@Albert94
Yikes, what an awful situation for you to have to deal with while you were out of town. And equally as awful for your guests. As a seasoned host, of 2 years and 2 months, I can tell you that I do not give out keys for this very reason. EVER!!! The keys are kept in a secure place at our property where they must be kept at all time as we do have our guests stay in our home with us. That being said, I want to offer up a couple of suggestions.
1. THIS IS NOT YOUR FAULT.
2. Make sure a neighbor you trust or friend always has a copy of your key in case this happens again.
3. To avoid this happening again, perhaps install a key pad code to enter your unit and get rid of keys.
4. Don't know if this is an option, but may I ask what would you have done had the guest left the stove on and a fire started and you were called by neighbors OR CALLED THE GUESTS to try and get it to put it out? or turn off stove? What is your PLAN B?
5. I know what you are asking is for help on advice. So I am going to try and see if I can help as I have helped many with strange situations all over the world including the host who had guests book a private room and then left with their house keys back to another country. Never to see that key again and had to pay $100 to replace it because it wasn't in their house rules. They had to pay their condo building for that key, not the guests.
6. Perhaps change the type of lock on the door that would require the guests to use the key to lock the door. OR leave a hook near the door with a colorful sign saying....DO NOT FORGET TO TAKE THE KEYS WITH YOU.
7. And this IS definitely the fault of the guest. However, were your guests informed that if the door shuts, it would be automatically locked behind them if they walked out without the keys? I only ask because I didnt' get all the details from this story to fully understand what and why this happened to them. They couldn't lock the door with the key, so how does this work?
8. This is entirely up to you if you want to refund. But you do not have to. ( I am curious, did they even apologize for interrupting your time away?) Shame on them if they didn't.
9. If the guest writes about this refund issue in their review, its an immediate violation of the ABB terms and policy for reviews and will be removed by ABB once you flag the review. That being said, the guests is suppose to only review the stay, NOT YOUR CHOICE TO REFUND OR NOT. make sense?
10. If I have helped you in anyway, be sure to mark my answer helpful or give it Thumbs Up at the bottom of my post. Hope to hear back from you on my questions so I can be more help you to you if possible and to keep all of us updated on the situation.
Its unfortunate the guests had to come back, but sometimes in life, we all have to learn valuable tough lessons on how to be more responsible adults. To me, this should be a lesson to them to pay more attention. At one time or another, we have all had to learn tough lessons.....me included.
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Aloha, Momi
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