How I lost £1300+ in my SA unit & Guest Evicted 🤦🏻‍♂️❌🚨

This is the story of how I genuinely lost over £1300 💰 Plus all the extra days of the apartment sitting empty, extra cleaning and time wasted to pack all their belongings. 📅

Unfortunately, this is partly my mistake because I was too friendly and gave them too much extra time.

Newbie mistake, but it slipped my mind, lesson learnt I guess,

I'm sharing this to help others and to learn from my mistake. ✅👇🏻

In business, and this SA/Airbnb Business especially.... You should not give people 'time' to pay.

Always take payment and money up front for bookings.

I was letting them pay at the 'end of the week' vs beginning because we had some trust built as they had been staying with me for the last 2 years,

I should know best in my case, but I was just being lazy and thought I could trust them.

Because these were long-term guests, and they had been staying with me for over 2 years, always paying, I thought I could trust them to pay.

But this time they racked up a 2.5 Weeks' Rent Bill and didn't pay...

I was on holiday and then I got busy with my own life, so I didn't manage to collect payment.

I tried texting them on chat to make payment, but her attitude was putting me off, making a joke out of it, being too friendly.

Then when it came to collecting the payment, they said "come another day" so I did,

then that day extended to another day and so on...

Finally, I had had enough and said I need payment tonight or you're out...

I gave them plenty of chances, waited outside the apartment for over an hour late at night whilst they made calls to raise cash and pay what they owed, sadly after being nice nothing worked so I asked them to leave, which they did peacefully.

At around 10 pm, they were evicted.

You can see the Ring Camera Footage to see me asking them many times, in conversation, but all to no avail. The Ring Camera makes it seem louder than it was, but I was being very polite, waited outside and did not enter without their permission.

They then leave and call the Police on me, claiming I had "stolen their goods"

3 Police Vans came.

Sadly, I was home in bed by then... They knocked on the apartment door and tried to enter.

The police then rang me on my mobile..

Nothing was stolen, all their stuff was inside the apartment still, clothes, everything.

I said they can collect the next day and make payment.

Police and I discussed that this is a civil matter and they won't be getting involved further.

The next few days, I was texting the guests to pa,y but they did not pay still and haven't responded.

I text the guests to come collect their stuff, they stopped responding.

They still haven't collected their items or clothes.

This is a business lesson and a huge mistake to make, one that should not of happened as I've been in this game for years, but guess I just got lazy and have to much of a clean heart, sadly when you are a nice person, you trust people easily and give them chances.

In business, you've got to be brutal, and that's the only way to survive.

Lessons learnt here: