VRBO Guest - damaged our place and harassing

[Andrew Simms]

I’ll try to be as concise as possible:

Had a nasty guest over Christmas. Left a bunch of trash (we charge $15/bag), she asked about this the night before checkout and confirmed the cost. We leave a starter pack of everything needed, including at least 3 trash bags. They were there 4 nights.

Had almost no communication from guest while there. It was near record colds so I had asked them to drop the faucets. Crickets. But we had no burst lines, so I assume they did.

After checkout our cleaner gave us the report:

Trashed, disgusting, broken s’mores sticks,

did not check out on time. Maybe just chance but the hot tub is messed up after they left (could just be coincidence). Charged us extra for the extra effort. They couldn’t clear in time for the next guest. Thankfully the incoming guests are great and understanding.

We charge the guest for the broken s’more sticks, trash bags (4 according to our cleaner), and extra cleaning required. Guest of course fights it. Denies leaving any trash. We provide pictures. Argues the amount of bags it takes. Accuses our cleaners of lying. Calls us 5+ times, 20+ messages. Berates me on the phone for 20 minutes.

Long story short, we don’t have pictures of the bags of trash just of what was left behind. We say, we have no reason to not trust our cleaners, we take her word for not breaking the s’more sticks and using the wooden, disposable ones, and we waived the extra cleaning fee. We said that however we will not dispute the number of bags. So from $150 to $60. This was charged to the security deposit of $500.

She now says we indicate $10/bag. Lie. She said she’s done multiple Airbnb stays and all 5-stars. Maybe so, but why then book with us through VRBO? We’re on Airbnb too. The only reason I see that’s not questionable is to build a reputation on VRBO also.

What would you do? Respond at all at this point? No matter what we have said so far has been acceptable. We’re honestly worried this person is a bit crazy and would like to block from messaging us further.

Obviously $60 is not much but the principle of it all just irks me. I’m generally the go along person and say just ignore these small potatoes. But at this point, I’m ticked off.