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300K Damage from Airbnb Guest
- ginko 3y agoI can only see the first post. Is there supposed to be a threaded view? Cliffhanger indeed.
- skilled 3y agoAll I can say is that the reason this person hasn't received a response from Airbnb is because it is extremely difficult to prove that this happened and that this was the doing of the guest. I get that this person is frustrated but throughout the entire essay that they wrote I just couldn't help but feel like they don't really have any proof. Not only that, this person keeps using language like: > Thanks for reaching out. I've filled out the information you requested (which should already be in your system at least 146 times), and I look forward to some real support -- though I won't hold my breath as I've played this game with you and lost many times. You're not going to hold your breath on a $300k loss? What I am trying to say is that this person should be looking into legal assistance and not hoping that Airbnb is going to take this seriously over social media. That kind of damage and what it amounts to isn't something you solve by posting pictures and being frustrated.
- siva7 3y agoDoes it really matter? So i have to install cameras in the bathroom to prove the guest was a reckless idiot? I thought this was the whole point of this protection that i as a host don't have to worry what happens if the guest turns out to be a maniac.
- j16sdiz 3y agoOTOH, insurance frauds exist. Investigation take time.
- Nextgrid 3y agoFraudulently misrepresenting the level of insurance cover also exists, and it isn't the first time Airbnb's supposed "insurance" left the homeowner holding the bag. (not that Airbnb is alone in this, it's very common in the industry: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4404268 https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4404268)
- helsinkiandrew 3y ago> and not hoping that Airbnb is going to take this seriously over social media Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?) social media is often faster than a lawyer: https://twitter.com/AirbnbHelp/status/1715055098420748295 https://twitter.com/AirbnbHelp/status/1715055098420748295
- skilled 3y ago> An update Thursday Oct 19th 7pm: > - no response from anyone at Airbnb > - no email or call from Airbnb https://twitter.com/ErikaCoaches/status/1715187405236703572 https://twitter.com/ErikaCoaches/status/1715187405236703572
- poisonborz 3y ago...except they already offered her $31k previously, and the case was ongoing for 6 months... https://twitter.com/ErikaCoaches/status/1715054055150555615 https://twitter.com/ErikaCoaches/status/1715054055150555615
- danpalmer 3y agoI've complained about companies on Twitter before, and it's very common to receive an immediate outreach tweet like this, followed by basically being funnelled in to the same non-functional support experience that you've already tried to go through a number of times. I agree that the initial outreach is quick, but I don't think social media actually changes the timeline on getting things resolved.
- jokethrowaway 3y agoIf the social media damage gets estimated at more than 300k (which is possible, at airbnb's size), they may do just that. Legal litigation is unlikely to bring a quick payout or anything at all and airbnb lawyers would probably be able to tire the host and get her to quit or settle for little.
- dmurray 3y agoSome of the social media damage is already done, so the question is whether acting fast now would mitigate an additional 330k in reputation costs.
- mcherm 3y agoThat's not quite the right way to analyze it, because AirBnB's response (or lack of one) will be part of the story that gets amplified.
- spacebacon 3y agoAccurate. It's manipulative language indicative of deception or half truth.
- thedrbrian 3y agowhy not reach out to your business insurance provider and get them to argue with airbnb?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- yellow_lead 3y agoAirbnb probably won't do much until a lawyer is involved. Whether the liability is with Airbnb or the guest I'm not sure. But I doubt either would be willing to pay without a court order, or negotiated settlement process.
- raverbashing 3y agoSo moronic guest + paper walls home: 300k in damages Cool But it only goes to show how "AirBnB is a great investment" is far from the truth. No wonder sometimes it seems only the scammers remain
- hamandcheese 3y ago> I submitted an estimate for the drying out of the house (just the drying, not rebuilding). It was $130,000. What does drying a house entail?
- Nextgrid 3y agoLots of industrial-grade dehumidifiers running for weeks.
- siva7 3y agoI guess the "Why should i let some strangers sleep over in my apartment?" startup hits its limits the more you try to act as an unsupervised hotel.
- rich_sasha 3y agoI think fully legit letting is a massive risk. People can be reckless and ultimately there is very little you can recover from an unreasonable, reckless person. And AirBNB, well it's legal but it's certainly leaving hosts in some kind of grey area. I suppose one reason why hotels are expensive is they have to be prepared for such very cases. But Airbnb hosts probably don't think about that too often. A lot of the "sharing economy" (a term that fell out of use a bit it seems) is about pushing the risks and external costs onto individuals, who are not well placed to deal with them, who can't price these risks properly and aren't well placed to deal with then if they do occur. But none of that interferes with the upfront platform commission so all is hunky dory.
- oldbbsnickname 3y agoThey're still trying to do things at global scale when it's sadly limited to YC batch potentials to find a room in the Bay Area c. 2011 because there is a huge difference between mostly college-educated, investable individuals with socio-economic accountability for a smaller audience and the general public with only superficial, limited economic accountability. I wish this wasn't the case, but the problem is the liabilities introduced in assuming everyone is cool and going to do The Right Thing™. Amongst a small cadre of cool people, it looks workable and it works for a while.
- barryrandall 3y agoI believe it was called the "sharing economy" because advertisers spent several decades convincing people that cutting out intermediaries was in their best interest.
- AllegedAlec 3y agoGood. We need people using Airbnb to go out of business.
- voidr 3y agoCare to elaborate? This happens with regular tenants and hotels as well, do you want them to also go out of business?
- AllegedAlec 3y agoLandlords and hotels aren't causing major cities to become all but uninhabitable for the local population.
- voidr 3y agoYou should look up "buy to let" and take a look at UK rent prices, but if you happen to be in Eastern Europe let me know, I will show you around what owners do with their property.
- CPLX 3y ago1) File a claim against your homeowners/landlords policy. Plumbing flooding is a common loss. 2) Let them argue with each other. 3) If things go sideways hire an attorney these sums are clearly high enough for that.
- sschueller 3y agoExactly, flooding is a common loss especially with homes that have their laundry room on the top floor. The insurance usually pays for everything including having you stay at a hotel if required.
- 0dayz 3y agoHaving tenants in general have made me sympathize with landlords... a little. For every well adjusted tenants you'll get 2 bad ones and it's usually even worse if you rent it furnished, since people just starts to magically break your stuff, but their own stuff is kept in pristine condition.
- iterminate 3y agoIf the world wasn't full of landlords, people wouldn't need to use your stuff.
- fastball 3y agoWho is paying the up front cost to build and furnish a residential property in a world without landlords? Renters are renters precisely because they don't have the money for that.
- iterminate 3y agoA mortgage. The cost of ownership only exceeds the cost of renting because ownership costs have been driven up by profit making: historically (and still today in some countries) it was cheaper to buy a home than it was to rent. If landlords were restricted from buying homes then the costs of ownership would become affordable for the majority of people who rent. A Hacker News comment isn't the place to propose radical policy change but just for fun, consider a world in which the only way to become a landlord was by building property specifically to rent it out. The majority of rental properties were previously owner-occupier, landlords have decimated the amount of property available for owner-occupiers which has driven up costs (pushing more and more people into renting).
- fastball 3y agoHow do ownership costs get driven up by profit-making? That doesn't make much sense to me. Prices are driven by demand, which in turn increase the value of a property if supply doesn't rise to match. This sounds more like a problem of NIMBYism and such than a problem of "landlords exist". > historically (and still today in some countries) it was cheaper to buy a home than it was to rent This isn't broadly true. Historically, renting has existed for thousands of years. That wouldn't make any sense if owning was (until recently) always a more desirable prospect than renting.
- jonkho 3y agoSo she doesn’t have homeowners insurance that covers accidental water damage?
- ceejayoz 3y agoFor a different unit rented out on AirBnB? Probably not. You’d need a separate policy for that, and they may be saying AirBnB is the primary insurance in this case. This seems squarely in “get a lawyer ASAP” territory.
- jonkho 3y agoThat’s not correct. I’m a landlord of a rental duplex and homeowners insurance policy is a valid policy for the entire building. The Mortgage company does not allow a policy that doesnt adequately cover loss. The point is this: rental property coverage is a solved problem. It is neither new nor novel problem. Water damage claims on rental properties are dealt with in the tune of hundreds of cases per month in this country if not more. Why is her’s so special?
- ceejayoz 3y agoThe thread says "I used my life savings to buy the building"; a mortgage company may not be involved at all. I would presume your insurer is aware you let out part of your building, and that the premiums account for this fact. (Same scenario with Uber; folks who tell their insurer get a big bump in premiums, but folks who don't get claims denied when the insurer finds out they were driving commercially.) I don't get the sense this poster told her insurer she was doing short-term rentals. The letting of the second unit seems to be temporary ("We hoped to have the upper unit available for our families to stay and help with the newborn"); it'd be entirely unsurprising if they decided not to clue the insurer in for the couple months of renting it.
- foogazi 3y ago> a mortgage company may not be involved at all You don’t need a mortgage/lender to carry insurance
- solardev 3y agoWhere is the actual story? It just looks like a tweet with no information
- ceejayoz 3y agoIt’s a long thread of many tweets.
- CodesInChaos 3y agoIt's a thread, but twitter is broken nowadays and only shows threads when you're logged in. https://nitter.net/ErikaCoaches/status/1715053934585229806 https://nitter.net/ErikaCoaches/status/1715053934585229806
- expertentipp 3y agoThe profits are discreet, the losses call for worldwide attention.
- feintruled 3y agoSo, visitor flushed baby wipes down the toilet, toilet overflowed, 300K damage. Talk about small actions having large consequences! Tangential to this case, I do wonder about the imbalance in insurance. I had a friend who had a small prang into another car only to realise with horror it was a Maserati. The owner was actually really OK about it but it made me think there is something at root quite unfair about people who expect to be able to parade about with immense luxuries and expect others to carry the can if they get damaged. I mean, sure, it's your fault but it's a very disproportionate punishment. Or do I misunderstand the insurance industry?
- withinboredom 3y agoI couldn't find the toilet in a 5 star hotel, and threw up in the sink. I forgot to turn the water off and went back to sleep. I woke up to pounding on the door and stepped out of bed into several inches of water. The sink overflow didn't work, and the water went down floors like a Christmas tree, into their offices in the basement where it destroyed computers. Yes, even though the overflow didn't work, it was still my fault. Thankfully, I had general liability insurance on my homeowners insurance. > Talk about small actions having large consequences! All small actions have large consequences, you just may not be around to see them.
- sokoloff 3y agoThere’s a reasonable chance that you’ll strike a building or multiple newish cars in a collision for which you’re liable. I carry quite high liability limits, despite being anti-insurance for all small matters. That supplemental property damage liability coverage costs less than $350/yr. If I damage your property in a collision that’s my fault, I want to make you whole, regardless of whether you were in a 1982 Chevette or a 2023 Ferrari.
- feintruled 3y agoI do get that, but it seems like an inversion somehow. MY desire for expensive goods puts YOU at greater risk. It is however true in real terms you get a lot of extra cover for comparatively little.
- sschueller 3y agoI am confused. Isn't something like this covered in your home owner insurance? I mean yes they would not pay for your "Lost revenue" but everything else including a hotel for you to stay while the house is being fixed is payed by the insurance.
- Macha 3y agoHome owner insurance may not pay out if it's a regular "I live here" policy but actually you've been renting it out.
- ejstronge 3y agoLandlord property insurance policies do actually cover loss of rents - maybe the OP’s policy doesn’t have a landlord endorsement
- jonkho 3y agoYes every homeowner at this point would be confused how this is not just a straight up accidental water damage claim. She has a mortgage so insurance is a must. This story sounds fishy.
- sokoloff 3y agoI have ordinary homeowners insurance that will cover me if I’m an idiot in my own house that I live in, or if a casual guest is an idiot. That same insurance should tell me to pound sand if I’m renting the property out to paying lessees and one of them damages my property.
- jonkho 3y agoThis was a multi unit property. No way the lender/mortgage company would allow a policy that didn’t cover rental use.
- ceejayoz 3y agoThere might not be a lender/mortgage. "I used my life savings to buy the building." Policies can cover long-term rental but forbid/exempt riskier AirBnB-style short-term ones.
- Macha 3y agoIs landlord insurance not a legal requirement for letting in San Francisco? Especially if, as described, she was a regular, long term letting landlord before Airbnb, she should have it.
- infecto 3y agoI would have assume she had it before. Maybe they dropped it thinking Airbnb would actually cover things? I am assuming a landlord type policy would also cover Airbnb but maybe they exclude it? I would never use Airbnb without it though.
- fastball 3y agoAssuming the story is entirely true, I am honestly impressed that some people who have enough money to rent what is clearly not a cheap place are still stupid enough not to know about or think about the shutoff valve on a toilet.
- dgfitz 3y agoI would have assumed the opposite. Can’t tell you how many rich people I know who can’t change a tire, or for that matter even own a modest toolbox stocked with generic tools. Plumbing, shewie. Talk about a bridge too far!
- rich_sasha 3y agoIt sounds like by the time she knew about the problem, it was too late; the top floor was already fully flooded.
- fastball 3y agoNo I mean the guests who left the apartment with a toilet that was overflowing.
- haunter 3y ago>how I ended up pregnant and homeless and in over $300,000 of debt after Airbnb guests flooded my home I don't get the pregnant part, like how is it related to the guests clogging the toilet Edit: seems like just bad wording
- pseudo0 3y agoIt's crazy how much damage can be caused by the failure of a $10 part, the toilet flapper valve. An apartment on the 7th floor of my building had a flood once and it went right down to the ground floor, causing damage to half a dozen other units. > They also damaged the valve that manages water flow from the tank to the bowl. This seems rather dubious. I don't really see how an idiot tenant could damage the flapper valve through being aggressively clueless. On the other hand, how long was it since the OP replaced the flapper valve? They are supposed to be replaced every few years. It seems more likely that the problem was a combination of the tenant being an idiot (flushing baby wipes) and poor landlord maintenance of the property.
- nicolas_t 3y agoYes, How would that be damaged? Also, pro-tip, add water leak detectors if you're renting (or if you sometimes take holidays). It's cheap but it can save a lot of money.
- outcoldman 3y agoIt is obviously a sad story, but kind of a little bit too dramatic: 1. 300k damage? I understand this is SF. My wife had one of those accidents, when her townhouse flooded because of the broken pipe in the attic. Insurance paid only 10k, and the final cost was about 30k. They had to replace all drywalls from the floor up to waist. 2. I am sorry, I am not a native English speaker. But this person is not homeless. I mean, come on. 3. This person does not have debt of 300k. Sure, the house might have lost the value. But if they were renting the house, I assume they should have an insurance. If they only hoped for the airbnb insurance, this is a different case. Anyway, nicely written story for the attention. I am deeply sorry for that. Unfortunately there are always will be bad tenants. This is why I hate being landlord. Tried once to have a rental property, did not like to deal with all of that.
- seec 3y agoSo it's a women who had enough money to buy in SF but still wanted to profit through renting (basically to make other peoples pay for her building in the long term). Since this wasn't enough she decided to rent short term on AirBnB (more money, more) largely ignoring the risk and work/maintenance it would require. Unsurprisingly a massive problem happened and now it will require quite a bit of work on top of being a massive hassle and pretty large expense in the end. It's probably less than she pretend (especially if you compare it to the value of the building in the first place) and there are a lot of details that do not add up but it doesn't even matter. Clearly she is part of the problem, in fact I would argue she created it through negligence. She should have done a verification (as well as cleaning ?) right after the renters left, especially if they suspiciously left early. Trying to make the most profit with the least effort is what got you there. Not bad luck, and not even those specific renters ; it would have happened eventually. The way she spins everything to make her look good makes me want to vomit. Now she is creating outrage to farm sympathy from touchy-feely peoples even though she is objectively responsible for at least half of the problem. I know someone very similar who had some very similar "problems" through renting, some of them I had to fix. And every single time it got pretty clear that the problems were a long time coming and very much deserved in the end ! Something bad was bound to happen to this women at some point. She has probably has been flirting with the limit for a very long time and now it's time to pay. Karma is a b....
- rosevirgil547 3y ago[dead]
- WirelessGigabit 3y agoA clog is a clog. Even flushing twice wouldn't cause this. It would overflow, but at least it would stop. The real problem here is the broken valve which allowed the water to keep running. Combine that with the clog and you have a literal shit-storm (or drizzle). How does the valve get broken? Is it one of those shitty thin plastic ones? Is the toilet one of those California water saver ones? I lived in a complex in CA where they replaced all the toilets with those, even though we all paid our own water bill. Horrible. I've never had to unclog a toilet before this toilet, and I've never had to since I moved out there. But that toilet just didn't have the umph to flush away a healthy fiber-heating adult's waste. Also, it's a business venture, so being pregnant really isn't relevant here.