All Forum Posts by: Josh Ball

 Only been told about it from the bathroom/shower but will check the kitchen also.

 We asked another owner in our building & they're having the same issue.

Recently bought a new condo that we have started a STR in. We had some friends go last weekend & said the water in the bathroom had a sulfur smell. We just had someone check in last night, messaged this morning saying the same thing, sulfur smell in the bathroom water. It appears to only be when nobody has been in the unit for awhile as we recently had a few stays back to back & a month long stay with no complaints.

Does anyone have any solutions or have run into this before?

Taoli, I am in a completely different market than you although I specialize in selling brand new construction homes. We recently had 2 builders develop a small 12 identical home neighborhood. One builder built 8 with gas & another is building 4 without gas. Every single house with gas has sold, every house without gas is still sitting on the market to this day. The homes that are electric are on a dead end street & cheaper but buyers are giving up minor location benefit & paying almost $5,000 more to have a home with gas. If it is not a major expense/issue, run the gas to the home in my opinion.

 We want to remove it although would have to returf the backyard. The previous owner installed turf around the fountain. Once removing the fountain, would leave about a 6' circle without any turf. Kind of a tricky spot & with us just starting this property at the start of the year, we do not have the funds at the moment to returf. That will be done in the end, just finding a temp solution until that can be done.

 Will try chlorine rather than bleach. I was worried chlorine I would have to do too often but will give it a shot.

 It is static. Yes, cleaner going to be skimming it/pulling items off the top. Being in the South with the very hot weather, algae forms very quickly. Will give the bleach a shot.

I've got an Airbnb a couple of hours away. It has a backyard fountain that accumulates debris (branches, leaves, etc.). The odd guest here & there unplugs/turns off the fountain & in doing so it accumulates algae. Does anyone have any experience with how to keep these things clean when you aren't around to care for it weekly? I've read stuff online but it all seems to be stuff that needs to be done on a regular weekly basis. I'm typically there monthly to check on everything so would like to find a longer term solution if you have a suggestion.

Quote from @John Underwood:

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Had a guest staying for 28 days. Prior to their arrival we did an entire unit deep clean to ensure it was in great condition for their stay. The stay has ended, we find the unit in a mess upon check out. Burn marks in the rug (non smoking unit), stains on every linen, grease stains on chair & sofa in living room, dishes piled high, needle in the bottom of garbage can. Needless to say we were shocked after the booker had 4 really good reviews. We submitted a claim through aircover & this guest is denying everything. Burn marks were already in the rug, stains were there, we left the unit in good shape & cleaned up before we left. They have refused to pay the claim amount so I have elected to involve Airbnb. We knew that we would want to do another deep clean upon completion of their stay, which we budgeted for out of our monthly revenue but didn't expect needing to replace items & steam clean/shampoo a bunch of the furniture.

Anyways, here to ask, what are the chances anything comes of this? Do we just bite the bullet & go buy a new rug, linens & eat the extra cleaning fees or is there still a chance Aircover does something even after the guest denied? I've attached a couple of photos for reference. 

Thanks.

 Update...

They paid us the entire extra cleaning fee. They paid approx. 80% of the replacement cost of the rug. They were very informative. Time stamping photos is definitely important. 

The entire process was much easier than I anticipated. They called me multiple times to keep me informed on the status & always followed up phone calls with email summaries.

Thanks for update!
I wonder if they blackball the guests that caused the damage or go after them for the expenses?

What I have read online & I don't know how true this is but the guest wont be able to book another trip until they have paid the payout amount. Essentially freezing their account until payment is made for the damages & then the review I left (negative) will still be displayed on their profile.

 Thats good, but they can just create another profile or book under a friend's name.

 I'd hope Airbnb has a way to flag an ID rather than just a profile to prevent this. But yes, the friends name could certainly happen. He had traveled with a friend on this trip also, maybe the friends profile will get flagged also.

I think it will do well in certain markets. Wedding destinations for example taking advantage of the catering, hair, make up, etc. But we shall see.