Ok so I feel like Alice in Wonderland. I had a nice couple check out today who told me they showered last night with no problem but this morning the shower would not work. So I came out and sure enough the faucet in the bathtub was literally broken completely off from the caulk in the wall, pvc snapped off. Truly the plumbing is original – old! --so it’s likely more is wrong than just replacing the assembly. Where I live is very rural and getting a plumber to come out and crawl under a house with snakes and poison ivy runners is tricky, which I understand. 
(Yes, if I pay 1000 bucks I can get one LOL.) I had a couple from the Netherlands coming four days from now. I called AIrbnb Superhost support. Told them I couldn’t be sure plumbing would be fixed and hoped they could help the couple from Holland would find another place to stay near our springs. . A pleasant young woman told me I’d be charged a fee for cancelling so late but they’d help the couple from Holland find somewhere else. I said wait a minute, you know I’m not making this up. I have a problem because you can read the text from the guests that the shower is kaput. She said yes, she could read what the guest said and if you’ll send us the plumbing receipt to show you fixed it we we’ll refund you 50.00. So I get that they don’t want hosts cancelling guests at the last minute just because they feel like it, by making up a random excuse. But in this case they know for a fact there is a problem. In other words, giving them a plumbing repair receipt would prove there was a problem, but they already know there is! Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill? If I had to cancel because a close relative died, would I have to send a copy of the funeral notice ? You can look up my little house if you like , Wacissa Florida , the Dream House. What say you all?
Could not find this listing. Would need more info such as available dates to search and a screenshot of the cover.
Or provide a link.
BTW, I’d call Airbnb back and maybe a different CS rep would be able to understand your plight.
You are totally in the right, and this kind of Big Brother oversight is exactly what I despise about Airbnb. What if you had fantastic plumbing repair skills, but it took you weeks to accomplish the repair? There would be no plumbing invoice to show Airbnb to Prove a repair. On the other hand, be grateful they are “only” fining you $50.00 as they could probably charge you an upcharge for rehoming the guest, and impose other punishments on you also. This is Airbnb at it’s most overbearing.
Hi. It won’t let me post a link. “Peace, quiet & nature at the Dream House” Monticello, Florida 9 Though really its Wacissa Florida )
Please let us know dates in which your unit is available where you don’t have guests and please post a screenshot of your cover page of your listing. Will make a search app much easier.
You can add the link to your listing to your profile page here.
Contact the guest and let them know about the issue. Are there two bathrooms? I had an issue with the kitchen faucet and the guest insisted on staying even though the kitchen faucet was broken. He even volunteered to let the plumber come in to fix it during their stay. I gave them 50% refund for the inconvenience and didn’t have to cancel. So I suggest you contact the guest and let them decide if they want to cancel and be relocated or if they wish to stay and get 50% discount for the inconvenience.
@Dreamy A plumber would not crawl under the house to repair a broken-off faucet. It has to be done from the inside.
They might have to dig into the wall around the faucet a bit to get enough of the PVC exposed to add a new piece of pipe. So you would probably have some wall repair to do.
But if you could get the pipe repaired and a new faucet on, the guests might not be fussed by the aesthetics of a wall repair you didn’t have time to get to before their arrival.
Thanks Ritz. I only have one bath. Deed is done. Guests cancelled and Air took 50 bucks from me
Thanks Muddy. Unfortunately they will have to for this house the way the plumbing lines were kluged and cut a hole in the wall too.
Anyway, deed is done Air fined me but says they will give me back 50 bucks when I show a plumbing receipt.
My whole point was : Air knows I’m not lying and randomly cancelling people four days out. Air knows because my guest told me in writing of the problem and Air has that info. the purpose of their policy is to make you prove you actually have a problem and are not cancelling for your own purposes.
I found a plumber he says he may ----no promises --be able to come out Thursday afternoon. That would have been the day guests from Netherlands were to arrive.
Actually it’s dumb because AIr will spend more than the 50 dollars they fined me by the time they examine my eventual plumbing bill and refund me my money. 
Yep, but it’s the principal of the thing-hosts must be punished and made to feel we are the bad guys. Also we have endless amounts of spare time to submit extensive documentation and receipts and keep explaining the same thing over and over again to multiple CS reps - a simple time and date stamped photo of the snapped-off faucet, and explaining why it’s impossible to get a plumber where you live on such short notice won’t possibly do. You must be trying to pull a fast one. 
BTW, if your faucet is one that mixes hot and cold water, as opposed to ones that have separate hot and cold lines and handles feeding it, it should be plumbed with CPVC pipe, not PVC. All lines that hot water passes through should be CPVC.
“CPVC pipe can withstand higher temperatures than PVC or PEX pipe (up to 200 degrees Fahrenheit vs. 140 degrees Fahrenheit). It’s ideal for residential water distribution because it offers better joint strength than PVC .”
Hot water can weaken PVC over time, making it more prone to snapping off. Although who knows what the guests may have done to break the faucet off. Even nice people sometimes break things by accident.
Years ago on a Christmas morning while sitting around opening presents, my then 8 year old daughter went to the bathroom and then pushed herself up on the edges of the free-standing sink that was attached to the wall by brackets, to see herself in the mirror. The whole sink came crashing down off the wall, the hose connections pulled off and there was water spewing everywhere. It was quite the exciting Xmas.
Muddy in my opinion the principal is that when a guest books direct on my website it is my reputation at stake entirely. When a guest chooses to pay Airbnb what I consider an exorbordant 14% fee to book through them then it is mostly Airbnb reputation at stake. If they do a rant on social media it is almost certainly be against Airbnb not my business name. So if I consider I am doing the right thing by the guest to cancel where I cannot provide the service I think they expect but Airbnb wants to fine me then my attitude is to let the guest come and let Airbnb take the flack they deserve. In the many years I have been using Airbnb as a distribution channel and the very few instances that this type of situation has occurred Airbnb has backed down and not penalised me. I have been doing this short term rental business for 50 years, before Chesky was born. He is a supplier of mine supplying a booking service and I am his customer. When you are the customer you do not let suppliers stand over you.
I was being facetious about “the principal of the thing”, of course. Being sarcastic about Airbnb’s attitude that the host is always to blame.
If that happened to me I would be calling or texting the next guest(s) asap and tell them and ask them to cancel. Then, make sure that they get a full refund, (or more at your discretion) even if you need to supplement what Air paid them due to your cancellation policy. Hopefully they will comply.
Muddy, I understood that. I just thought it was an opportunity to make an important point. I believe that Airbnb continues to standover hosts because hosts let them. I believe that hosts can and should stand up to them and if they do in time Airbnb will change their approach. On the two rare occasions I had good and fair reason to cancel and Airbnb said they would penalise me. I told then ok I will not cancel, the guest will be unhappy and this will reflect on Airbnb. After a bit of kerfuffle they came back to me in both cases and said it is ok to cancel and you will not be penalised. In one instance they said but we will suspend you from the platform for x period. I replied that I did not care as it was a popular period and I could get bookings through Stayz(VRBO) and BDC. As far I could see they never went through with that threat. On the matter of email address as well as phone number, what I was trying to say was that since I get the guest phone number they should have no objection to giving me email address as well. So I insist on it as it helps things run more smoothly for us and the guest with our system.