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We unfortunately had our first run-in with a rowdy group over the weekend (our house sleeps 10) after our first 4 months of renting. One of the guests managed to dent/puncture the stainless steel fridge door. I’ve contacted Best Buy (where we got the fridge), and a few appliance repair stores and none of them have any repair recommendations. They all state the best option would be to find the same doors on, say, a dead fridge and get those. However, this sounds like a needle in a haystack situation.
I understand sh*t happens, and people get drunk and rowdy. But these people must have been running around with a knife, scissors, or a screw drive to cause this kind of damage. And to boot, the fridge is only a few months old :-/
Has anyone run into a situation where something might be a minor cosmetic damage, but it’s not fixable? What did you do? It doesn’t seem right to charge the renters for complete cost of a new fridge, but I’m stumped. I don’t have time to hunt around different appliance stores.
Also, they covered both dents with magnets And there is damage on both doors, not just one.
I would absolutely charge them to replace the fridge. That’s pretty ridiculous to cause that kind of damage and then try to hide it.
eta: Mostly because by the time you scour used fridge shops and find matching doors and then pay to have them installed, you could have just bought a new fridge for about the same amount.
Thanks jkamm – that’s kind of what I was leaning towards as well.
And seriously, WTF!! I guess we’ve been really fortunate to date. I’m working with AirBNB on case and hopefully we can figure it out.
They also banged on our neighbors door at 11pm (our house looks identical, so I kinda get it), trampled through their plants, and left our house a mess. Good times!
Hmm, would never have thought of that - thanks for the idea! I just might try that. It was also suggested on NextDoor that I find a steel shop to see if they could do something.
But my guess is any of this is going to get so close to the cost of a new fridge, lol.
Get a written quote for whatever is easiest for you that makes you whole. If that is a new fridge, with delivery and hauling away of the damaged refrigerator, then go with that. We recently had a guest chip our glass shower door. We had the door replaced for over $800 and Air paid out under the host guarantee.
You bet. In fact, it was very recent. This is our second big damage situation and the second time Air paid out exactly what we requested. I guess we are in our own little Host Guarantee paradise!
Wow, that’s really great to hear and very encouraging.
I’m still kicking myself a bit with this group, because I noticed the guy had 4 reviews and overall 5 star, but 4.5 star on both house rules observance and cleanliness and only 2 recommendations out of the 4 reviews. I really wish hosts were more honest when there are negative events. I’m still steaming a bit over this deliberate damage (I mean how else can you puncture stainless steel!?), and the other issues, but it’s really nice to hear that Airbnb took care of you. Thanks for giving me some hope
Thanks Ken! I’ll try that as well. I was also going to see if I can get any kind of help from Samsung themselves, but perhaps an appliance store is the better route
Yeah I hear you - that’s where I’m irritated. The overall rating was 5.0 - we also have Instant Book turned on, so we would have had to cancel. I felt like I was being sexist so we didn’t. We may turn it off now, I don’t know
It seems weird (/maddening in retrospect) to me that AirBNB let’s someone instant book who has reviews where the host selected “No” for “Do you recommend this guest?”.
I had a woman IB with 4 stars overall. I cancelled within the hour. You can cancel penalty free if you aren’t comfortable due to their bad reviews. It’s irritating but the bottom line is that you have to control your property, Airbnb is just a booking platform.
Oh really?! I thought all cancellations were penalized. Thank you! Well, you live and you learn, huh? We’re still pretty new at this but were already counting our blessings as we really hadn’t had any issues up until this last group (who was our 17th or 18th stay I think).
I just now figured out how to see guest’s stars. I can only see them on the app on my phone, which is helpful, but it would be nice to see them on the web. Anyway, I noticed that the guest currently in my house has only one review, and it’s 4 stars. I looked up the written review the host had left and it was short but totally positive. Something like, great guest, friendly, clean and respectful. This makes me wonder why she only left him 4 stars and annoyed that there is no way to ask her!
I’m sure my 5 star standard eliminates some suitable guests and hosts from contention but I just don’t see any reason to make another choice when there are so many 5 star places available. Now for guests I have IB so some 4 stars might slip past.
I’m getting frustrated that that seems to be the norm on AirBNB. Like, there must have been a reason to dock points, but hosts don’t seem to spell it out. That was the case with mine too - the guy had less than stellar reviews, was only recommended by 50% of hosts, and yet all of the written reviews seemed positive.
And, you can see their stars online. When anyone makes a request you can click their picture to view their profile. There you can see ratings for cleanliness, communication, and observance of house rules. There will also be a line that may/may not say “X has been recommended by Y hosts” where X is the guest name and Y is the number of hosts that clicked the thumbs up to ‘Do you recommend this guest?’.
I didn’t know you could see guest’s stars either! I’ve found a lot of inconsistencies lately between the web and app platforms. Frustrating, because I’d much rather do my work on my PC than on my phone.
And there is damage on both doors, not just one.
