Hi hosts, I havent posted for a while but appreciate reading the regular posts.
Im in another learning curve regarding red flags for potential guests. Unfortunately I went above and beyond for a guest for an in house stay and it did not go well.
Advice or reccomendations on the final dilemma whether to authorise airbnb to refund 2 nights stay when the guest left early.
Airbnb CSRs have been informed during the stay about the guest breaking House Rules in spite of daily reminders. The 2 star review appears to be largely based on my communication and that the listing is āsmallā I guess that means the guests bedroom as the house is huge.
When the guest was confronted for about the 3rd or 4th time about house rules that are also printed and framed in the guest room, and was shown up to be behaving deceptively (ie lying) guest decided to instantly check out and packed bags. I suggested guest leave next morning but person was keen to go at 6pm.
I had mentioned that I have authority to ask airbnb to refund unused days (in spite of the calendar being closed and therefore unable toi take another booking but waited to see if and what the review from guest was. Yep, 2 stars so heading towards a revenge review although worded quite graciously except my communication style which was āquite emotionalā Not wanting to justify but the reasons for not having and storing food and drinks in the upstairs bedroom is due to risk of vermin or ants in this area full of wildlife. The downstairs has a kitchen and very large dining and living area for guests.
The guest misrepresented the purpose of their stay, use of wifi, ignored listings ābasic use of kitchenā, and was found to have several bags and a suitcase with food in the bedroom.
Guest was embarrassed about this and other things when discussed.
Anyway what do other hosts think about a refund? I have to take some responsibility for not seeing the warning signs and not listening to my gut and if it was a 2 or 3 day stay could have managed the discomfort of guests enhanced entitlement, but at day 5 of an 8 day stay it came to the crunch. I responded to the guest review iwth a very short and appropriate general comment about importance of guests communication about their requirements and any special needs before booking or at the time of booking to see if the listing is suitable for both parties. I must say I was so relieved when the guest did leave.
A refund for what? I wouldnāt refund this guest a penny. It would be a reward for bad behavior followed by a him giving you a bad review and rating. You donāt owe a guest a refund because you didnāt pick up on red flags, thatās ridiculous.
Thx Muddy, I always love your sensible and to the point responses and it is reassuring that it is certainly rewarding bad behaviour. Interestingly the guest had put 5 stars in various categories with the low ratings in only two categories, communication and āsmallā (Im guessing its the room size) but the result average came at 2. You are a person who does understand the vermin issue and I didnt articulate cockroaches, ants, jackjumpers, mice and rats anywhere but interestingly the night the guest left I saw a mouse run across the kitchen bench where guest had been accumulating an increasingly large pile of food items. Such a relief when guest chose to leave.
Non-native English speaker here but I canāt quite follow your points. Forgive me for being slow or unable to comprehend.
I understand that this guest was a pain in the a$$ but I fail to recognize how exactly?
No hosts likes guests violating house rules but aside from the request to not keep food in their room, I donāt see other violations or rules that have been broken.
Also, I donāt quite understand how you already received a 2 star review by the guest and you are
Do you mean that you are going to write a public response to their review? Sorry for being dense.
So they booked 8 days but after day 5 it got worse?
If itās in-house and they claim
it appears to be a legitimate (subjective but hopefully correctly advertised size in terms of square footage?!) opinion, regardless whether the rest of the shared space is āhugeā. As a guest in a shared space it does matter how big "their"place is (at least for me) - also depending on the purpose of their stay. If they literally spend 16 hours a day out and only need a shower and a bed, even a tiny room is sufficient for most. If this guest planned to spend most of the time in their room, a small (private) place may be not ideal. Again, I may have missed some details.
What house rules were they lying about (the food in their room)? What was the misrepresentation of their stay? Is this a criteria to decline a guest if they lie about their plans? We had guests who had plans to travel but fell ill or changed their plans. Are we allowed to kick them out because of that? Kindly explain the details of that misrepresentation.
āUse of wifiā. What do you mean by that? They wanted to use it but couldnāt? They used it and clogged up all traffic? Exceeded any bandwidth quota? I donāt understand.
How did they ignore the ābasic use of kitchenā? What does that mean?
How did you find that? The guest left the door wide open for anyone else in the house to see?
What warning signs did you notice? Did things get progressively worse over the course of their stay?
Obviously their understanding how in-home hosting works was non existent. And to make matters worse their way of communication didnāt help to rectify that either.
Iām not siding with the guest in any way - just trying to fully understand how everything happened as Iām lacking some coherence in your post.
Thanks in advance for clearing this up and good luck with the resolution of this case.
Well, Hosterer, thatās a thoroughly impressive list of interrogatives, especially for a non-native speaker, if you donāt mind me asking, do you use an analytical translatey bot to help you write stuff or are you generating your contributions without any help?
Personally I donāt mind if you are getting help to frame your contributions and make them intelligible and I generally enjoy reading your posts but I did feel a bit tired after reading all of this one.
Anyhow, back to the OP Iām with Muddy - I wouldnāt refund anything and would do my best to put it behind me.
But I would also give consideration to the idea that āthe thing youāre upset about is never the thing that youāre upset aboutā ( which might apply to you as well as your guest). For example, being upset at a guest having food in their room rather than the issue of you having uninvited, non-paying guests in the house, you knowā¦the antsā¦and the miceā¦just sayinā.
Apologies 
I do write my own stuff here. I admit to use an online translator here and there to check whether the terms I plan on using make sense.
I did spend 11 years in the US but I apparently do lack some understanding when native English speaking folks post and I get lost due to the inability to put 1 and 1 together (as a foreigner).
Therefore, I do apologize as I want to make an effort to learn and not look like a nitpicking dumba$$.
Not sure what you mean by this- there is no result āaverageā. All the categories are ratings unto themselves, including the āOverallā rating- it isnāt an average of the other ratings.
No no no no no.
You had a guest who broke the rules and who left your place early of their own volition. I canāt see any reason at all for giving them a refund and if it was another host who was asking the question, I bet youād agree, @Wolle .
It would be of no benefit to you or to your business. And after all, you wouldnāt want that guest to come and stay with you again so a refund would only show weakness on your part.
If a regular repeat guest left early for a legitimate reason, then a refund would be a good idea but not in this case.
I like what @muddy said about rewarding bad behaviour. A refund would only encourage the guest to be a bad guest in the future.
I live in an insect-prone area too and because we are waterside, I have seen the occasional rat. Not, I hasten to add, in one of the rentals! Insects though can be a real problem, especially if food is incorrectly stored.
For guests who are staying for more than eight days, I insist on doing a mid-stay clean/linens and towel change. This is good for the guests but even better for me as it allows me to check the place.
Something that happens a lot is that guests have left food out, rather than putting it away in the fridge. (Here, itās best to keep every food item in the fridge). Either that, or crumbs.
When this happens, I leave a polite note on a decorative card - āHi Guest, Iāve changed the bed and there are new towels ā¦ by the way, I saw that a pack of cereal was on the worktop so I put it in the fridge - here was have to be so careful to avoid insects. Blah blahā¦ā
Could you adapt this to suit your rental/hosting style? (Bit late that, I know 
)
After the first couple of times of confronting the guest, I would have probably warned him that Iād be checking the room every day to avoid any insect problems.
Iāll answer by addressing a relevant question to more knowledgeable hosts.
What happens if a host presents credible evidence to Airbnb part way through a stay that a guest is repeatedly violating house rules in the face of several documented polite requests to comply? Can the host request the reservation be immediately terminated by Airbnb??? ā¦ and ā of so ā does the host owe a refund for the remaining days.
Finally ā if a guest is officially kicked out by Airbnb backing the host, does the guest in those circumstances still get to write a review? (Does the host?)
@Spark, Iām sorry, but I donāt know the answers to your questions. Iām taking the opportunity to suggest to newer hosts that they see their business as a learning opportunity.
As the hosting business grows, itās a great idea if hosts learn to deal with problems themselves without resorting to Airbnb.
The more independent a host can be, the better.
New hosts who rely on Airbnb to ālook after themā are likely to be disappointed at some stage. How many times have we had hosts here complaining that Airbnb doesnāt āhelpā?
Harsh but true - Airbnb isnāt guaranteed to last. Make sure that you can run your business yourself rather than relying on one advertiser.
Hi Hosterer, I could provide detailed answers to many of your questions re clarification but enough to say that the guest misrepresented their purpose of stay by writing that they were volunteering at a service in a town not far away, however in reality after the booking was accepted by me the guest was actually intending to be working in an online business conducting international work meetings and tuition sessions from the bedroom. Because of time differences etc this is important to factor in, especially if guests are in the adjacent bedroom and meetings are 4am to 5am etc. The guest would probably have been better suited to a separate acommodation than what my listing offered. In spite of guestās intentions and efforts to make the listing āfit their own needs and preferencesā it was not workable and airbnb CSR notified of my dilemma about guests behaviour. The āsmallā comment was probably in part due to wanting an online work environment as the listing clearly shows photos of the bedroom and its arrangement with a single bed etc. Its a decent sized bedroom.
you are correct in that what can be upsetting is a combination of factors, not just one thing and the House Rules are one way of assessing a guest (and hostās) behaviour. Having clear House Rules enabled me to focus on asking this guest to comply but guest was not going to, so it came to the crunch.
oh thanks, I didnt know that re ratings average as the alert from airbnb to me said the guest left a 2 star review.
Because I live there and share the space I maintained the verbal communication about food rules etc but guest continued to buy and store food in various locations and was given their section of the fridge but began to put food in the freezer (already nearly full) and expanded into the whole fridge. These are small details to report to get the flavour of my concerns but I was trying to maintain some sense of authority in my own dwelling as the guest continued to push the boundaries. Probably why I posted re the refund as I was a bit worn down after 5 days of it.
Airbnb CSR said the welcome message states that if guests break the House Rules they can be asked to leave.
If thatās the case ā then maybe the lesson here is that he get one (maybe two) warnings, and then get on the phone to Airbnb and say āguest breaking house rules, ignoring warnings, and Iām worried itās going to get confrontationalā
At that point get clarification from CS (confirmed in writing) asking
- does guest get refund for unused days if kicked out fro breaking rules
- does guest get to write a review if kicked out for breaking rules
That means the guest left a 2 star rating in the Overall category.
IS the CSR referring to the general Airbnb welcome message (I donāt recall the process as a guest) or did you write that in your (automated) welcome (check-in) message? Thanks for clarifying.
Seems like, from what Iāve read over the years, that Airbnb refunds for unused days in these cases. So the host still gets punished.
And I must have read hundreds of posts where Airbnb tells hosts āDonāt worry, if the guest leaves a bad review, weāll remove itā, then refuses to. Doesnāt matter if itās āin writingā, thereās zero accountability for CS reps giving false info or reneging.
So true - you are at the mercy of the CS repās education or experience.
This is why I am hoping they refine their AI-based system so that there is more consistency and less need to be an expert negotiator or clever salesman when requesting something from airbnb that should have specific resultsā¦