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We had guests request a refund through VRBO after their 2 night stay because of poison ivy outside on the property.
Our property is a mountain cabin on over 2 acres, a significant portion of which is heavily wooded. Poison ivy is native. We do have an active program to find and eradicate poison ivy on the open parts of the property.
We mentioned to the guests that we cannot guarantee that there is no poison ivy on the property. We identified that to our knowledge that poison ivy is not in the open field areas, but there may be some still present under large shrubs, in non- walking landscaped areas set off with rock borders and adjacent to and in the woods. When they mentioned they may have toddlers coming, we advised that it may be a good idea to not have them run around unsupervised, as they may crawl under the bushes, go into the woods, etc. We provide child safety gates to help keep toddlers on the deck and porch when no one is available to supervise. We also told them the first aid measures to take to minimize any exposure that might occur.
We are aware they had other guests visit them during their two-night stay, but did not see children. They indicated to VRBO that they canceled having the children come because of the possible poison ivy, but they completed their stay.
We had a face to face conversation with the guests when they were leaving and they were very positive about their stay.
VRBO seems to leave it to us to decide if we want to refund any or all. We are leaning that no refund is warranted. Advice?
For sure no refund. You warned them that poison ivy was native to the area and how to mitigate exposure. You aren’t in any way responsible for what exists in the natural environment and poison ivy would be present in any other place they booked in the area.
It’s like people who travel to the tropics and want a refund cause they got a mosquito bite. They are at best just nutcases, at worst scammers.
No refund! Not an AirBnB stay (Hipcamp), but I got chiggers on a property in August. I didn’t mention it to the host. Honestly, it was my bad for not remembering to use bug spray. That was 7 weeks ago, & I’m still scratching! And yes, my ankles will be scarred…
Since you mentioned the possibility of poison ivy, you did your part. Don’t let them intimidate you into refunding a penny. It’s nature!
It 's gotten to the point that I have started to list all the crazy animals, bugs, etc that they might see. (There is 225 acres of conservation land at top of my street.) And while you can see the Boston Skyline (so we are close) we have enough green space for wildlife.
Recently a guest complained about the order at the front of my house and front porch. It was a skunk spayed that morning. Geez, has no one ever smelled a skunk?
Anyway, that is not going to be added to my list about skunk spraying. Perhaps I should mention the smell of dead and decaying animals. It’s really crazy.
One host had a really clever idea. She made up a little booklet, with photos of all the wildlife around her place, from insects to mammals, with a little blurb about each of them, their habits and the role they played in the balance of nature and made it into a game- see how many of these critters you can spot during your stay.
She got very positive feedback, and the guests with kids said it was a real hit with them.
There are these super cute beautifully patterned little skunks in my area called civet skunks. They definitely spray and have a skunk odor, although it’s not quite as pungent or long-lasting as that of the larger skunks most people are used to.
There are a couple that hang out behind a potted plant at night next to my terrace, dart out, grab a piece of cat kibble out of the cat bowl, and scurry back by the plant pot to eat it, where I can hear them chewing and chattering away to each other. My cat and dog just watch them passively- they won’t go near them.
Funny story- many years ago I had a friend who was running a marijuana grow show in the basement of his house in a suburban neighborhood.
At one point, the guy next door talked to my friend and said, “Hey man, I just want to let you know that the smell of the grow show is wafting out into the neighborhood. I have nothing against it- I used to grow myself til my wife got a straight job in a bank and made me stop. But the woman down the block who walks her little dog every day told me yesterday that she keeps smelling skunk and thinks her dog got sprayed, but can’t get rid of the smell, even though she’s bathed him numerous times with tomato juice.”
So I’m chatting with my neighbor today and we were talking about his dog getting skunked and then that led to of course he asked if I have noticed that there’s another skunk smell (weed) but I never noticed.
There are tricks to getting rid of skunk smell but you have to do it before you wash the dog. Tellher to google it. Bathing the dog is the WORST think you can do fist. You have to get the oils off the dog.
I don’t think you “got” the story. The woman had been smelling a skunk smell and just assumed it was coming from her dog, that he had been sprayed. But the “skunk” smell wasn’t on her dog, it was just in the air, wafting out through a vent, because of someone growing marijuana in the neighborhood.
However that’s useful info about how to get rid of the smell on a dog if they actually got sprayed by a real skunk.
That’s so funny. There’s a big grow operation on a busy corner not far from here, and I always thought there was a skunk problem, until my gf informed me about the weed grower there!
