AirBnb unauthorized party

[Dale Bertrand]

I'm curious what you guys would do in our situation. We have an AirBnb renter for a STR who hosted a gathering at our house. We explicitly told him no parties or gatherings of any kind. We found 300 beer cans in 8 garbage bags in the side yard the day they left and it needed a deep cleaning.

I'm conflicted because they didn't do any damage to the house. The unexpected cost to us will be about $400 for a deep cleaning, trash removal, and some towels they destroyed. 

Since we just listed this house recently, all I care about is 5 star reviews. So I don't want jeopardize a 5 review rating by asking for compensation and I'm happy to eat the extra costs for a 5 star review. We rent this vacation house for $4,500/wk so the $400 isn't a huge hit. It just makes me mad, honestly.

What would you do in this situation? Should we request compensation through AirBnb?

My current plan is to leave a negative review, but I'm not going to try to recover the $400 to avoid getting a negative review from the renter.

- Dale