Hi Fellow hosts
What do you think warrants a 1 star review for a guest?
I’d say there could be lots of things but the options are endless. If maybe you have a problem Guest and you let us know what the problems are/were we could help you better.
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You start with 5 stars and then take 1 star off for each of:
- leaving the place in a total mess
- making noise that disturbs you or your neighbours
- leaving well after checkout
- sneaking in extra guests
- being rude
Oops, that’s Zero, I guess One is the minimum.
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Agreed. But I would add …
- Deliberately disobeying house rules
- Breaking something and then trying to hide the fact
Do four or more of these things, you get a one star rating.
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That sounds fair. The guest was fine apart from leaving baby powder spread throughout the place like they had a baby powder fight???
Was going to leave a 1star review but maybe that’s harsh
Well, it’s your call - but that does seem a bit harsh. For that I’d probably take off one star - but perhaps two if it was clear they had done it deliberately and not just been a bit “enthusiastic” with their application 
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Lol if by enthusiastic you mean they wanted to dance under a shower of baby powder then yes. I’ll go with 3*
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I was just wondering about this and found this thread. I think I missed it in January. I have become stingier with the stars as the “quality” of the guest declines. I don’t know that if affects them the way it does us. I wonder if they get emails like we do “Your last two cleanliness ratings have been 4 star. Airbnb hosts expect guests to leave their homes in the same condition they found them. Please consider these tips to improve…” 
My question is related to guests who don’t communicate or miscommunicate. Recently I’ve noted that guests aren’t telling me an arrival time. I don’t really need it as I’m self check in but still would like to know so I can do things like turn on the heater in the room before arrival but not way before necessary. Other posts here have indicated to me that communication about arrival is important to them so should I mark down on stars and mention it in the review?
What about leaving a little after check out? If someone who leaves on time and follows all other rules, gets 5 stars why should the person who leaves 15 minutes late get 5 stars? Or is it an accumulation as described above? A star is only deducted for 15 minutes late if there is another issue as well like being noisy or leaving dirty dishes?
I wish Airbnb had the detailed reviews for guests like they do for hosts with things I could click as descriptors. Then if a guest got 5 hosts who clicked “messy” or “noisy” it would show on their profile.
There’s a guest I’ve posted about here on the forum that I canceled on (so didn’t host her) who has several reviews complaining about a powder spread around, among other things. I wonder if there’s something we haven’t heard about going around. Some sort of superstitious nonesense or faux-health tip?
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That’s an interesting question. It’s not important for self-check-in places so perhaps the guests didn’t think it necessary to give that information? It doesn’t mean they wouldn’t communicate well about arrival time at a home-stay place. So I think it would be unfair to mark them down for that, unless you specifically asked them to inform and they didn’t.
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It’s not at all important to me because they’re simply not going to get in unless they communicate with me. If the guest was asked a direct question and they don’t respond and they’ve not got a valid excuse then that’s different but as @Magwitch says, to mark a guest down for something they haven’t specifically been asked to do isn’t very fair.
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I don’t think I’ve left a 1-star review yet. Staying past check-out or sneaking in extra guests might get 2-stars. Smaller house rule violations, like neglecting to sort the trash or removing makeup with the white towels, might get 4-stars.
My very first guests in 2015 deserved a 1-star review: they didn’t use the shower curtain so the wall got water damaged, tried to cook using the space-heater, left the space-heater on HIGH against the wall when nobody was home, laid around in their underwear in the common areas, left wet towels on the wood furniture, chipped paint off the walls, and left trash on the floor. They also produced an obscene amount of trash, all unsorted. They were moving to my city and waiting for their apartment to be ready, so they were just hanging out all day and buying things to furnish their apartment.
Unfortunately, I didn’t understand when the review window closed and I missed the deadline. I also know that these guests were atypically awful until I found this forum and asked for advice. I would have quit hosting had I not gotten much-needed support from you all. I think this is why I haven’t had such awful guests a second time: I raised my prices, idiot-proofed my space to the best of my ability (no more wood furniture), stopped allowing 3-week stays, got rid of the weekly discount, declined locals (prior to going on IB).
I think the 1-star quality guests moved on to other unsuspecting new hosts.
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I do not see the stars for guest reviews by hosts, makes me wonder what is the point of the stars if I cannot see them? Am I not looking in the right place?
RR
They are on the app…
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I see them on my laptop in Chrome at the side of the guest’s message thread, down with the contact information. I have Instant Book, so maybe that’s the difference?