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What does the guest communicating their plans have to do with your house rules ? How do you know he didn’t use the blanket?
Being cold at night is the absolute worst and I wish people listened to guests more when they complain about this. I stayed in two places where I was in bed with a scarf and gloves and still couldn’t get warm enough to sleep. This was the case even after I got an extra blanket for the bed. It seems to me your review is full of assumptions.
I guess you’ve already written this review which is how you can see what he’s written. What assistance are you now looking for? The horse has already bolted so to speak, so there’s no point closing the stable door.
Well, I guess that’s the problem with leaving short reviews…
After he arrived, he told me that he planned to have a dinner guest. If he had disclosed this during communication before booking, I would have let him know that isn’t allowed - house rule. My house, my rules.
He told me he didn’t use the blanket and it was exactly as I left it in the closet.
Seen his review? I have not seen his review. I was notified by ABNB’s automated message that he had submitted one and was reminded to write one. You can’t leave a review after they are viewable.
@katnhat guests don’t always tell you things in advance. He did however communicate his intentions once he arrived and you responded with no, sorry. No big deal.
In my opinion it’s not really fair to mention things that didn’t happen in a review … he asked you said no. If he had ignored your request that would be a different matter. And I don’t really see why a guest feeling cold is worth mentioning either … not in the review at least. You can of course respond on your profile if he complains about it publicly.
Oh wait is this the guy who had his daughter stay?? Then your review isn’t strong enough !
YES!!! This is they guy! - The one who ignored my house rules.
Good point about waiting to respond to his review…
Ugh! Stronger, but not too wordy… (LOL) Got it! (Must have a sense of humor about these things.
This will be the first time I have ever received a bad review (I am fairly certain that it will be a bad one). A less than perfect one? Yes. A bad one? No.
I usually have long term guests, so statistically, it will take a while to counter balance the bad rating. That’s probably the reason that I am sweating this… I try so hard to be a good host, which, I suppose, is why this whole thing bugs me so much.
The first thing I would do (if you haven’t already) is contact Air and run your final review by them. You don’t want him to be able to have it removed due to referencing anything about a resolution case.
Anyway, I don’t want to rent to this guest. So the more detail you provide me (as a host), the more informed I will be when I decline him.
I would remove the part about the house being 62 in the morning. But I would like to know that he complained about being cold but refused to pull out the extra blanket. I guess he wasn’t too cold after all! I also wouldn’t bother mentioning him not communicating his plans, rather I would focus on him violating multiple house rules.
“I cannot recommend this guest to other hosts. He violated multiple house rules. I don’t allow food in the bedroom, and he ate in there anyway. I don’t allow guests to bring visitors into my home, yet he made plans to invite someone over for dinner. When I learned of this, I should have reminded him of my “no visitor” rule…but I didn’t and I regret that. He was dishonest when I asked if his guest would be staying the night. After he learned there would be an extra fee, he said his guest would not be staying. The guest did stay and in the very early morning he took her home. When he returned to my house, he denied the guest ever stayed, and then he threatened to report me to Airbnb. He wanted me to turn up the heat at night, but refused to use the extra blankets I pointed out to him. His stay did not end well.”
62 degrees is cold to a lot of people. Usually, they aren’t cold when they are in bed, so the extra blanket isn’t necessary. They have trouble getting out of bed because it’s cold in the room. We have provided our guests with a space heater with a remote. That way they can turn it on 10 or 15 minuted before they get up.
When I’m home by myself I tend to have the temp turned down. At night my thermostat automatically goes down to 62. It’s always warmer than that in my bedroom when I have guest dogs here because they all sleep in my room. I’ve shut the vent into my bedroom and most other rooms so the heat goes into the guest room. That said, my guest room is the coldest room in the house because the door is closed all the time. I put a small space heater and an electric throw and still had a recent guest complain that the room was cold and the heater was crap. I think 62 is too cold unless people are burrowed under blankets. If I’m in a guest room I don’t want to have to wear my coat when I get up in the middle of the night.
If you rented last winter at 62 and all your guests were satisfied then ignore my advice. Otherwise I think you might get more complaints even if you disclose this in the listing.
We have an apartment in our house. New Year’s Eve booking for 6. 9 people showed up. We have a limit of 8. They assured me that the visitors were just visitors. Early the next morning 2 guests left. At checkout time the remaining 7 guests left. When confronted Meg simply lied and said only 6 people stayed overnight. Got in touch with Airbnb. and was told I should not have let the extra guests in without first registering them. I don’t know whether I will be paid, but in the meantime because there weren’t extra blankets for the extra guests so they turned the heat in the apartment up to sauna temperatures. We enjoyed most of the guests we’ve had this first year. Things get broken, towels go missing, bedding gets stained, but all in all it has been a positive experience. It is unfortunate that the “rotten apple” guests make things so miserable. I know now not to give a bad review until the last day. My major complaint is why do bad guests get good reviews. I rely on a review to accept or decline a guest. Is there a place where you can leave a bad review outside of Airbnb? These guests were great compared to the garden produce thieves who took bags of produce from my garden entertained themselves on my porches, (there were many public areas for them to visit) came into my home, entertained guests who would show up after breakfast and the party wouldn’t leave until 3ish in the afternoon. Three days, I hid inside my home because the child with the visiting couple stuck to me like glue, and the parents and paying guests decided preaching to me how wonderful it was to be Christians. Then they steal produce and lie that I gave them permission. Shrugging my shoulders after the fact is not permission. I truly wish there was a place where you can give a review outside of the Airbnb forum.
UPDATE: Thanks all for your feedback and advice - especially @cabinhost! As expected, the guest posted an negative review, but he violated the content policy for Airbnb, so they removed it. Whew! His ratings were not removed however, just the written review.
Glad that you got the review taken down, that’s excellent. I’m laughing to myself about the mumbling comment with a vision of you muttering “…stupid lying idiot…why do I bother…I’ve got to stop doing this…I swear if I get ONE more guest like this, I will swing for it…”
Although I didn’t contribute to your original post @katnhat and simply made a jokey post earlier, it occurs to me that we shouldn’t make small of the potential for guests to hurt us. It’s one thing to make negative comments about the facilities we provide but it’s a different ball-game when the comments are so personal. A few months ago I had some very entitled guests who were not terrible, just not very likeable. They left a one-liner public review which was ok (with low scores, of course) but in the private feedback they made some comments about me personally. I don’t think they realised that I would see it. It wasn’t awful and said a lot more about them than me but it still wasn’t very nice to read. No matter how much you know that it’s nonsense and they are dicks, it still can get to you sometimes. I’ve had plenty of guests that I didn’t like on a personal level but they didn’t do anything wrong so I would never mention it. Anyway, waving to you from that higher ground, lol
It’s totally arctic to me! I’m only happy of the temperature is in the eighties. When I lived in the UK my central heating thermostat was set to ninety.
I am very honest in my listing. Our house is cold, and strangely due to a forced steam system, is coldest when it is between 35º-55º outside. When the temperatures drop below that, the house gets warmer. We set the daytime temp to 68º, but at night it drops to 62º. This is warmer than we would do if we didn’t have someone staying with us. Most of you would faint to learn what it costs to heat an older home in New England. Generally, in the winter, I wear at least four layers on top, which includes two sweaters, two pairs of socks, and only one pair of pants. If I could figure out a comfortable way to get a second layer from the waist down, I would. Here is the thing… that is what anyone would find at any AirBNB in the area. This is how New Englanders live.
Our current guest is not from a northern state, so she is enjoying snuggling on her couch with one of the extra blankets and she is using both a very warm duvet plus an extra blanket upstairs. So far, she has bought new boots, a new sweater, some gloves and a new scarf. Right now, it is 16º outside. 68º feels pretty good after walking in that!
I get it @jaquo! 62 is cold for some people, and the heat goes back on in the morning. I think the point here was that the room wasn’t 36 degrees, like he was claiming, and he had the option to add a blanket that would provide him as much heat has he wanted or needed. If he had at least tried it and was still cold, then he would have something to complain about. He also had the information up front and didn’t have to stay at my place. Life is about choices. I make mine clear to my guests in my listing and house rules and it probably reduces the number of people that are willing to stay with me. I am fine with that. It is my house. My rules. That said… perhaps if he had been less of a jerk, I might have been willing to be more accommodating.
