One of the most difficult types of situations for those who rent out more than one room in their house, arises with regard to damages or messes in common areas of the house: eg kitchen, bathroom, living room, dining room, or any other areas that are commonly used.

If damages or messes are found just within the private bedroom occupied by one renter (or sometimes two, renting it on one rental agreement) then it’s much easier to bill for damages or cleaning needed. Because it’s obvious who is responsible, as other renters did not have access to use that room or its furnishings: those were exclusively used by those renting that specific room.

But when 2 or more renters use the common areas, things can become difficult, particularly when all the renters at your home deny that they are responsible for certain damages or messes, such as chipped or broken plates, burned pots, a broken appliance, or messes such as a pile of dishes left in the sink all day. So what to do then?

Sadly, my experience of over 20 years renting rooms in my house, has been that MOST renters are either not honest, or not aware, of damages or messes that they have caused.

Being unaware is common. Renters may be in a hurry, and leave a pile of dishes in the sink without realizing they did that. If you clean it up and ask who left these there, everyone may deny it, because the person responsible doesn’t remember. Likewise, someone may be unaware that they damaged an appliance, or chipped a plate by inappropriately piling it on top of other ceramic dishes in an overloaded dish rack. I’ve had renters throw out cardboard food containers, and toss out one of my forks along with it, only discovered by me because I noticed it in the trash and went to move it to the compost bin.

In other cases, the damage would have been impossible to be unaware of, such as the case where someone damaged one of my blenders and then THREW OUT the broken parts of it, so that these were nowhere to be found. But when asked about this, everyone at my house at the time claimed they were not responsible. Other times pots have been burned, teflon pots scratched by inappropriately using metal utensils to scrape them clean, cups broken into pieces when dropped on the floor, and all these damages were hidden by people who simply threw out broken parts without telling me, put burned pots back on the clean pots shelf, or replaced heavily scratched teflon pans without admitting they scratched them.

Some might say, well an occasional broken plate or pot is a minor thing, just forget about it. But sometimes the damage is not occasional. In just the last 2 months, for instance, I’ve had two blenders totally broken to where they are inoperable, a rice cooker damaged to where it had to be replaced, the handle broken off the microwave, a pot burned, another pot handle broken off, three plates chipped, and discovered as well that the toaster and coffee grinder also were broken and had to be thrown away. By no means is this normal kitchen use and wear and tear. For instance: never in my entire life have I broken a blender. For someone to break two in just 2 months is a stunning “accomplishment” and in my mind involves a special “skill.”

But the issue of damages is less common than messes in common areas. Dishes left in the sink, sink left dirty, stovetop left dirty, bathtub left dirty, and so on. What to do if these kinds of things continually happen, yet everyone renting at your home at the time, denies responsibility?

I Have A Method

In answer to this, I have a method. This method works a lot better if the renter is a direct renter, and not an Airbnb guest, but at times it may work for an Airbnb guest, as well.

The first thing to realize about damages or messes, and trying to identify who is responsible, is that this is not a “criminal court case”, and thus the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standards do not apply. You don’t have to have an “airtight” case with absolute proof. You just need a “reasonable person standard” argument, which is the standard that applies in civil cases in court, and small claims court cases.

So there are certain things you can look for, to use a process of logical deduction and inference, as to who is responsible for damages or messes. One is that you may actually have seen one renter leave a mess in the kitchen, or you can deduce that they are responsible because a mess appears when they are the only renter at home at the present time. So, if a renter leaves one mess, it’s logical to assume that they may be responsible for other messes, especially if you haven’t seen any indication that another renter is doing this.

Similarly, if you notice that one renter is using a certain item in the kitchen, which later turns out to be damaged, and then find out that they are the only person using that, you can infer that if damages to this item occurs, it’s likely the person who was using it who was responsible, not the renter not using the item.

Another avenue of making deductions as to both messes and damages, is to assess renters’ ability to admit responsibility. When you know for sure a particular person left a mess in the kitchen (eg the mess appeared when they were the only one at home) and you ask them about this and they deny it was them, this is a clear indication of either their dishonesty, or lack of adequate awareness to what they are doing. Similarly, if a renter tells you they chipped a plate or dropped a coffee mug and offers to pay for it, this demonstrates their honesty, and makes it less likely they are the one responsible for breaking an appliance and not admitting this to you.

And finally, it is very useful if you can notice that certain kinds of problems did not occur before a certain renter arrived, or after they departed. This kind of observation readily clarifies who was responsible for the problems that occurred while they were at your home.

So, one can use various means such as these to assess various renters’ level of credibility, honesty vs dishonesty, awareness of their behavior, amount of use of the kitchen, degree to which they adequately clean the kitchen after each use, use of certain items in the kitchen, and so on.

Are Damages and Continual Messes “Just a Part of Business”?

So the key issue for each property owner as to messes and damages, is for you to decide what degree or amount of messes or damages you would consider “just part of doing business”, and when that line is crossed and you will start billing for extra cleaning or damages. This will be different for every property owner. Some will not worry even about 3 appliances broken in 2 months, or 27 kitchen messes that the owner needs to clean up in the same amount of time, chalking that up to “costs of doing business.” Others will feel a line has been crossed and decide to bill for this.

My Method: The One Responsible for Several Incidents, Pays For All Incidents

Since it is pretty much impossible for you as the property owner to actually witness every incident of one renter leaving messes in the kitchen every other day, or damaging a series of dishes or appliances, some would argue that you cannot bill anyone for these situations, since you have no “proof” of who was responsible in every single case. I see things differently.

I believe there is sort of a “game” going on with some renters, to evade responsiblity when they do not clean up after themselves or damage your property, where they know that since they aren’t the only renter using common areas, they can leverage or exploit that to essentially argue that since you don’t have clear evidence as to who is responsible, you can’t hold them responsible. I do NOT appreciate this game. And because I really don’t appreciate being the one made to “hold the bag” and take the losses when renters play this game, then if I have enough information (logical deductions, observations, inference) to determine who is responsible for SOME of the messes or damages, I will then hold them responsible for ALL the messes or damages that took place while they were at my house, as long as all indications that I have point to this being a reasonable stance to take.

Now suffice it to say, you are not likely to be able to do this with Airbnb guests, because Airbnb makes decisions on what you can be reimbursed for, and is not likely to reimburse you for situations in common areas where one particular guest was not the only one using those areas.

As well, if you withhold from a direct renter’s security deposit for cleaning charges or damages costs, in situations where you do not have quite enough of a strong argument that this was due to that specific renter, you could lose a case in small claims court, should the renter sue in small claims court over the security deposit deductions.

But if you do as I do, and do not rent to locals, or people who will remain in your area after their stay with you is finished, it is very unlikely they will sue you in small claims court, because they would have to be physically present in court in your area for their case.

So in essence, my method is, “The person who is clearly responsible for several problems, pays for ALL problems” that occur in common areas while they are at my house. They pay for the damages caused, and they pay for my time spent cleaning up after their messes, which in a recent case, amounted to 23 separate incidents in just a little more than a two month stay.

For this particular renter, I ended up having to withhold his entire security deposit, which was actually a pretty low amount, less than half his month’s rent. He was upset about that, as expected, and denied all damages except for damage to a rice cooker. He even denied he was responsible for a missing towel (3 towels provided, 2 towels returned) and a very heavily stained bath towel. Really? Does he think he can blame another renter for using and staining his bath towel? If that happened to anyone, that someone else damaged their towel, don’t you think they would tell you? He claimed I couldn’t charge him cleaning charges, but in my area, cleaning charges are absolutely allowed to be deducted from security deposits, just like charges for damages.

Summary

So in summary, my point here is that even if you are in a difficult situation where you have more than one renter using common areas, and renters are not taking responsibility for messes or damages they cause, all is not lost in terms of your ability to be reimbursed for at least some of this. There are ways to use logical deduction, observation and inference to figure out who is likely responsible.