Theft and how to handle it

Terrible enough i can only think of 1 option and that is that my husband probably left a sweaty shirt on top of the hat (he came back from work that night) and that i grabbed it all in 1 hand during one of my regular cleaning sprees next day, putting it in the laundry bin without noticing that the hat was with the shirt. Stupid thing is that i can’t remember it since im doing a lot of clean ups during the day (guests, husband and small child all in 1 appartment).

Are you referring to the package a condom comes in? If you find this sort of activity or packaging distasteful would reconsider hosting.

So correct me if I’m wrong: in my mind the picture you are painting is a small space, with 3 large bins, coats, boots & hat covering all surfaces, laundry hanging and stacked up. The guest departed early before you were out of bed, therefore I would assume they were trying to be quiet and kindly stripped the bed for you, & apparently they had an intimate moment, thus the “wraps” were left in the sheets, your husband’s hat ended up in the bin therefore they most likely had to put the laundry down in a cramped, cluttered space to open the lid or whatever to deposit the laundry, and your husband’s hat got swept into the bin.

They are accused of stealing and leaving condom wrappers in the bed sheets, which may or may not be theirs.

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Where am i writing that they stripped their bed? They didn’t. They simply put their condom wraps in our laundry bin. While they threw their other trash in the waste basket in their room.

I am talking about 2 different hallways (1 at our front door and 1 that we partly use for laundry. No where in our house there is clutter or stuff that is “covering all surfaces”. We keep our house as “neutral” and clean as possible just because of the size of it. In our bathroom for example there is not 1 personal item to be found.

Just because of the tidyness it immediately stands out if there is missing something or that there is waste in a place where it doesn’t belong.

Well, it was certainly not ours since im heavily pregnant :-). The laundry bin is emptied every 2 days. And we hadnt had guests before them for 3 weeks. From who else would the condom wraps be?

No that’s not where i’m referring to.

Well actually they woke me up at 7 am on a sunday morning by sending me a message to ask what they had to do with the key. While the check out procedure is clearly described in our houserules which are on their room (in case we are sleeping or not at home during checkout).

So they put USED condoms in your laundry???

Summary:

  1. You make an assumption about your guests stealing a hat and without any proof, you reach out to inquire if your guests stole your hat. After that, you realize, it was your mistake, when you found the hat.
  2. You’re concerned because they left condoms in the laundry pail, rather than in a waste basket.
  3. They left early and quietly, but you’re upset that they didn’t read the departure instructions or maybe just wanted to be clear, so they messaged you, so that they would leave the key in the proper place.

From what I interpret they seemed like reasonable guests and that you might need to assess how you can be a better host.

I’d suggest that you get a real perspective of what you need to accept about hosting strangers in your home; if you continue as an ABNB host, you need to realize that not everyone has the same approach as you do. As frustrating as that can be, that’s reality.

Lessons Learned:

I can only assume that the thought of theft magnified the other little things, so next time:

  1. Take a deep breadth; Let some time lapse after a guest leaves, so as to get a proper perspective.
  2. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
  3. Don’t make accusations unless you have proof.
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Oh dear, this sounds like a situation that doesn’t really lend itself to hosting. Hosting in a small 2 bedroom apartment with a small hallway that is cluttered with laundry baskets, hanging laundry and folded laundry, plus a host who gets upset about a mislaid hat and a few condoms all sounds very inconvenient.

The laundry scenario will be ten times worse when the baby arrives but of course, very shortly the second bedroom will be needed as a nursery and not for guests so the problem will be solved :slight_smile:

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glad that the situation sorted itself out.
i agree with the advice of generally waiting things out, and using a soft approach with guests while exhausting the possibilities of where missing items could be.

on a related tip, I’ve had minor items go missing, that could be classified as theft but I feel like all/most of the time it’s been by mistake/negligence.

my pet peeve for minor items is cutlery.
have only been hosting for a couple of years with mostly longer term stays, and I’m on my third set of cutlery. I just can’t figure it out. what are they doing with the cutlery?:thinking:

it’s the sort of item that I just haven’t gotten into the habit of counting when guests leave, and have integrated into my wear and tear costs (along with broken glasses and plates).
one thing’s for sure no more ‘good’ cutlery’:upside_down_face:

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@alixee, my cutlery doesn’t go missing, it gets exchanged. It isn’t a particularly great set, but I keep finding miss matched pieces and it isn’t more. Very weird. I just shake my head and keep cleaning. :rofl: :woman_facepalming:

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I’m keeping this! 20

Oops, on my last trip as a guest I did steal a knife to use at our picnic lunch that day. I checked there were lot’s there so I hoped it wouldn’t be missed. I expect teaspoons are similar. As a host I have lost lots of minor things including champagne glasses and blankets and had no response from the guest when I asked where they were. I now write those things off as part of doing business

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i wouldn’t mind that at all. better than replacing them. do you have longer term stays too? or what kind of guests are bringing their own cutlery?

Did you send the guest a request for money through AirBnb? Make sure to take pictures of the bloody sheets. Not only is it disgusting but also so unsanitary. It’s a health risk. They should be banned from AirBnb.

see your situation make sense. lots of cutlery, whats one knife for a picnic lunch? on my end it’s still puzzling, because i get few tourists/‘holidaying’ folks, as I’m not close to downtown or in any significant tourist spot

in all my time hosting i think i’ve known folks to go on a picnic a couple of times at most. I remember this because i was wondering at some point whether folks were having picnics and would even offer picnic gear during check in and gradually stopped as only one couple ever took up my offer.

at the end of the day, thank goddess! it’s just THAT, losing minor things that are readily integrated into business costs.

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No long term stays. Nothing over 2 weeks so far and only one of them. It’s pretty random. That’s why it really doesn’t make sense. It’s a three bedroom standalone house, and we do get quite a few families. The only explanation I can think of is that they bring a few of their own in the way of utensils and then switch them out for whatever reason. Probably accidentally.

I’m surprised, to put it mildly, that you think it’s ok to do this. It doesn’t matter whether there were “lots of knives” or not. It wasn’t yours and you shouldn’t have taken it. Stealing is wrong, end of story. What will you “oops” take on your next trip, I wonder?

On the subject of cutlery, I once had guests who took a knife and fork away with them. They were cheap crappy pieces that I sometimes used to chop up food for the cat. They shouldn’t even have been in the main cutlery drawer but probably another guest had washed them and put them there, I don’t know.
I had no idea they’d gone until I received them in a package a week later with an apology from the guests saying that they’d forgotten to return them after having a picnic. I think the postage probably cost more than the cutlery was worth!

Anyway, that’s the kind of “riff-raff” I host in my budget listing. Bless them.

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