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Damage to property

Having had experience with holiday guests stealing, breaking, fighting causing untold damage to my home in Spain, l can honestly say the experience has put me off for the rest of my life, I opened the doors to my home for the first time last year, it can never happen again! They were from Holland Israel Spain Portugal and none from England, l rest my case, the English are blamed for many things, but these areas, for me aren't any if them!


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THill 4 years ago

Well, I just had 3 ENGLISH men stay in my home and they stole things, were messy and also damaged things – including senselessly damaging my gravel driveway. It was an owner of a road works firm, who brought two employees he hardly knew to stay. One decided to take things with him (perfume, a robe, a USB multiport charger) on top of doing weird things like playing with sanitary products provided for menstruation.

 

My place is a romantic retreat, clearly not suitable for labourers doing dirty work, but I can't stop them from booking and Bookingdotcom has not helped. I've been dissatisfied by labourers staying before, but don't know until they arrive. I don't want to stereotype, but so far my not stereotyping has caused noting but losses and grief.

 

I suppose I should count myself lucky, as I live next door and it was three blokes drinking a lot with an obvious lack of a sense of ordinary polite behaviour.

 

When I separated the mixed bags of rubbish and recycling they left, I found an empty prescription box for mental health problems! So it could have been worse.

 

I am a single person who works very hard just to make ends meet. My place is beautiful and thoughtfully decorated. I invested a lot to make it as nice as it is. I certainly cannot afford to replenish stolen items any more than I can afford to replace prematurely worn items due to the heavy wear and tear/losses too many guests (all English) think is acceptable to cause... whether through lack decency or proper upbringing, simply carelessness or a weird lack of hygiene – simply because they the things aren't theirs.

 

The constant struggle to maintain high ratings from people who get a great price, yet have no idea of the meaning 'value for money' and the cost of things, turn up whenever they want, sneak extra people in, leave a mess, suck up tons of extra attention... and on top of all of that give unfairly low and overly critical reviews (or no reviews) is bad enough without having thieves and mentally unstable people in my house. 

 

The company owner appeared to be very apologetic and promised he would pay. Even though I accidentally underpriced the damages (and he got an excellent price for the property) he still has not paid. Booking.com have done little more than pass on my concerns. So the theft is still unresolved

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pibomarco 4 years ago

This is just part of the business we are in. You could take some preventive measures, such as collecting damage/security deposits on the arrival.. 
Also lower rates brings more difficult guests. If you are getting bookings for labourers, then your rates are probably too low, specially if you're saying that your place is a romatnic retreat, beautiful,...