Extra cleaning, extra laundry, extra time. We will need to meet contractors at the house and block our calendar for most of this week.
We offer a sleek and modern minimalist space that I’m sure they were attracted to, but consequently soiled inconsiderately.
The initial resolution email is going out to the guest today. Has anyone made a claim for loss of income through Air? I don’t know that we will claim it with either Air or our insurance but just wondering. Any claims advice is welcome, particularly re the initial email to the gues!
I dont think so. They asked for a receipt from professional company. Its not that easy to get any compensation from them evevn if its within damage deposit amount
That’s very frustrating. If Airbnb only wants to reimburse for professional cleaning services, then they should make that clear. They could even find local cleaning partners for such situations, similar to the photography service.
I had an incident with them when my pool was damaged by stupid guests who wore socks in a pool , and parts of it cloged filter. It costed me 350$. My pool guy who has an official registered company send me a receipt. They did not like the receipt and only paid me 80$. They did not even explained what they did not like about receipt.
If you insure with someone like Comet they will cover loss of income from something like this… of course too late for this now but in the future might be a good idea.
Horrible, drunken ghastly guests from hell is what they are.
Actually, I got a policy with Comet 3 days before these guests checked in. I haven’t had a moment to look at it yet. My understanding is that Air is primary insurer. We’ve only had time to itemize and document the damage. It’s been very time consuming.
My experience is if they don’t reply, it goes back to Airbnb for escalation. If they don’t reply to Air, Air’s default is that you get what you ask for. However, expect them to deny all the damage charges. I know you said you have taken a lot of pics – that is good because the pics and the receipts is what Air goes by. Be firm, and it is better (in my experience) to over-do the correspondence with Air. Write them frequently – be the squeaky wheel. If you are not getting fast enough responses, post on their Facebook and Twitter pages – a lot. I wish you success in recovering your damages. What a bummer …
Just so you know - when you are typing the info into the resolution centre, it seems as if you’re talking to a mediator - but you’re not - nobody is watching your exchange at all. For this reason, be really polite and factual and non-emotional, and address the guest themselves, by their first name. You’re trying to get them to comply and just close the case with full payment agreed to you. You won’t want to be nice, but do it anyway - because when they refuse to pay, that is when the mediator reads the messages, and you want the mediator to see that you were reasonable and the guest is a jerk.
In my case, the guest very rudely called me a scammer and basically whined that she thought I was operating a scam, and made outlandish and stupid, childish remarks “about” me to the invisible third party who was not even reading what she had to say. In the end I was able to undo her damage for a lower cost - which she paid - and it was never escalated, as her agreement to pay closed the case. (But it was enough for me to understand how it worked and that nobody was listening to her whining until such time as I was due to escalate).
