Gemütliches Cottage 1/2 Meile zum Dorf Woods Hole

We’ve hosted ~100 short term guests in our home over 6 summer seasons, and are proud of the overwhelmingly positive feedback and many repeat customers we have received to this point. This experience left us feeling violated. The guest could not be reasoned with and seemed intent on trying to complain their way into receiving a free 8-night stay at our expense on account of something completely beyond our control. Fellow hosts beware, they initiated a chargeback without even requesting a full or partial refund directly or through VRBO support first. Their bank did eventually side with us, but fending off the chargeback required several hours of work to present our case and caused many sleepless nights. In terms of variables we can control and improve on: 1) Response time to their initial complaint. I apologized and explained to the guest that I caught a debilitating bug while flying BOS – SFO solo with my toddler the morning they complained. I did respond as soon as I was somewhat functional again at 04:29 am local time the next morning. I'm human, I get sick like everyone else, and in this case the timing was inconvenient for my guest 2) The toaster was new in 2020 and worked great for my family a week before this guest arrived. It is an old style toasted so it’s important not to stuff oversize items in there or indeed it may become a hazard. We'll consider an upgrade this offseason. 3) Smoke detector chirp, My bad. I replace the batteries each May but concede that this year I used “new” batteries that were left over from last year so if this complaint is legitimate they didn’t last as long as I expected. Fortunately, I made sure to leave spare batteries on site so this was a quick DIY fix. 4)Trash bags. I left one lining the bin in the kitchen, and did remember to order replacements for delivery a few days into this guests stay without prompting from them. 5) Futon cover was laundered after my family’s stay, but the guest’s complaint is noted as it is a five years old so I will go ahead and replace it for summer 2026.