Our Airbnb was left a disaster...advice on what to do?

[Pam Smith]

Hi everybody-

I knew this would happen eventually, but this is our first instance of a guest leaving our place a mess. The rate is over $900/night and so we were crossing our fingers that perhaps it wouldn't happen so soon. What were we thinking? Lol!

There's a broken wall

Vomit left in the garbage can without the garbage being emptied

Dirty dishes left everywhere and obviously not a single check-out instruction completed

The front door was actually left open not to mention the other doors left unlocked. 

Linens all stained

Questions:

Is it worth leaving a bad review for the guest?

Is it worth contacting Airbnb to get money for the broken wall?

They lost the house key, which is supposed to be returned, otherwise there's a charge, which is in our house rules. Do we ask Airbnb to charge them for this? Do they do that?

We were also charged quite a bit more from our cleaning crew. Would airbnb ever cover this or charge the guest extra?

Thank you in advance for all of your help!

[Lynnette E.]

Originally posted by @Paul Sandhu:

@Luke Carl is right. Clean it up and move on.  If I dwelled on things like this I wouldn't be up to 23 STRs.

 Trash, dishes, barf, losing or keeping the key, pigsty, I have gotten used to with long term rentals.  But breaking the wall, I would not just skip over that.  I would want to have them pay for the wall--especially if its so bad it needs new framing or the electrical or water lines fixed, drywall and paint.  Still only a few days to do, but lots of $ if you want fast turn around.  Or do you just put some special wall art over the wall, a bottle on the table, and the new guests don't notice?

[Khandbari Rai]

Take plenty of pictures, hire handyman to give u a quote on repairing and timely submit to Airbnb. U might have to pull teeth but Airbnb will eventually pay you for the damages.

[Curtis Mears]

@Pam Smith

I do not abb so I di not know how they handle these types of situations. However, yes this is all part of the business, but if we allow people to do this type of behavior, then we will get more of it. We should raise our expectations of humanity, and hold those responsible for their actions, otherwise we will get more and more episodes like this.

[Joe Splitrock]

Originally posted by @Pam Smith:

Thanks for your quick reply Bruce. Of course I worry about them doing this to other guests, but they also know where my house is and information about me, so that worries me. 

 Don't be selfish. Leave an honest review. The only way to prevent situations like this is if hosts work together. Nobody is going to come to your house and retaliate. They are pigs, not criminals. 

I would also recommend changing your locks ASAP and don't use keys. That is so unsafe for your guests. Use electronic locks and only give the code out one time before changing it between guests. Physical keys can be copied and people can come back later. You will be liable if that happens. I use Schlage smart locks and I can change codes from the app. I can also remotely lock or unlock. I can see when the guest locks the door. 

We have been doing this a year and had only a couple situations where people don't follow house rules. Sometimes it happens because they are new to the platform and used to hotels. In a hotel you just leave the mess. Make sure you have good instructions in multiple places about check out procedures. Send them a message the day before check out detailing the process.

[Bruce Woodruff]

So Pam - What did you decide to do?

[Rod Joseph]

Just clean it up and get ready for the next one.

This is going to happen once in a while.  Hopefully you will be able to recover some of your cost from AIRBNB Host Support.  Doccument as much as you can with pictures, text messages and such.

[Jim K.]

@Pam Smith

Well, the OP never got back to me, so I guess I'll assume this is a very simple case of hyperbole, although I don't doubt the concern is real among many short-term rental owners. Ms. Smith detailed four problems with how the rental property was left: dirty dishes, dirty linens, dirty garbage can, and "a busted wall." This was sufficient to call the situation "a disaster."

From my perspective of a DIY handyman landlord working in his own C-class rental properties and handling rental turns on his own, this is next to nothing. Stained linens and dishes and a garbage bin can all be washed, and a hole in drywall is easily patched and painted in colormatched paint. Now if you hire a cleaning company and a handyman service to do this, yeah, sure, you can get gouged on the price, but the fact that the landlord in an STR situation doesn't want to learn or do this (relatively simple) work and instead passes it on to an expensive service provider is not the tenant's fault. I would lose my shirt down in C-class if I couldn't or wouldn't do this work myself. The margins just aren't there to pay a third party to handle every minor problem I might have.

While I mostly run long-term single-family rentals for families, I just answered a service call in my househack at 11:30 pm last night to change out faulty batteries in a carbon monoxide detector. Am I going to charge the student tenants for it? Of course not. That's the best part of living in a househack for student tenants and their parents. THE MAINTENANCE GUY IS RIGHT THERE, along with a permanent household of stuff, should the tenants need anything. Did I advertise the hell out of that, along with my video surveillance system of the building, when I put the place up for rent? Of course I did.

Once on an AirBnb stay in Barcelona, two hours after I checked in, the neighbor of the apartment I was staying in banged on my door and started shouting at me in Catalan. I promptly called the host and I actually had to suggest to her that she should speak to this shouting woman over the phone -- before reluctantly doing so, the host told me that I should just ignore the banging on my door for the rest of my four-day stay. Incompetent, unavailable host? Sure.

So I suspect that as people get more and more used to STRs and different kinds of hosts, even as AirBnb and the other STR providers adapt and manage the business better, it seems clear that they and possibly the short-term tenants themselves are going to start asking a lot more pre-booking/pre-approval questions about how available the host is and how the host manages service calls and repairs in the future.

[Christian Rangel]

@Luke Carl

Hey Luke, I check your profile, your properties should total around $2800 per day, even rented everyday would be $84k can you let us know how you make the extra $$

[Luke Carl]

Originally posted by @Christian Rangel:

@Luke Carl

Hey Luke, I check your profile, your properties should total around $2800 per day, even rented everyday would be $84k can you let us know how you make the extra $$

Great job with the enemy method! You can’t see dates that are already booked though. July some of the biggest numbers of the year. My august is sitting at 40k right now. But it’ll go up before it’s over. Short term numbers can really make you nuts if you let them. Especially if you’re an engineer. Because there’s no way to put them in a box. 

No need to poke holes in my numbers you can trust me I have no reason to make it up lol. 
 

[Christian Rangel]

@Luke Carl

Not sure what the enemy method is. Just trying to learn, trying to decide short or long term rental.

[Bruce Woodruff]

Originally posted by @Christian Rangel:

@Luke Carl

Not sure what the enemy method is. Just trying to learn, trying to decide short or long term rental.

You should go start a thread about that then. The OP is asking for help with her problem.

[Jay Fradd]

Originally posted by @Christian Rangel:

@Luke Carl

Hey Luke, I check your profile, your properties should total around $2800 per day, even rented everyday would be $84k can you let us know how you make the extra $$

He's probably including lodging/sales tax and cleaning fees in his $113k July gross. Even though sales/lodging tax is a pass through and cleaning fees are for the most part (although I'm sure a bit of a profit is made on each clean which does add up). That is the way a lot of people (mostly self managed owners) quote gross rental in our market. If you see gross rental from a management company it will almost always only be the rental revenue from the rates (not including taxes and fees).  But it could hypothetically be strictly from rental revenue on its own I suppose as July is almost always the best month in rentals for our market. 

In response to the original question posed, I would absolutely leave an accurate negative review of the guest. However, I would not go to the trouble of getting AirBnB involved and try to get reimbursed for the relatively low expenses incurred from the guest (as big of a pain in the rear as they appear to have been).

[Christian Rangel]

@Jay Fradd

Thank you for the explanation, that makes sense,

[Sam Wong]

This unfortunately is almost guaranteed to happen to hosts at least once. Contact Airbnb and explain the scenario and charge the guest a cleaning fee. The review you leave should be honest, and judging by the way you have described the state of your house I would say honesty will suffice. Airbnb has also recently stated that parties are not allowed, seems like this was violated along with many of your house rules. The cleaning crew may feel that they should be paid more considering the damage and vomit so however you compensate for this should be covered by the fees that are charged. Sorry you had such a bad guest! 

[Anand S.]

Originally posted by @Christian Rangel:

@Luke Carl

Hey Luke, I check your profile, your properties should total around $2800 per day, even rented everyday would be $84k can you let us know how you make the extra $$

You're not able to see what he charged for dates that are already booked. Maybe the dates you are seeing are the ones he discounted due to being vacant or are days that are off-season. 

Trust me, you can make those numbers. I'm lining up to making close to $50K on just one house in July. That yellow booking was done on AirBnB and was for $7K. 

[Alex S.]

The bad reviews we give to terrible guests are only to make us feel good.  They don't care and they'll use a new account next time, so you won't help future hosts.

Probably best to think less emotionally about it and get ready for the next guest.

[Bruce Woodruff]

So Pam....don't leave us hanging. After all this advice, what did you do?

You can help others with your experience....

[Christian Rangel]

@Anand S.

Nice!

[Pam Smith]

Hi all! Sorry for the late post. 

We got an invoice from the cleaners for the extra charge, referenced the lost key charge in the house rules and are working on getting a quote from our handyman. New guests checked in hours after these last guest left, so haven't had a chance to get the handyman in without disrupting our current guests. We submitted the lost key and the cleaner's' invoice to Airbnb and are waiting to submit the broken wall invoice. Airbnb support was essentially non-existent. Way too much time spent on chat and on the phone with really no help so next time, won't bother. 

We left a bad review for the guest and texted the guest to ask them if they know where the lost key is and let them know that the house rules were not followed. Never heard back.

We do have all electronic locks except for our patio door, which is the most convenient way in/out of the main house. Unfortunately, we spoke to a locksmith back when we started, and electronic locks will not work on this patio door. 

I'm going to add a refundable security deposit for all rentals as well and possibly charge $50 non-refundable fee to cover any small items that happen like this in the future.

Thank you to everybody who responded.

[Bruce Woodruff]

Good job, Pam! Sorry this happened to you, I suppose it will happen to most at some point, but you learned and helped others learn. And hopefully those idiots will have a more difficult time renting next time.....

[Andrew Carlson]

@Luke Carl

I agree. Sometimes you just gotta put your head down and keep moving forward.

[Paul Sandhu]

Originally posted by @Pam Smith:

 We submitted the lost key and the cleaner's' invoice to Airbnb 

Lost Key?  Are you seriously submitting a claim for a lost key?  I get them made for $1.49 plus tax.  I generally leave one key for every bedroom in the house plus one extra.  When people move out, there are generally less keys than when they moved in.

[Pam Smith]

@Paul Sandhu yes seriously I'm submitting an invoice for a lost key. We don't live in the area and I need to pay my staff to go out and make a new key. Time is money...

[Bruce Woodruff]

Originally posted by @Pam Smith:

@Paul Sandhu yes seriously I'm submitting an invoice for a lost key. We don't live in the area and I need to pay my staff to go out and make a new key. Time is money...

Good for you....charge them a lot. I once was on a Board Of Directors where a small number of people got a key to a certain area. If you lost it, it was $150 to get a new one. Made me be real careful with that key.... :-)