Surprised who my most difficult guests are!

Stop it. Don’t feel bad. You have had 26 guests, and issues with 7 of them. All 7 of them were American. I would be very hesistant to take a longish stay from the American inquiring. I don’t know what your cancellation policy is, but you don’t want to be blocking off a long period of time, and then this fussy person cancels - even after you were clear before accepting the reservation. If you have plenty of other cultures who don’t cause you stress, then stop torturing yourself.

Sorry to say this, but if 25% of your stays result in conflicts with your guests, I do not think you should be blaming the guests. Perhaps you need to look at how you are interacting with the guests, or modify your requirements.

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In whamser’s defense, he/she did say they were “minor” issues. But this is not whamser’s fault. The Americans were the ones who created the issues. If you re-read the examples, it’s clearly Americans having too high of expectations.

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I’ve done this as well. My listing is for 2 people max, but what has been happening is they book it, then 2 weeks later suddenly a 3rd friend is joining them. I finally got wise to this trick being used by a certain culture and now will just say no, I’m sorry your friend will not be able to stay in my home.

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Why I said above to yes be friendly but blunt with Americans, they can be very aggressive in nature, requiring you to be at times also. Those types are not fragile in any shape or form anyway.

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Me toooo! I am the perfect traveler/guest/ambassador of good will! :)) I’m American, but I’ve always kept my mouth shut about that when I’ve traveled.

I sympathize with Whamser. I think one reason he/she’s having bad luck with Americans has to do with the demographic being attracted: the older crowd with a few more dollars to spend and who are closer to being from that “Ugly American” generation KenH mentions.

Year before last I rented out my entire place while away on a summer job. My place is big, clean, CHEAP, and nothing matches or is brand new. I had a middle aged couple stay. They loved it…except for a few picayune things (long involved review) that I’d never given a 2nd thought. It made me realize I’d ventured into new territory: the middle-aged/older American white couple.

I’m now back to doing just the comfy bed in the living room and doing just fine with the Super H rating and have few complaints from a more “relaxed” clientele :slight_smile:

K9’s comments about rewording or adding to the description are excellent ideas!

Me 3. Whenever I travel I am always told, ‘you are not an American’. Yes I am, just one of the ones conscious about giving a good representation.

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sorry, thanks for ‘putting me in my place’ lol. I too have been in the same situation, and I looked inward to my interactions, and that solved it, so I projected - obviously it is different.

As an American, all the problems I have with my fellow Ams revolve around the same things - the guest skims my listing, cherry picks what they want to see and figure they can force their needs on to me thinking they can just ‘ask’ me to make an exception, or simply confront me after they disobeyed house rules with “Yes it is your house rule but I don’t like it / it’s not a good rule / everywhere else it is different” etc etc.

Especially folks over 50 (I am part of that club btw) who feel that entitlement comes with their age or ‘position’, seem to be condescending to me with their free ‘advice’ that coincidentally coincides with their specific need at the moment (“you really should be more lenient with your rule about no food in the room, especially since I want to bring my dinner there today”).

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I heard it so many times from those who cant recognize my slavic accent: really, you are american?, i would never have thought. Why? i ask. Because you are not loud, and you dont act like them.

Well the more I read on this forum…it really seems the over 50 crowd can be quite passive agressive when renting a shared space…sheesh!

That’s kind of what I meant by my earlier comment! I think it’s more a question of people being unused to travel and coming from an insular place, whether it’s in US, China, India, Russia or wherever. Also if they are used to hotels and generally have an entitled attitude in life. I reckon these types have far more in common with each other than they do with their respective fellow citizens!

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I think this is a very large part of the problem. The guest sees us as a corporate entity (Airbnb) and they expect uniform, flawless customer service, which ain’t gonna happen at my place anyway.

Yes, I think you’re right. I don’t really attract guests with big expectations because I’m at the lower end of the market but I’ve had a few newbies who were clearly confused and expected a traditional B&B experience with breakfast served, coffee & tea in the room, a TV etc. They were cheapskates, basically!

Incidentally, I had a very interesting conversation with my latest guest who is a young-ish American travelling on her own. She used Airbnb a lot when it first started and she said she thought things have changed a lot since then. I’ve seen comments from long-time hosts in various groups and forums that state the same. It was interesting to hear it from a guest.

Hey, so am I! But I don’t expect the frills :))))

And I know what you mean by that term. Those types really bug me. I had a guy (decent IT job from the MidWest going to a conference here in town) walk from airport, which is quite a haul–part of it without sidewalks through super busy traffic. He wanted to go paddle-boarding but couldn’t because he didn’t have any flip flops he felt he should have. I loaned him mine, but he didn’t go because it was too expensive.

Like what? She is right about that also from the host standpoint. I started with Air before anyone had ever heard of them! A ton of changes!

I’m trying to remember! We got onto politics soon after so the initial discussion is a bit hazy now. She said that it all seemed much more corporate now, listings were way fancier and more expensive, it was more complicated to navigate the system. Essentially, she said she liked it better when it was more loose and “underground”. She did stop and laugh at that last comment because she realised she sounded like someone who wants to be seen as avant-garde, the old ‘oh I used to like that until it became popular’. But I knew what she meant. She felt it was getting like Expedia, basically, I think.

Sorry, that’s not very helpful, is it? I should have quizzed her more but she was so nice and the political conversation was so interesting.

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All fair assessments and all true.
The word I would have used is “funky” rather than underground.
But now, everyone and their brothers and grammas have an Airbnb, so it’s become too ubiquitous to be “cool” anymore.

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But there’s still a few of us funky fold around!

Keep in mind that a few other things enter the picture with Americans: their high wealth. Oftentimes their affordability far exceeds their education and social manners, unlike in many other cultures, not a matter of absolutes of course, but degree. That specially rears its head with those that feel if they can afford it, they are entitled to demand and get what they want, not having a clue of the social graces that usually accompanies that ‘economic station’.

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