@fnnn
Spiders are smart - they definitely move in, literally overnight, to any place that lacks enough spiders. Every day before a guest arrives, I remove the new arrivals from corners, especially in the bathroom and in the bathtub/shower.
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1 star overall? or 1 star for cleanliness with something else for overall?
If she left a 1 overall for what Iâm sure is just a tiny cobweb then she deserves a slap in the face. What a total ⌠(fill in with your favorite nasty adjective).
Funny that you mentioned that â great point. Yesterday I was crawling on the floor of the house we are renting this very minute, looking for an item. I also pulled up the sofa cushions. I found items in both places, but not the one I brought! They were a blue M&M, the plastic top to some candy and some kind of toy. I debated letting the host know so he can bring it up with the cleaning crew, but I donât want him to think Iâm angling for a refund or something. So yes, crawl on the floors and look!
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So sometimes between guests we now have 3 to 4 days. The rental has been cleaned and disinfected and is waiting on the next guests. With COVID do you think it is better not to enter and let the guest know that no one has been in for 72 hours and may be a little dusty or go in and freshen up on their arrival day, knowing that you introduce a new riskâalbeit a small oneâto the guest coming in? I am torn. What do you think? What would guests prefer?
I do this.
I donât go in right as they leave because I donât know about the guest. Plus theyâve just been in there breathing maskless for hours.
When YOU go in, masked I presume, for a 10 minute sweep to look for cobwebs in corners, a dead moth in the sink or a backed up sewer you are adding minuscule risk in comparison.
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It happens to all of us at one point or another. I was lucky that my guest just mentioned it in the private section and not in the review. She messaged me that the top of the ceiling fan blades were dusty.
After checkout I looked and she was right. Now thatâs the first thing I dust. Itâs easy to miss something when there is so much to do with a whole house rental, not only cleaning inside the house but also the outdoor spaces.
I personally would not respond to the review. I would just send her a message apologizing for the spiderweb and offer her a discount on her next stay.
I would be more inclined to make it right for the guest if they left the place in good shape. We get lots of folks that come back and also recommend our place to friends and family so for me, it would be best to just aplogize privately and offer an incentive for a return visit.
Yeah 1 star overall. I donât get how location can get rated for this. lol thanks @Jefferson I was thinking the same! haha
The bitch gave her 1 STAR for a cobweb. A cobweb! I would block such a so-called âguestâ.
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I would apologize and thank her for bringing it to your attention, mention how much you clean the place and then that sometimes things like this happen. Restate how you clean for covid and be done. Future guests have no problem with a bad review here or there, we are interested in the âtrendâ. Reasonable people will not be affected by her review and read into it as sh*t happens and appreciate that you responded and addressed it, and of course you want to attract reasonable people in the first place. Reasonable people realize with scrutiny somebody could probably find a cobweb in their own home.
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Itâs hard to not take negative reviews personal. And, most of the time itâs the guest. My husband has an uncanny sense of who is going to be difficult. Often itâs the multi-family guests (we rent our entire second home), and often an in-law. We empathize and use a bit of humor in responding to these type of reviews while also explaining with an eye toward future guests. Our home gets many rave reviews for its cleanliness, but sometimes things are missed or the guest doesnât have reasonable expectations. Lately, weâve taken to reminding reviewers that it is a home, not a Residence Inn. With only 4 hours to clean a 3000 square foot home with four bathrooms, crumbs in a drawer are going to be missed occasionally.
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Very sorry to read your review.We had a terrible experience recently where they tried to get 500 dollars from us and when we did not agree she wrote the worst review that was full of untruths, exaggerations, etc. The photographs she sent me appeared to be âstagedâ in that she had found our vacuum cleaner and it looked like emptied the contents on the floor. She also said that her child found a tablet which we are certain we would have seen it it had been there. We do all our own cleaning to maintain a high standard and would definitely not have missed the mess she claims to have photographed. She also implied that I was a rude host and that I did not deserve SuperHost status. This review made me extremely upset and I still think about it often. I cannot believe that someone can be so unkind. The result of her one star rating was that we lost our SuperHost status and went down from five stars overall to 4.8. We have maintained a steady rate of 5 stars for over 40 reviews with numerous âsparkling cleanâ compliments - and have worked very hard to maintain our business, despite many cancellations over the last six months during lockdown, all of which received a full refund (sometimes due to airbnb policy but also due to us not wanting to charge for something a guest did not receive. Friends and family say that I need to get over it (I agree! 
- but I am still feeling very shaken that someone can put something like this in public and we have no way of removing it. Airbnb were very unsympathetic and said that unless the post vâolated their termsâ, there was nothing they can do. This guest had no reviews, we had over 40 - yet they choose not to support us. We did make a brief response to her review, stating that the claims were unkind, untrue and not in the spirit of the airbnb family. To make matters worse, it appears to be upsetting our future guests -one wrote to us saying that she was very concerned to read the post and could we reassure her? Luckily we have had two reviews after this one, that have both been five star - so hopefully her review will start to pale into insignificance. Just really disappointed in the way that Airbnb have treated us. And they even sent us a demand from this person asking again for 500 dollars!!! Quite unbelievable. Oh well, end of rant!! Any advice gratefully received - but please be kind, it still makes me a little upset to think about itâŚ
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I know itâs hard not to take personally, but you are running a business, dealing with the public. All businesses eventually have to deal, once in awhile, with a nasty, irate, entitled or rude customer. Hotels do, restaurants do, pretty much everyone runs into these sorts of people in some context. It could be a toxic co-worker, a nasty neighbor, a âKarenâ screaming at a black family for availing themselves of a public swimming pool or having a picnic in a park.
Rather than taking it personally, try to keep that in mind- these types of people exist and all you can do is deal with it in the moment and then move on. Donât let them take up residence in your brain and emotions. Just think âWhat a horrible woman. Gone and good riddanceâ. The review will soon get buried amongst your other good reviews.
And rather than bringing emotions into the response (unkind), sticking to the basic facts not only makes things clearer to future guests, but can help to let you get past it easier, moving it into the realm of fact rather than hurt feelings.
âThis review was left in retaliation for refusing to be extorted for $500 due to a manufactured issue. Please refer to our other reviews for an accurate representation of what to expect when booking our listing.â
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Thanks for this advice, Muddy You are soo right about not taking it personally! Having said that, I think the main issue is that it has had further consequences - Airbnb asking us to pay 500 -and future hosts being worried about their upcoming stay - and more to the point, the absolute lack of support from Airbnb which I actually did not expect. But yes, thatâs life - our first ever difficult customer - which is not bad out of 40 plus guests so far!! I also LOVE your suggested response - so well written - although I thought maybe Airbnb might take it down if I made that statement. They have refused to acknowledge the texts she sent me (and my very gentle responses) because we used âordinary phone messagingâ, rather than the airbnb messaging. (due to the fact that my phone cannot take the app due to lack of storage). So they have never seen the texts and photos she sent, nor my replies - which I also consider unfair. Anyway, thanks for your very thoughtful response -good to know that there is some wonderful support and understanding out there.
HI MaryJO. Unfortunately, Airbnb refused to look at the messages and photos due to the fact that we used âordinary phone messagingâ rather than their own message system. I did tell them that I cannot use their app as my phone storage is full but they were unwilling to listen. So all in all, they have made a decision to support the guest (allow the post and ask us for 500 dollars) without seeing any of our conversation. Very disappointing business practice in my opinion. Thanks for taking the time to comment - much appreciated.
Completely agree with your comments here ! I was just thinking the same thing today as my husband and I spent ten hours cleaning our five bed house for our next guests (and making sure those troublesome âdaddy longlegsâ are completely gone! ) It seems so unreasonable for someone to complain about such small things - and is this really what airbnb is all about??? I thought that when it was established it was meant to be a community sharing homes and establishing relationships, with plenty of goodwill shown from either side. We did find our previous guests left quite a mess - but we were glad they had a great Christmas and happy to do that little bit of extra cleaning⌠Great idea to remind people that it is home not a Residence Inn - but how do you do that without them taking offence?
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Learn from it, donât take it personally. Some people just canât bring themselves to give 5-star reviews and must always seek out the imperfect.
Our places are spotless but in the course of hosting over 250 guest visits, we have received (3) 4-star reviews (from different guests) on cleanliness from guests that urinated on one of our beds. Clearly, they were deflecting their own bad behavior. Thankfully we always use waterproof mattress pads 
You need to fix this. Youâve already found out first hand why. This wonât be the last time you have an issue and without documentation on the Airbnb platform you are going to get screwed. Iâm not sure what is stored on your phone thatâs more important than your business but maybe you should invest in some more storage for your phone or buy a tablet and do your Airbnb business on that.
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I bought a tablet for this exact reason - I used it in the Pre-Covid days when I was traveling. Not very expensive and easier to read and type responses. Bonus - my library provides downloadable books so I donât have to carry heavy, space-consuming books in my carry-ons. The tablet is worth itâs weight in gold for just that feature! Sigh⌠will travel again someday! Although we did spend a long weekend in a whole house rental within driving distance just to look at a different 4 walls. Brought disinfectent and sprayed all surfaces before unpacking. Advertised as Covid-cleaned but when checking under the bed to make sure we didnât leave anything we found a letter and large dust bunnies. Still left 5 stars and a kindly worded private note. This was a new host and we saw it as an opportunity to educate not punish. We would stay there again and didnât want to burn our bridges with them.
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Last few hotels Iâve been in have the beds on platforms that go to the floor. If I could find a bed frame I liked that did that Iâd have one for that reason.
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I have never used the app- I do all my Airbnb stuff on my laptop. You absolutely need to have an alternate way of doing messaging with your guests, as you found out. How do you deal with bookings if you donât use the app or a laptop or a tablet? I donât understand.