Petty thievery, and I don't know who did it

I did at the time, it’s not important now as the local villages all have plenty of supply so I took it out.

As I said originally if the guest deliberately cleans me out of something I mention it in private feedback so hopefully they are then educated that it’s poor form.

I had a guest steal a lovely brass lamp shaped like a turtle. it had a soft warm glow and sat on the floor. Perfect night light for young ones in a strange place. I didn’t notice it missing right away so don’t know who took it. From now on I won’t leave anything I in the suite I can’t stand losing.

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Listings have to be guest proofed. And for any host who is too busy at check every detail, it’s a must. The only things in my Airbnb that I’d hate to lose are hanging on the wall and I’d notice immediately.

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This! Under promise, over deliver. And get burned for it every now and then. That’s hospo

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:flushed: Then I remembered you’re in Australia so I looked it up. And “Hospo” seems to have a less derogatory meaning over there :rofl: Less pink bits involved :wink:

Hmm do I need to look it up?

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so sorry this happened.
i used to have a linen closet in my airbnb that was unlocked - with stacks of sheets & towels. my towels were disappearing (and they were expensive.) now i only put out equal to number of guests, and my extra towels are in zipping bins under the bed labelled for cleaning staff only. even though theyre still in the apartment, people dont take them anymore.
similarly, my backlog of tp / papertowels are in the back of an understair closet that i have a small (rolling) dresser in front of. i only put out a couple rolls. my bottles of soap etc are in wall mounted brackets.
it seems like if things are easy to take, people will, but if only the amount needed is out (even if the storage is somewhere in the apartment but kinda sealed up) people wont bother.

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It’s disappointing isn’t it- that’s happened to me too on a more minor scale. Never the less it’s disappointing.
I agree with your rule about not to have anything you don’t want to lose.

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Yesterday we discovered that two of our eight curtains in our outside pergola were taken!

These are big and heavy curtains.

Though we video the inside before each stay we haven’t video’ed the outside. I don’t know if the guests took them or someone else. It’s amazing and disturbing. I find it hard to believe that the guests took them but they were here for a child’s graduation and I do wonder if one of the kids – unbeknownst to the guests – took them shortly after their stay.

We have a video camera but there is a blind spot. We’re now adding cameras to eliminate all blind spots of outside areas while also maintaining guest privacy.

Are you imagining a Scarlet O’Hara situation? :grin:

I’d suspect that they got damaged somehow. The only towel that’s ever gone missing from our listings was found in the outdoor bin covered in some kind of red face paint (guests were here for a big soccer match). There was a different incident with :poop: covered towels that weren’t missing though I wished they had been.

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I mentioned toilet paper thieves on this forum and I was called out, one person saying that they hate hosts that are stingy with TP (which I am not). I live in the same building so i am always available to accommodate the needs of guests. I put out numerous small containers of toiletries and some take them all. I don’t want to leave a note saying, help yourself but leave what you don’t use for others, even though I want to at times. For the most part people are pretty good with airbnb’s because they know you are not big business, but when it does happen it is upsetting. Sad to hear some douche stole your stuff especially the magnet that your son gave to you.

What was the Doc’s feed back for you? Curious.

That would be me.

It seems you feel this was a personal attack on you rather than me expressing my feelings about toilet paper availability. I pray to god you are never sitting on the toilet in away from home anywhere and find yourself in a situation where you have to call upon a stranger to bring you more TP.

I don’t know if this helps but I use the phrase ‘toiletries for your use during your stay’ in the House Guide and in several messages.

My checkout message says not to inadvertently take toiletries for your use during your stay because I could imagine, say a husband quickly packing, thinking that his wife brought some toiletries, especially if they were moved to an area of the bathroom where he knows the toiletries were his or hers.

Obviously if someone just wants to steal, these messages won’t work.

I don’t like leaving a bunch of messages for my guests. I leave the basics like check in time, check out time but not about leaving stuff. People know they don’t need to take more than they use during their stay. I am not stingy and a few rolls for a night stay is adequate. I have never ever had a bad review about being stingy so I think I’m good. Thanks for the input.

He was not my guest. I recommended that as an example of the sort of feedback I would have given him if he had been my guest and done that.

@RST Similar thing happened with one of my most recent Guests–she cleaned out the whole breakfast bar–oatmeal packs, granola bars, cookies, chips, Kcups, a box of tissue, and all of the extra toiletries I had for Guests that might forget a toothbrush or toothpaste (she even dropped one of the toothbrushes in my driveway). You can’t make this stuff up!

Some Guests feel entitled–liked the cost of their stay means everything in the unit is for them. I was upset at first, but then remembered that many Guests don’t even drink coffee and some hardly eat any of the snacks, so I guess in the end, it all balances out :slight_smile:

As far as the pillow, I would go back on your security camera to see who came with a pillow–not too many Guests travel with pillows. Again, if the pillow is not that expensive, I would consider it part of Hosting expenses/damaged items. If it is within the 14-days of that Guest’s stay, you can still make a request to the Guest.

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Agreed! I recently had guests that made two pots of coffee a day and threw half of it out. My housekeeper vowed to not give anyone coffee anymore. She calmed down when I reminded her many people hardly drink any coffee at all so it all balances out.

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I feel the same about how guests leave the space. Obviously if they left a huge mess and didn’t follow check-out instructions, it should be mentioned in the review, but there will always be guests who leave a place cleaner than others do. It isn’t worth getting upset about, it usually balances out.

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I have a basket with a written note: “forgot something? we got you” and it’s filled with a bunch of toiletry items, many of which were ours or from my mother-in-law’s impressive collection of hotel toiletries (she also had a collection of vintage matchbooks from hotels around the world from the 70s/80s that is just divine). I also have some paracetamol and even a condom in there.

Recently I had someone clean the whole thing out which was disappointing. And just last week someone used the toothbrush, and then left it in the basin how utterly weird! if you’ve forgotten your toothbrush on your trip don’t you need one the next night? I can’t really get annoyed, we didn’t pay for most of those items anyway, and sometimes I think the more hotel-like things we do, the more hotel-like guest behaviour we receive.

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