Host refuses to return item to me

[Jacquelyn17]

I left valuable sunglasses at my hosts airbnb almost a year ago. I have been trying to get them back ever since. He keeps saying he will send them and then says hes busy. wtf? What can I do. Airbnb keeps saying they will email and encourage him to send the sunglasses but I need them to be more aggressive about this. I feel like I should be compensated in some way for my time of dealing with this and loss of item. Please help 😞

[Mike340]

@Jacquelyn17

I left an item once and it took my host 3 months to finally send it back to me.

At the end of the day, you left it there so the host has no actual responsibility to actually send it on. It is purely down to a host's good will.

I do know of hosts who have sent items back and never received the postage cost promised.

Some hosts as such no longer offer to send anything. 

There is nothing in any procedure or rule that states a host MUST return any left items, back to a guest.

Technically the host can ask you to return and pick it up. 

Have you offered to pay postage and any insurance (if required). I guess so.

If it is almost a year one wonders if the host still has the item,to send back.  

The only other thing is to have someone else pick it up from the host and have them post it to you (if the host has it still) ..like a courier or postal company who will box and ship it for you. Get them to do the work instead of the host.

Airbnb cannot get "aggressive" as technically the host has done nothing wrong. They have merely been slow on their decision that they have given you.They do not however HAVE to send left items back to guests.

If you feel the host has stolen them and committed an offence then you have to go through the Police and report it as a theft. Airbnb will look at it as something between you and the host.(That is what they told me when i left something behind and the guy took so long). Airbnb had little interest in doing anything to the account of the host I was dealing with.

Unfortunately hosts at times have things broken and guests do not replace those items and the host has to replace them.

One this occasion the guest has lost something and it may be that you have to replace it

As disappointing as that maybe

..(sorry if I am not giving you an answer you might have wanted) 

[Cormac0]

@Jacquelyn @Mike340

In Ireland, if a tenant leaves items behind you have no right to dispose of them, and indeed you are encouraged to do everything possible to reunited the owner with his/her possessions. In fact, there was court case involving a bicycle where a landlord disposed of it after a year, and the tenant came looking for it, the outcome was the landlord had to buy a new bicycle and pay his tenant compensation.( please note this was a long term lease)

@Jacquelyn17

have you offered to pay for insurance, post and packaging? , in Ireland this could be as much as twenty five euros. 

P.S. my wife has a per of Louis Vuttion lunettes that cost 350 euros so I feel your pain

[Sarah977]

@Jacquelyn17   Seriously? You seem to think the host has some kind of obligation that Airbnb should enforce to return an item that you left behind. Would that not be on you, that you didn't make sure you had all your belongings when you left? I've had guests leave things behind, and when possible, I've sent the stuff back. And I myself have left things behind on airline flights, hotel rooms, etc, and have occasionally been able to retreive them, but being as I'm an adult, and responsible for myself, it would never occur to me to think I should be compensated for my own inattentiveness.

[Letti0]

@Jacquelyn17 I had a guest leave items behind. I paid over $25 to send them to them ASAP no one paid me back for the priority mail cost. 

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Jacquelyn17

Actually, the host has no obligation whatsoever to send items left behind back to the guest. Even hotels do not do not do this - hotels may hold on to items for guests to pick up later but they have a strict policy of NOT shipping items left behind.

Have you offered to compensate the host for postage and for the inconvenience????? I'm guessing NO - which is why the host is too busy making a living and hosting other paying guests that he doesn't have time to have to package your sunglasses in a box so they are not damaged, drive to the post office, and pay out of his own pocket to send a pair of sunglasses which are probably worth less than the postage. (Seriously. If they are THAT valuable, you should go pick them up yourself instead of expecting other people to pick up the slack for your own forgetfulness.)

[Jacquelyn17]

He has given me the runaround. He has said to me at least 8 different times that he would be sending it the next morning and then never does or says he going on vacation. As a good human being, a person should be straightforward if they do or do not want to do something. Get a clue.

[Sarah977]

@Jacquelyn17  I don't know which country this airbnb was in, but there are some cultures where it is considered impolite to say no. They will say yes, yes, but never follow through- the host may not even have your glasses anymore, but considers it more important not to disappoint by telling you that, than to come right out and say they don't have them or that they have no intention of spending their time packaging them up and sending them.

In other words, what we would consider to be straightforward would be considered impolite in other cultures.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Jacquelyn17

The 2nd or 3rd time he didn't follow through........YOU are the one that should "Get a clue".

[Claudiu-Nicolae0]

@Jacquelyn17 I don't think it is the responsibility of a host. Hosts have no obligation to spend their time and money to return the forgotten belongings to a guest. We normally suggest to our guests that they contact a pickup and delivery service for such matters.

[David126]

Go and get them?

[Gordon0]

I've returned stuff to guests only to hear nothing  more, not even a thank you. 

[Kalina26]

Airbnb has an option to both submit expenses and request money, on the side of the host and the side of the guest. Also, there is a way to file a complaint with the website. A host can ask for the shipping expenses prior to sending something back, as a condition to do so. Not sending an item back and holding on to it, despite the fact that it is not your property, is theft. Especially if it is clear that the other person wants it back. Now, some people would like to find an apology for acting poorly, but what we have in this case is pretty clear: you have something mine, so give it back to me. 

[Sarah977]

@Kalina26  No, it is not "theft" to not return something a guest left behind. 

Certainly if the guest is willing to pay for the item to be sent to them, a host should do that, but I don't know of anywhere that failing to return something left by others in your home would legally be classified as theft.

[Anthony1554]

@Sarah977 I am an attorney and it is absolutely theft tho retain property that does not belong to you. Whether the other party accidentally left it at your residence or not. Especially when you have admitted that you are in possession of said property and they are requesting it back and offering reasonable compensation for said items to be returned…. ….please do not disseminate legal misinformation on here, and if you practice that policy you may be held legally responsible.