Wear and Tear vs Guest Damage: Where the Line Is Drawn
How normal wear and tear is typically distinguished from guest-caused damage, and why that distinction affects a claim.
The exclusion is broader than the phrase suggests
Hosts hear "normal wear and tear" and picture a scuffed wall. The published exclusion is wider. Section 6.4.7 excludes loss, damage, or expense caused by "faulty workmanship, material, construction or design from any cause; deterioration, depletion, rust, corrosion or erosion, inherent vice or latent defect; the degradation in condition or loss of function or efficiency of property over time due to use, age, lack of maintenance, or any combination of these; settling, cracking, shrinking, bulging, or expansion of foundations, floors, pavements, walls, ceilings or roofs; changes of temperature or relative humidity; and/or damage caused by insects, animals or vermin except for damage caused by pets as described in Section 6.3 above" (article 2869 §6.4.7).
Read the third limb again. Degradation in condition, or loss of function, or loss of efficiency, over time, due to use, age, lack of maintenance, or any combination. That covers a great deal of what actually goes wrong in a rental. The host help page compresses the family into a single bullet listing damage from normal wear and tear as not covered (article 279).
The coverage side of the line
Coverage runs from a narrow definition: "physical loss or physical damage to a Host's Eligible Property directly caused by the Responsible Guest or an Invitee" (article 2869 §6.3.1). The question is never simply whether an item is broken. It is whether the change was physical, whether it was directly caused, and whether the cause was the guest or an invitee. Section 6.4.4 reinforces the point by excluding "indirect or remote causes" (article 2869 §6.4.4).
Guest-facing framing uses the same vocabulary from the other side: "if guests cause damage that's beyond normal wear and tear, we expect them to work with you to find a reasonable solution" (Ground rules for guests).
Why the line is genuinely hard
Consider a dining chair that finally splits at a joint. Was the joint fatigued by three years of use, which is degradation over time, or was it broken during a stay, which is a physical event? Both stories fit the same photograph. What separates them is the condition history of that chair: whether the joint was already loose, whether it had been reglued, and what it looked like the week before.
That is why the question rarely turns on the after photo. It turns on whether a before photo exists.
Condition at the time of loss is an enumerated field
The program text does not treat condition as background. The inventory requirement asks for "the condition at the time of the loss or damage" as an explicit field, alongside make, model, acquisition date, and the repair or replacement estimate (article 2869 §3.3.2). Acquisition date matters twice, because certain losses may be paid at Actual Cash Value with deductions for physical depreciation and for the degree to which property is out of date or no longer in use (article 2869 §7.2). General guidance suggests the same asset fields, listing when and how assets were acquired, purchase price, and cost of improvements (IRS recordkeeping).
Maintenance records cut both ways, and that is fine
Lack of maintenance sits inside the exclusion, so a maintenance history is worth keeping precisely because it shows the property was maintained. A replaced tap, a serviced appliance, a repainted wall, each with a dated paid invoice, describes a property under care rather than one in decline.
A related condition sits above the exclusions. Section 2.6 states an obligation "to take reasonable care to avoid Eligible Losses" and reserves denial where a loss resulted from failing to take that care, "as may be evidenced by multiple repeat requests for the same type of Eligible Loss in the same Listing" (article 2869 §2.6). A repeated fault with no maintenance record between occurrences looks different from a repeated fault with one.
Baselines are the whole game
A baseline is not a one-time photoshoot. It is the accumulated series of identical before passes, turn after turn, which together show how each item actually aged. With that series, the difference between month twelve and month thirteen is observable. Without it, every statement about condition is a recollection.
Three habits build it. Photograph the same angles every turn. Keep metadata-preserving originals, since the standard defines DateTimeOriginal as the date and time the original image data was generated (Exif 2.32). File the series by stay, so the boundary between guests is visible. No fetched Airbnb or Vrbo page states that either platform requires or evaluates timestamp or metadata provenance, so treat any such claim as [U].
Where a tool helps
This conversation is decided by whether an ordinary turn was recorded when nothing was wrong, which is a habit problem.
StayTurn is a $39 one-time purchase that keeps each stay's turn prep, cleaner handoff, photos, receipts, notes, and costs together in one dated record you own, on your device. Your photos and files stay on your device unless you choose to send them.
StayTurn organizes evidence for export. It does not submit claims, does not give claims-handling advice, and no documentation practice determines any outcome.
StayTurn is an independent tool, not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Airbnb or Vrbo.
Source. Airbnb Host Damage Protection Terms, article 2869. Live page checked July 31, 2026. The page displayed "Last updated: August 1, 2026." The quoted sections in this article were compared with the text displayed during that check. Platform terms can change, so operators should verify the current source directly (article 2869).
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