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Very sorry this rage-a-holic blew up on you. And of course you know that is not normal.
I hope you won’t be offended by what I am about to say. But I have to speak my mind. I know in the past I have suggested things to help avoid things like this happening, and you have countered me with some reasons why you didn’t want or need to do these things… (such as being more firm and setting boundaries, or assuring us you already had it handled, etc. etc. ) So I’m going to offer my advice yet again. Please do not lend your laptop in the future or print things for guests. You are not a concierge or travel agent. You are merely a host renting a room. Doing such things will not only NOT guarantee a good review, it’s now going to seemingly preclude your getting a bad review. Why? When you do LOTS of extras for guests, it feeds their sense of entitlement. Yes this guy was personality disordered, but his crazy thinking was that you WERE a full service holiday place… including offering up the business services. So why the heck are you now refusing to let me store my luggage!!! [add rage for emphasis] See what I mean? Set boundaries, be firm and don’t lend your personal laptop or printer to guests, EVER AGAIN. There, I said it. Do you still like me???
Also, since the guest threatened you call or tweet to Airbnb NOW, and open a case. If he posts a bad review in revenge you will then have the back up to get it removed.
Me too. And I was able to diffuse that situation, only after letting the guest know he was completely out of line, and calling him on his lies. It never did end all lovingly. But at least it ended civilly.
But yes, there are some guests - it doesn’t matter how civil you try to be…they are just going to throw a tantrum because you didn’t let them walk all over you.
Re: laptop. No, I’m not going to lend it to anyone else. As I mentioned elsewhere, aside from the possibility of physical damage, it raises some alarming security issues. And possibly it feeds into a wackjob’s sense of entitlement, but that’s a separate issue. And do hotels lend laptops? I’ve not heard of that.
I didn’t lend him the printer. I just printed out something for him. Do you think that’s bad? Though I’m not sure if he actually needed the boarding pass printed. Out of all the people who have passed through here (none of whom have been carrying printers in their luggage, as far as I know), only one other person (an American, back in June), have asked me to print out their boarding pass. Though it might be partly because most of them were starting, not concluding, their trip.
Yes… it’s an EXTRA. Don’t do that anymore. I am not sure about India, but here in the US, printer ink is crazy expensive. Tell him you are out of ink. I’m sorry but I’m not able to print anything for guests. Their boarding passes are not your concern. That is not part of your rental. Let them worry about that. With the self serve kiosks everywhere, that is old fashioned and unnecessary. If he has luggage to check (obviously since he asked you to store it) he has to wait to check in anyway. Bottom line: Their airport issues are NOT your responsibility and not part of what they paid you for.
There is no reason in the world to lend a stranger your laptop or have him bark orders at you to do things on your laptop for him. Just say no. Let him go rent one down at the Internet cafe.
Yes… what I mean is, hosts sometimess bend over backwards to fend off a bad review… Doing too many extras is fraught, because I guarantee… the more you do, the more they need and the more something could not go to their liking.
Well, I guess I am. Here it is - comments appreciated, obviously.
I’m tired now. Will review tomorrow.
Hi,
This is about xxxxx xxxxx (again). This is now the third time I’ve contacted Airbnb about him. His trip just concluded, but it didn’t conclude pleasantly. For reference, the reservation code for his trip is xxxxxx.
On the morning of the 30th August, Mr. xxxxx asked me to store his luggage after checkout, till his party came back at some unspecified later time to pick it up. I refused. He became extremely upset and started abusing me. In particular he said (quoting verbatim) “I will give you a bad review”. He then took his stuff and left, at approximately 9 am.
I thought Airbnb should know that this guest threatened me after I would not agree to his demands.
(Should I add other details about him, or is that enough? I.e. bad communication, disregarding check-in times?)
I agree you shouldn’t let guests use your laptop , however, printing out a boarding pass is something I’d do. When travelling you can’t print boarding passes until 24 hours before your flight, or at least that was the rule when I last flew. My experience was that I sent the link to my hosts (B&B’s) email and she printed it. It’s not a huge cost, but you could charge $1.00 or so to cover costs, it also sets up the expectation that printing will cost the guest, so they not be asking you to print all sorts of things, tourist info to free. I’m not aware if you can print at the airport, but some airlines will charge a fee if you don’t have a boarding pass.
It depends on your location, I live in a very rural location, the only place to get printing done within 50 km is the public library which isn’t open every day.
As soon as a guest starts to abuse you verbally, I’d suggest leaving the room, stating that the behaviour is unacceptable and you will be calling Air to advise them of his behaviour and that YOU will be leaving a review advising hosts that he abuses Airnb hosts. Tell him he can do what he wants re reviews but he’s to leave Now and take his luggage. If he leaves the luggage, you will be putting it outside the locked door.
I’m not sure what kind of ink you are thinking of. Inkjet printer ink, perhaps. That is indeed expensive. Even color laserjet cartridges are expensive. I have a Brother B&W multifunction laserjet, whose toner cartridges aren’t really expensive. Though everything is relative, of course. Anyway, the cost of a page is completely insignificant. A few rupees perhaps. Or a small fraction of a US cent. I could calculate it based on the cost of the toner and the expected page yield.
I’m not sure I completely buy your premise that doing things that I’m not required to do will cause a guest to have unreasonable expectations and turn on me. I agree that it’s important to be careful what extras you offer, and manage guest expectations. And I also agree lending people ones laptop is not a good idea, for all the reasons that people have mentioned here. But I think printing the occasional page for a guest is harmless. And it doesn’t come up often. If it does start coming up often, or people start wanting larger amounts of stuff printed, I’ll reconsider.
One big plus of short term stays is that one is constantly able to hit the reset button. So if things didn’t go well with guest C, try it differently with guest D.
I definitely have no plans to bend over for anyone to ensure a good review. You can’t control what people write about you. And people are irrational. Just ask the novelists, poets, psychologists and psychiatrists. You just try to do a good hosting job, and leave it at that.
Anyway, thank you very much for your thoughts and your interest. They’re always very much appreciated.
I didn’t follow this bit. But I don’t fly much. Do you mean that the airline can/will print out his boarding pass for him on arrival at the airport?
Charging for printing is certainly an option, but some time ago someone said (I don’t remember who or where), on this forum something like: don’t nickel and dime your guests. That struck me as good advice. The implication (I can’t remember if this was stated explicitly) was that one should not annoy ones guests with small charges.
Sure, if this becomes common, I’d considering charging something.
Oh? How mean. I thought they just gave you one when you showed up.
Bombay certainly has (crappy) places where you could go do have things printed out. But they aren’t particularly convenient, especially for a foreigner. I’m fine with telling guests to go somewhere else to keep their luggage after checkout. I think telling them to go somewhere to get something printed feel a little extreme.
Thanks for the advice. I don’t have policies for this sort of contingency. And I didn’t have a problem with the guy staying till the normal checkout time, abuse or not. Though I was a bit concerned that he might cause some damage - he seemed quite upset. But it doesn’t look like he did anything. He just took his stuff and left.
One possible problem with telling guests to leave before the normal checkout time is that they could complain to Airbnb that I threw them out. I’m not sure if this could be an issue or not.
I’ve lent my laptop that doesn’t have any sensitive info on it once and did some other things I wouldn’t do for all guests. She thanked me with a very nice review. I didn’t expect it since I checked and she wasn’t leaving other hosts reviews. I had guests in the summer who asked to use my printer but at that time I didn’t have a secure set up and neither of us had the technical know how to do it so I sent them to the public library to print. I later got a friend to help me set up my printer wirelessly so someone could use it.
The difference is between someone who demands something as if you are a hotel with a business center and a fellow human (who happens to be renting a room in your home) who asks for some help.
Just FYI, if a computer is not connecting directly to a printer, the usual thing to do is to copy the file to an external drive (usually what is called a USB thumb drive or pen drive). Then take it to a computer that is connected to a printer, mount the drive there, and print. No biggie. I have https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CK7DIU/, which Amazon in its helpful way tells me I purchased on 19th June 2007. It feels like I’ve had it forever. It’s still working fine. That’s what I did for Mr. Unstable yesterday morning.
I suppose I could have done that for the fellow in the summer. I have some thumb drives here. Then again, that would have just opened a can of worms I fear. He was here for a 7 days trying to help his friend in the hospital and they were already hanging out here most of the day and just going to the hospital in the evenings.
I agree - I’ve printed out tickets for people - how hard is it? They send me them in an attachment and I print them out. We’ve driven people to the drugstore when it’s late at night and their baby is sick. I’ve given guests fresh ginger when their son had a fever, so they could make a broth (or tea) to give him. (Also late at night, super cold out).
I’ve not yet had the experience of this backfiring on me. Perhaps I will.
But I do these things out of simple human kindness. It’s part of my ‘mission’ to make the world a happier place. Now, in the case of the ginger people, the next morning they came up and asked for a cucumber and started cooking in my kitchen. Line was drawn, they were sent back downstairs, and I instructed my kids to not give food without asking me.
I may yet still come on here and have lamentations about being kind and having someone slap me in return. But to date I’ve just been glad to be a friend-in-need, which as we all know, is a friend-indeed.
(My host that begged for 5 stars put me in touch with an alum from the college we were visiting, and did other things she knew would be helpful. She didn’t have to do any of that, but I appreciated it, so did give her 5 stars in spite of the slight disappointments)
Everyone has a different style of hosting I guess. I’m not an office center or a 24-hour pharmacy service. But some hosts are and want to be. Im a kind host and I don’t think that NOT doing these things for guests makes me unkind or cold.
I’m going to bow out of this discussion as I don’t believe I’m being understood and I feel like I am wasting time and energy.
Just one more point about the self serve kiosks. They are putting them in airports by your flight counter. You just enter your flight locator or credit card number and it spits out your boarding pass. If you don’t have luggage to check you head right to security.
There, I said it. Do you still like me??? 
Here it is - comments appreciated, obviously.