My Guest Claims Her Computer was Stolen from The Room, What do i do?

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Hi everyone,
Need your help and advice.

I have in my apartment three rooms: one that im staying in and two that i rent.
Today i had a very nice and old couple who left the apartment around 4:00am. In the morning around 10:30am, the girl that stayed in the other room claimed that her computer and camera were stolen.
That is strange because my laptop was in the living room and nobody took it. Moreover, she had in her suitcase ipod. If someone already stole the computer and camera who were next to the ipod why not taking it as well. She claims she didn’t see anything when she came back home.

What shall i do? Shall I go with her to the police? let her go by herself?
any recommendation?

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If I were in your shoes, I would go with her. It makes it look more like you are both involved in filing the report instead of her filing it against you. Let us know how it turns out. Good luck!

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Hi Asheville,
Thanks for the reply. We decided to wait to Airbnb respond; yet, later on it turn out she went to file a report alone.

First time i encounter this situation. So strange.

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Hmmmm. I guess it’s not a good idea to play Sherlock Holmes… I’m sceptical but all you can do is go with her and support her as she reports the theft.

Basically she’s gearing up to blame you or the other guests; just be ready in case this one comes back at you via the resolution centre.

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Hi Zandra
I know…thats what im afraid of…I had more than 100+ reservations which can indicate the type of host I am. Everything about her behavior regarding this issue is strange. We even continue to chat after like nothing happen. I think she just want to blame the insurance and sue them.

What else i can do beside contacting Airbnb immediately after she told me?

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6

Too bad that you don’t have cams around the place.

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I was thinking about it but don’t you think it will scare guests?

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You can’t have cams in the house and certainly not in guests rooms. Privacy issues.

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I have cams watching the outside and one watching the living room and patio.

Has them for years as does most of my neighbors. But I would never put one in a bedroom or bathroom.

I also have an alarm system and give guests a temp password and tell them it must be turned on whenever their leave.

I’ve never had a guest complain and actually they seem to like the extra security.

My location is in an upscale neighborhood but we do have a huge problem with house and cars getting broken in to.

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Where we have different guests staying in one home, I always remind the guests to lock the room when out.
If they don’t, there’s not much I can do, as I can’t vouch for the character of other guests!

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Do you provide Wifi? I would check the router IP table to see when the devices were on the network the last time, (maybe they are still on the network) :wink:

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Call the police. It’s not your responsibility to deal with theft. It’s also her responsibility and not yours to bring an action against you if she chooses to.

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Never thought about it! i do have wifi…how can i do it? any ides?

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I do not know what kind of router you have.

But if you log in, you should be able to see all connected devices, and if you look for a menu called DHCP , there should be a table with all the IP addresses and maybe even when the device was last seen on the network.

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I have a camera outside - to monitor anyone coming to the property. This is disclosed in my booking details. It may be interesting to the police if she claims a theft and no one else entered the property.

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No one took anything…she is looking for a payout. Stand your ground…and quickly add to your house rules that it is up to each guest to secure their valuable…as hotels do. If it comes to that, you can point to the rules she didnt read.

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good chance this is going to bite you in the butt. Resolution can be cruel and may side with the guest. Good luck.

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Or perhaps you’ll see she was using her computer after the other guests checked out at 4am…

Basically, what I have learned is that if it seems strange then it is. When a situation feels like I can’t make sense of it, it’s usually because I’m either missing a piece of the puzzle or someone is lying. In your case, someone is lying.

Most people can have a service like where’s my laptop installed - does she have this?

Just because it seems like it may not make sense to you to lie about a computer being stolen doesn’t mean someone else wouldn’t do it.

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I am so going to live by this policy from now on…

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@Zandra, who says you can’t have cams in the house? You sure can and we do. Most state laws say as long as the camera is in a PUBLIC area of the home and that it is CONSPICUOUS - meaning everyone can easily see it… then it’s perfectly fine.

You absolutely cannot however, put them in the bedrooms or bathrooms… obviously!

We’ve had an indoor camera that monitors our living room and kitchen ever since we started hosting. We never thought to mention it in our listing until I guess maybe 9 or 10 months ago. But since we’ve mentioned it - it hasn’t caused the slightest decrease in bookings, and no one has ever complained about it to us or in a review. Well, except for one country Russian guy who had never been outside of Russia and thought it was a KGB cam! But who cares about him anyway!

Anyway, the camera has been absolutely invaluable to us and has prevented at least one serious accident. So we’d never host without it.