Tag Archives: airbnb bad guests

Claim Made 20 Days Ago, Still Waiting For Our Money

Posted on

We had a guest stay at our property using Airbnb (we live next door) and several things went wrong. First, they had way more people than agreed; they brought in a dog and damaged some of our personal property. When the guests left, we went inside to find blood soaked bed sheets, duvet cover, and the kicker: a used tampon left on the floor.

We filed a claim on July 5th to withhold part of the guest’s deposit to replace the bedding and an extra $100 for our cleaners who had to deal with that disgusting situation. We are now 20 days into the constant back and forth with Airbnb and they still haven’t resolved our claim. When we filed, they guest had three days to reply; they did not.

I involved Airbnb as instructed and of course the representative incorrectly closed the claim instead of escalating it. It took several phone calls, several days and tons of emails back and forth to finally get the claim escalated to the correct department. However, they will not talk to you by phone; there is no one that replies to your emails and they leave you hanging for weeks. Had I not followed up every day, the claim would have been closed without my knowing and my allotted time frame to file the claim would have been up.

The guest has not replied to any communications. We sent photos of everything, copies of the receipt to replace the items, and copies of the original costs. We have done every single thing we have been asked to do and we still have not received a resolution.

This is the second time I personally have dealt with this. The first time Airbnb did the exact same thing to me. They told me the claim was filed, they said someone would get back to me, however when I called to check on it the claim was “accidentally” closed. We have emails proving that we followed all the steps correctly, but still Airbnb said our “time had run out” on being able to file a claim. This is how they get away with not paying host for damages.

Airbnb Guests Throw Party And Damage Our Home

Posted on

I am sharing my story because I feel all hosts need to know how important it is to protect your home from unruly guests. We recently had our first guest in our vacation home on the Columbia River by the Gorge Ampitheatre. Sadly, our first experience did not go very well. We met the group coming in (a party of eight), went over the house rules, walked them around our home, and felt like we connected with them. Our home is a special place in the world, and we really were hoping to attract people that would enjoy it.

Unfortunately, our guests decided to host a party there and had over 50 people in our home. Our floors subsequently were damaged (over $14,000). We contacted Airbnb. We were directed to message the guests to see if they would pay for the damages. After three days of no resolve, we were allowed to escalate this to a case manager and seek coverage under the “Host Guarantee”. Our case manager asked us to get a bid from a contractor as well as furnish them with the original cost of the flooring (not the easiest thing to find, but we did). They had us send pictures of the damage to them as well as provide a professional statement from the contractor. We did all of this (keeping in mind we live over two hours away from our vacation home), and in the end, Airbnb emailed this to us (our home is 800 square feet):

Thank you for your patience throughout this process. After careful review of all related documentation and communication, we have issued a $50 security deposit payout for the reported damage. You can view this payout in your Transaction History. While the documentation you provided far exceeds this amount, Airbnb is only able to reimburse for fair market value of the damaged areas in question. The average laminate flooring costs from $2.40-$4 per square foot and since you have higher grade flooring, we’ve issued the payout based on $5 per square foot for the 10 feet of estimated damage. It’s been a pleasure to assist you. Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns regarding this case.

$50 on damages over $14,000 (we have a $1500 security deposit on our rental… who knows where that went) and no further explanation as to how they came up with $50. We have emailed, called, and have gotten no support or help. I am shocked as a frequent Airbnb traveler as I have always had good experiences. As a host, this can’t be the way business is conducted. We are devastated. Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas as to where to take this issue?

Criminal Activity from Many Bad Airbnb Guests

Posted on

I had a guest who checked himself in and claimed to have returned the key, however he seems to have kept it and continued to stay in the place. When my cleaner came to the room he hid in the loft and hid some clothes in the ceiling. He also smoked, despite my strict no-smoking policy; the place reeked of smoke with ash everywhere. He left the apartment in a shocking condition. Of course any attempts to contact Airbnb to warn others are ignored as Airbnb does nothing to help apart from taking fees.

I also recently had a guest who booked for two weeks during the busiest season for my apartment. The shower apparently had a small leak and I was given an hour to solve the issue. Since I was briefly out of signal range I was only able to attend to the issue 90 minutes later, and had a plumber solve it immediately. It was too late; he cancelled the reservation and received a full refund during the busiest season. All attempts to contact Airbnb are unanswered. In fact Airbnb has never returned any of my messages. It’s shocking service all round.

Airbnb Guests Damage House, Refuse to Pay

Posted on

We have rented our house out for several years and recently had a party of guests who left the house in a complete mess, requiring an extra five hours of cleaning: burnt pans, broken kettle, damaged lights and kitchen utensils. Even worse, they had some sort of candles burning on the mantlepiece (we don’t allow candles) which caused significant smoke damage to the wall and ceiling which they tried to clean off, making even more of a mess. They broke every single house rule and then tried to claim the house was dirty when they arrived (I am a superhost and my house has always received five-star reviews) We contacted Airbnb with photos of the damage and after two weeks of going backwards and forwards with photos of items we need to replace and estimates for the cost of replacing them, they have come back and said they will not allow us to claim any of the security deposit to cover the costs of these things. I think this is disgusting and disrespectful and weighted far too heavily towards the guest. I used to think Airbnb was a great way of staying somewhere and we have always had no issues as guests. Actually our Airbnb guests have usually been better than those on other sites, but I will remove my house from their site now because they have confirmed that they don’t care what happens to my house; they won’t cover any damage.

Resolution Center Useless after Guests Destroy Home

Posted on

A guest made a reservation for himself and his girlfriend to stay at our home for one night to attend a wedding. He had positive reviews so we booked him for one night, two guests. In our house rules and in our description we are adamant that we do not allow parties or gatherings at our home and that the maximum number of guests in our home is eight. We received a call at midnight from our neighbor saying there was a huge party at our home. Cars were everywhere – all over the lawn and in the creek – and there were hundreds of people on the property. We called the police and arrived with them. There really were hundreds of people at our house. The guest was charging “admission” to attend this raging party. There were over 300 people crammed into our home.

Music, marijuana, and alcohol was present, along with who knows what else. Our furniture was all over the yard. Over an inch of liquid and mud was on our hardwood floors. There was a billowing mass of marijuana smoke and cigarettes, alcohol, and tobacco all over our furniture. The floors, counters, bathrooms, toilets, and tubs were stuffed with paper and clogged; water was everywhere. Cars were stuck all over our lawn that made huge muddy track marks and destroyed our lawn. The result of this was horrific. There was tons of damage to our home. However, we were incredibly frugal and were hoping to fix things ourselves. We found some initial contractors who would do the immediate repairs at a low cost so our initial estimate for repairs was VERY low. This was incredibly generous of us as we could have hired large companies and looked at bills that were several thousands of dollars.

We have repeatedly phoned Airbnb. No one in the imaginary “resolution center” will ever speak to us. We can only get as far as someone who will basically do nothing for us but say we have to wait for the resolution center to respond. “I’m sorry, Lisa but they do not have phones and we cannot contact them directly.” My house was destroyed and yet all I have received are insipid responses from some clerk who is clearly too important to ever call me back. It has been three weeks and now I am not even getting a response via email. I have emailed “Jenn” every day and there has been no response. I supplied photos, invoices, videos, a police report, and statements and cannot get a response from Airbnb. The people who deceived us and had a raging party for profit at our home made more money than we did and Airbnb won’t even release our security deposit to us.

The resolution center is a joke. There is no way to reach anyone at this company that has a clue and can effectively help a host when their home is destroyed. If anyone has any advice on how to help us please let us know. We cannot get any response from Airbnb. There is a clear violation here backed up by a police report so I’m not sure what the issue is aside from the fact Airbnb deceived us and that there is no protection for hosts. The damage is clear yet Airbnb stands in the way of collecting the deposit that was put in place to protect us. There is no protection for Airbnb hosts.