4. When a guest damages something
Something is inevitably going to break. And then it’s going to happen again. While we try not to go cheap in our apartments, we make sure not to furnish them with items that will be too expensive to replace.
If a guest breaks something and lets me know, I usually do not charge them for it if it is not expensive (a mug, soap dish, IKEA lamp). That is a guaranteed five-star rating, and accidents happen. I also appreciate that the guest let me know and usually offered to pay for it.
I may be a little more strict if the guest did not let me know and/or did not offer to pay.
We recently had a guest who broke the bathroom door in one of our units on Capitol Hill and didn’t even bother to tell us. We had a guest checking in on the same day he checked out and no way to immediately replace the door. Little did we know that the guest that was coming in was a well-known, high-ranking politician.
We were mortified, but could do nothing but explain and offer to have it fixed immediately. The politician’s wife asked that we replace it after they checked out instead, and we complied but felt horrible.
I definitely charged the guest for the door. And the politician and his wife never came back.
Another couple brought their infant. They put corner protectors on our coffee table during their stay and did not bother to remove them after they left. When we tried to remove them for cleaning, they ripped off an entire section of the finish on our coffee table. It looked like they had tried to remove one of them before they left and noticed the table was damaged, but instead of letting us know, they just left them for us to find.
I charged them for the table, shipping, AND assembly.