Hi Trish,
First, my most sincere condolences about your Mom. Also it sounds like there is more sadness for you if you are going to a funeral. I can't say that I know exactly how you feel, but we have been having a very bad year with two deaths in the family, and I sympathize about having to keep a business running when you are under so much stress.
My first advice to you would be to take care of yourself, and your Mom first. If Mr. and Mrs. Needy have something they need (no pun intended) well... too bad. If you haven't explained to them your personal situation, I would, and the very next time you get one nasty word from them I would just say that you are sorry that they seem to have more needs than you are able to give at this time, offer again to refund the remainder of their stay, (I truly believe that no amount of money is worth our health and emotional well-being) and suggest that they find a hotel or some other place to finish out their vacation if they are so unhappy. I would tell them that you have tried and tried to make their vacation be as nice as possible, but that it seems that you just can't make them happy, so maybe it would be better to part company with no hard feelings. In other words, I would try really hard to get rid of them. You need to focus on your situation right now and put yourself first.
If they don't bite, and go back to being Mr. and Mrs. Apologetic, I would end the conversation by again reiterating your situation, and tell them that if something serious happens (such as an appliance breaks, etc.) to please call ___ (some support person you can use) and aside from that, you apologize, they caught you at a bad time, and you are just not going to be available any further for any more issues about things that are simply a fullfilment of their rental agreement as it stands for the duration of their stay.
I don't know what your check-out procedures are, but you could add that you will see them at check out, or that _______ will meet them at check out, but in the meantime you need to spend your energy being with your mother, and that "surely, you can understand."
As someone else said, if you take a hit with a bad review, you will have an opportunity to formulate a response that any reasonable person would understand, so just don't worry about it. In the grand scheme of things, these awful, mean people are just not worth increasing the stress and pain you are already experiencing.
On a note along these lines, I think we had Mr. and Mrs. Needy call us about the first of the year to rent from us. Our first clue was that they were in town staying in another VRBO property that they "got burned on." They wanted to come by and see our place as the place where they were currently staying wasn't "kept up" and "wasn't clean," and "didn't look anything like the online photos." So we showed them our home, and they booked with us for next year on the spot. It was a $5000 per month lease for two months, so the deposit was $5000. The next day, they called and said that they had talked to some friends "during dinner last night," and weren't sure if they wanted to book it after all, and wanted to cancel. After some discussion, we decided they were going to be more trouble than they were worth, so we credited their credit card, and refunded their deposit.
The next day, they called back, and said they had thought more about it, and they were so sorry, and had made a terrible mistake, and would we please, please, please take them back... sound familiar? Well, I said that I didn't think that we would be a good match and that perhaps they should look for a different property. I flat out told them that I had concerns that two months from then that they might wake up one day or have dinner with someone else, and call and cancel again. In the meantime, our property is off of the market, and from a business stand point, it was too risky to me.
Well, unbeknownst to me, they then called my husband on his cell, who is a softy, and he didn't know that I would not have taken them back, and he booked them again, and charged their credit card again!
Now, we could (and may) start an entire thread about the risks of doing business with Visa and Mastercard, but again, long story short, sure 'nuff, they called about two months later and said they wanted to cancel if they couldn't have March. I told him that March was already booked, and that it was from some very firm people, (Mr. and Mrs. Needy had only booked for Jan and Feb 2012.) He said he wanted his deposit back, and this time we said no, because we had a contract, and he was absolutely familiar with our cancellation policy having been through it once before! So the guy went to Visa and we received a notice that there was a Chargeback against our account with our CC processing company. We could repond and defend our position, or return their money. I put together a 30 PAGE reply with all kinds of documentation, e-mails, statements from our telphone conversations, etc. and in the first go-round, our processing company found in our favor.
You would think it was over? OH NO! Not even close! He continued to complain, so it went directly to VISA, and VISA has a policy that we (and I kid you not) had to have had him initial within 1/4" (specifically!) of the cancellation policy (even though it was in our contract which he had signed on the last page, in addition to initialing the bottom of every other page of the contract. Also, we have yet to have anyone be able to show us where it was in writing from VISA that we were required to do this.) We were not only required to give him back the $5000, but we lost all of the time the house had been off of the market at a time when snowbirds are in Phoenix looking for a place to stay next winter. But on top of all of that, our processing company dropped us because they said that our business was too "risky" and we had to quickly find another company right away as we had other guests we needed to charge right away. (We are now asking for Cashier's Checks for deposits until we figure out the best way to accommodate everyone.)
ANYWAY, what this was all leading up to was that in one of my 50 or so calls to the CC company, one man actually told me that he would give them their money back, get them out our life, and then "black list" them. I was so upset at the time, I neglected to ask what he meant by "black listing" someone.
Does any one know anything about a "Black List?" If there is such a thing, we would definitely put Mr. and Mrs. Needy and Mr. and Mrs. Flaky AND Vindictive at the top of the list. As an aside, the whole time this was going on for us, one of our dogs was dying, and Trish, I don't mean to compare this to your situation with your Mom at all, but if anyone has read any of our posts they know how much our dogs mean to us, and we were dealing with all of this at the same time we were trying to save his life. He didn't make it, although he might have, and this awful man made the whole ordeal all that much more bitter and devastating. It was sudden, potentially curable, he wasn't that old, and we were literally sleeping at the vet's office for almost two weeks. Mr. Vindictive knew we were going through this, and even though we told him we would refund his money when the months got re-rented he wanted his money NOW, and couldn't have cared less about the pain we were going through.
As everyone keeps telling us, "what goes around, comes around," but at the time that doesn't really help much, does it?
So, like I said Trish... look out for yourself, and take care of yourself first. No renter is worth causing us all that much grief.
& chocolate
