Power outage and new family arrives in 4 hrs

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So we lost power at our rental property at 1am due to bad storms. The current guests had just checked in, were only staying the one night and thankfully, are the adventurous type.

Now the new family is checking in at 4:00 and I’m here cleaning. I can have everything ready for them but I have received no word from the power company with even an estimate of power restoration.

The new family is driving in from about an hour away for a wedding with two little ones. They stay 2 nights.

Any advice on how to proceed would be much appreciated…

I don’t know if I should contact her now. Or wait with my fingers crossed. Or offer to refund for the whole weekend and give her a chance to find another house before they get on the road? And if I cancel, is that a bad mark against me? I’m just starting out and don’t want to mess up.

Thanks :flushed:

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Absolutely contact them now they may want to find other accommodation especially with two little ones. @heh1975

What can you provide in terms of heating/showers/lighting and power if it’s not back on.

Personally I wouldn’t contact Airbnb unless they want to cancel then you can use the RC policy for hosts

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First, contact Airbnb customer service with the facts of what you know (e.g., do you know of nearby areas that are not affected?) and get their input on what to do. They might wish got look for alternative housing for the guests.

Second, I think you need to be up front as soon as possible with your guest, apprising them of what you know, and your conversation or correspondence with Airbnb.

Be factual and succinct, including providing the name of the utility, phone number, URL and any information identifying your neighborhood – but promising to keep them apprised as you learn more.

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They’ll have everything the need in terms of clean linens, beds, towels. Hot water for showering.

The outages aren’t widespread. My adjacent neighbor still has her power.

Do I offer her a refund or let Airbnb handle it?

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No way should you just keep your fingers crossed. Your guests need to be informed of the situation immediately. They can’t stay at a house with no electricity with 2 little kids.

You can tell them you’ll let them know right away if the power comes back on shortly, but you need to give them the option to have the booking cancelled with full refund. If you cancel yourself, you will indeed receive penalties, so call Airbnb, explain the situation, that you have no control over it, and ask them to do a neutral cancellation (no penalties) with full refund to the guests.

It seems odd that your next door neighbor has power and you don’t. Did one of the lines to your property break?

If they want to have the booking cancelled, of course you have to refund them for the whole weekend.

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Any refunds will be handled by Airbnb, not you.

Have you contacted Airbnb yet? If so, what did they say? Relate what they said to the guests; message to them on the platform. I would call them 15 minutes or so after your message to them to follow up.

Include this in your message to the guests. Will they have Wi-Fi? I assume not. Able to cook in kitchen (gas)? What won’t they have? Tell them.

I would think/hope that Airbnb under AirCover will try to find them alternative housing. If so or if not, write them what Airbnb is doing.

Depending on what Airbnb says I wonder whether you might proactively find a nearby similar Airbnb, find out if they’ve been affected, if it’s available. If so, provide that info to Airbnb and see what next steps Airbnb recommends.

Don’t you cancel. It’s possible that Airbnb will treat this as a penalty-free Host cancellation, but wait for them to say that to you and ideally Airbnb not you cancels the reservation if it comes to that.

At this point focus on working with Airbnb to help the guests find alternative housing; and if that cannot be found communicating what you’re able to provide and not provide until the power is restored.

My message to your guest might be something like (edit appropriately):

I am so sorry to tell you that due to a storm our property has lost power.

I have contacted Airbnb to see if it can find alternative housing for you. They’ve told me [case number?] . . .

At the same time I am proactively looking for nearby Airbnbs that might be available (not all properties in my area have been affected).

I will keep you apprised as I learn more.

Meanwhile, if somehow we cannot find alternative housing you should know what we can provide/not provide until power is restored.

We can provide . . .

We cannot provide . . .

In full disclosure my utility is [name] at [phone number] and [URL] with my address/neighborhood being [fill]. I have been in contact with them and will contact them proactively and let you know what I learn as soon as I learn it. At this time they do not have an estimate of when the power might be restored.

I will call you in 15 minutes or so to discuss this.

Please know that I am doing everything I can to make sure that you have suitable housing.

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I’m at the Jersey Shore and we lose power all the time with storms. What I have done in the past is email guests to alert them of the circumstances and I tell them that I’m leaving flashlights, candles and a cooler with ice for their use until the power comes back.

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We get rolling blackouts during fire season. Even though they beefed up all the lines, they still turn it off sometimes with little notice.
We have a medium size generator and a large size generator to hook up, but will always tell guests about the limitations of amenities, in advance if possible, and offer to refund them if they are uncomfortable staying.

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It’s riskier to not tell them than to tell them. And I think you’re required to, as gypsy says, if there is a limitation on amenities then it’s on you. Also given they have kids and are coming for a wedding, it matters if they have everything they need to not.

I’d want to try to handle it before messing with Airbnb.

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@heh1975 If there is nothing else available in the area for them, so they opt to stay,and the power doesn’t come back on, you should do whatever is needed to lessen the impact. That might mean paying for them to go out for dinner or order take-out, if the stove is electric, provide flashlights and battery operated lanterns, etc.

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Murphy’s law
If you inform them, it won’t happen
If you don’t - it will!

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We often have outages due to storms and the power company never informs us about estimated times. We have to contact them, although they do have details on their website.

Also, they post on Twitter and so assuming that we have our phones fully powered up, we can usually find the info.

If it were me, then I would. I’d also let her know what provisions I have made for making things easier for the stay.

I keep an emergency ‘power going out’ box and a ‘water outage’ box to be used by guests as required.

In the power outage box are battery operated candles, torches (flashlights), battery-operated radios and other items.

Because there is power in your area, it’s a good idea to let the guest know which cafes, restaurants, stores and so on are open locally.

If the wedding is the day after their arrival then it’s not ideal to have no power, especially when getting the kids ready (although young kids often see outages as exciting). You’ll know from your own experience whether the power is likely to be restored by then so let the guest know - “we often have these outages during storms but they rarely last more than a few hours”.

I wouldn’t start thinking about refunds unless the power isn’t restored in 24 hours.

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I’m curious on what happened. How did it go?

What did you do?

Was Airbnb helpful ?

How did the guests react?

What worked well, what didn’t?

With 20/20 hindsight what insights do have for forum members?

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Inform the guests NOW NOW NOW. Offer that they can cancel, or to comp a night if they are willing to roll with it like your prior guests.

Go the extra mile and do some research for similar Airbnbs, local hotels, with vacancies to which to refer them.

I once even sent inquiries to other local hosts – A/C compressor out; can you house my guests last minute? The other hosts were kind and responsive. The guests were nondemanding and made do with fans I provided, but I had an alternative place to stay ready for them.

I think you may have to get Airbnb involved for a full refund due to the rental being nonfunctional? I’ve never gone through that process.

In addition to fans stored in the main house, I have battery operated lights (no candles yikes!) and jugs of water stashed in my suite.

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The OP hasn’t reported back. Either everything went well, the power came on and she forgot about us here slaving away on her post for nothing or it went horribly and the OP is too upset to talk about it right now. Or it’s Saturday and they only post during the week when they can do it from their workplace to avoid doing other work.

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Oh my gosh - you guys are awesome! It’s been quite a weekend but it all worked out fine. Thank you so much for your help and advice.

I did call Airbnb and I was pleasantly surprised how quickly I spoke to a live person. She was kind of helpful and I was glad to at least get the info started with them.

It was true - Airbnb wanted to have solid evidence that the power was out.

After I got off the phone with Airbnb, I sent a message to the guest:

“We had bad storms come through San Antonio last night and we lost power at the house. The current guests were fine and just checked out a little early.

We currently still do not have power and CPS is not able to give me an estimate when it will be back on. The outage is effecting about 15 houses in our immediate area.

I’m at the house now and I’m able to clean and change the beds and have it ready for you (we still have hot water)… all except the electricity :weary:

At this point, it’s really your call about how to proceed. I just got off the phone with Airbnb Help and they can cancel our reservation and help you find a new place.

Or we can take our chances and hope it’s back on by this evening…

I’m so very sorry that this is happening. We’re here to help in any way to make this right and as less stressful as possible.

Feel free to call my listed number. I don’t think I can send it through the message here.”

I then saw on Facebook that they predicted 4 more hours so I sent her a screenshot. Then about 10 mins later the worker was up on the pole right outside our house so I sent her THAT photo. Then the power was back on and I told her that, with many explanation points.

About an hour later she responded with a “THANK GOODNESS!”

Then I had to frantically clean because I spent so much time on the phone and talking to neighbors and time was running out.

Lessons learned:

  • I’m glad I have multiples of everything and don’t need to rely on doing laundry at the house. I often do one load while I’m cleaning but I don’t have too. I do most at my house and then bring it to the rental.

  • I need to have more than one small flashlight. I already purchased a set and will place them throughout the house.

  • I love the idea of offering ice/flashlights/candles or even $$ for a restaurant if it occurs while a guest is here.

I have to say, the guys that was here when lightening struck the transformer right next to our living room, were totally awesome and seemed the adventurous type. They even had a load of laundry in the washer when it happened and had to deal with that. And then went on to apologize for leaving the basin filled with water.

I may be too much of a newbie but so far, Airbnb guests are restoring my faith in humanity!

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So glad to hear it all panned out well and thanks for coming back with an update. Sounds like you handled it perfectly and the guests were appreciative of that. As for:

Your phone number is visible to guests as soon as their booking is confirmed, as theirs is to you. And you can put phone numbers, email addresses, etc, in messages once a booking is confirmed, just not before that. I do it all the time.

One thing I have seen lately that I never used to, is some guest profiles saying “phone number not available”. When I see this, I ask the guest for their number, which all have provided on request, pointing out that if I need to get in touch with them quickly, this will be better than waiting for them to see a message and respond.

Also, it’s a good idea to make a note off-platform of your guests’ numbers as soon as their booking is confirmed, in case the website glitches out, or they aren’t answering Airbnb messages.
Some hosts store this info on their computer, I’m more a pen and pencil gal, so I have a little notebook for this purpose. The guests’ phone numbers are no longer visible to you once their booking has come to an end, but you might want to contact them in the future. I’ve actually stayed in contact with some of my past guests who I really connected with.

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I’m going to send you a DM.