That’s Dr. Faheem to all of us! Especially impressive since it was in mathematics.
6 Likes
Hi @cabinhost,
(Trying to sleep, but awake for the moment…)
Indeed, the thought has crossed my mind. 
Which hypothetical response do you think is better?
Hell no?
or
You have got to be kidding me?
I’d say it in French, but I don’t know the French for either of these. Maybe I should look it up…
Thanks everyone for the comments. Will reply later.
2 Likes
If he mentions it, I would let him know that you typically do not allow such an early check - in. You made an exception the first time around…and were able to rearrange housekeeping. However, this time you did have your calendar blocked from others booking. Let him know you get many last minute (1 night) bookings…so basically he got a free night the first time. I am sure you know how to politely word it in person. Let him know the babysitter is in charge and calls the shots!
1 Like
Curious as to why you let him check in so horrifyingly early. Twice? What if you had other guests that had yet to check out?
Any update? Did he try to push back at all on paying for the 26th? The first time I read this, I missed the last line of the convo where he said “I hope we won’t have to wait until 10 a.m as was the case the first time.” - I hope you have set him straight and let him know that he got a free six hour early check in.
Hi @cabinhost,
He arrived on the morning of the 27th at 9.15 am, not at 8 am…
He didn’t say anything about paying for the 26th. Of course, that doesn’t mean he won’t bring it up before leaving, either with me or Airbnb. He leaves on the 30th.
No, I didn’t say anything to him about the 10 am thing. I find it difficult to bring things like that up. Would you? Unless he was to complain to my face. In which case, I would point out that the check in time is clearly posted as 4 pm.
Nothing much has happened since then. Except that he put a glass beer bottle in the deep freeze. And of course it broke.
Yes, I have said before I feel like I am always trying to fend off a future negative review. Too many guests don’t understand things, read things, etc. and then they complain about something in a review. Not saying this will happen…but he could complain about having to wait to check in, instead of realizing he got in 6 hours early.
I had someone this morning just tell me that her other daughter will be joining, and this puts their group over the maximum. So it will be 5 adults, and two 16 year olds…so basically 7 adults in my mind. I don’t want her coming back and putting in a review that the place wasn’t big enough, etc. Keep in mind the 3 daughters will use the theater room as their sleeping area, but still there are only 2 bathrooms. This is what I wrote just to plant the seed in her head that she is making the choice to have 7 people (2 different families):
"OK…don’t accept the reservation alteration just yet, as I only based the rate on 6 guests.
We only provide the two floor mattresses as our maximum number of guests is 6. The 19 year old is welcome to sleep on the leather couch in the basement. So the three of them can stay in the same room.
Please keep in mind that everything we have set up is for 6 guests at the maximum. Seating in dining area is for 6. Seating in living room is for 6. So it will be crowded with 7 full adults. It is only a 2 bedroom cabin, and usually our families with 6 have a couple of small children in the group.
If you guys are okay with that and close knit families…it is okay with us. But showers will need to be spread out…esp. I know teenagers like to take long showers. So some may need to shower at night, and others in the morning if everyone wants hot water."
Hi @cabinhost,
I think if people say stuff to you face to face, then you need to respond. But passive-aggressive texts are ignorable. I don’t think it’s worth trying to “fix” things with short term stay guests. With long term stays it would be different, of course. That’s one advantage of short stay vs long stay.
And I figure if someone wants to give you a bad review, they’re going to give you a bad review. Often when human beings have made up their minds about something, they stop listening. (I’ve noticed that tendency in myself too.) Though maybe I’m wrong. Have you ever managed to explain your way out of a potential bad review?
I increasingly don’t feel it’s worth the trouble of trying to predict what some total stranger is going to say in a review - I often can’t even predict what people I know well are going to do.
Having said that, it would not hurt to tell people more often (like every time the subject comes up) that normal check in is 4 pm, normal check out is 11 am. The more clueful don’t need telling, of course.
Hi @KKC,
Hmm, counting the money I’ve made would lead irresistibly to the conclusion that I’m not making enough. I might be better off getting a job writing crappy Java code or something. Which, seeing what I think of Java, is saying something.
And I wish there was another option besides thumbs up and thumbs down. Is it possible not to select either?
Hi @KIKC,
That’s certainly a possible way to go. I don’t think I’d be too harsh here. Leave that for the really bad guests.
I wasn’t sure from his text if he was being pushy or if he really thought he had to wait to check in at 10 a.m.
Not sure exactly what you asking about explaining my way out of a potential negative review. Thankfully I haven’t had one. But I definitely try to let the guest know beforehand if any negative experience was caused by them. I have read enough posts where guest is given an exception to max occupancy, only to smack the host saying their aren’t enough items supplied. That’s why I wrote what I did above. Now of course my guest can say whatever she want in a review…but at least I have planted the seed.
Or my Bluetooth speaker guest I have mentioned before. He would not allow my partner to come right back over to fix it, after he said he couldn’t get it working. I made sure he knew (right after he checked out) that I wished he would have allowed to come back over, as it was just a button that the previous guests’ kids had pressed, and everything was working great. I am fairly certain he would have mentioned this in a review. He was quite prickly.
There was one guy who was awful and surprised he did not leave a negative review. But he was manipulative, lying, etc. and was pissed because I didn’t allow him to get his way. Shortly after his arrival, we were on the phone discussing the huge blow up between he and my partner. He then said they would finish doing the laundry and fold the towels that were in the dryer. I let it be clear that he had all the towels his group needed, nicely folded in the closet. - and he could set those towels aside. I repeated myself twice that he did not need to fold a thing and had all the linens he needed. He caused us to get behind anyway…but I let that part go. I didn’t want him to come back in a review saying they had to finish doing laundry.
A couple of times I have partially refunded when there was an issue with the house. The guest could see we were trying our best to resolve the issue, and I thanked them for their patience, etc. And then I offered the refund to what I thought was fair. They accepted. Thankfully they didn’t leave any review at all…so I have been lucky.
Oh Faheem,
You are such a sweet guy. But guests are starting to take advantage of you. And please know that by letting them push you around, you aren’t fending off a negative review. You will get one eventually anyway because someone who took advantage still wasn’t happy. That kind of person is used to pushing the boundaries and could end up whining anyway.
You’ve just GOT TO be firm in your boundaries. If someone pushes early checkin (we are talking hours and hours and hours early) be firm and tell them, sorry, my check in time is 4pm. The house isn’t ready until 4pm. If you have guests pushing extra people beyond your limit on you, don’t accommodate their pushiness. Sorry, I really cannot take more than 6 guests here. You will need to find other arrangements for the others. May I suggest this nearby Airbnb?
Faheem, you will discover one day that doing all these favors for people will backfire. You got taken advantage of, went out of your way, and they smacked you down anyway. Please consider being more firm. When you taught school, did you let the students run things?
1 Like
Hi @imo,
True, but like I’ve said elsewhere, people shouldn’t take things for granted. And he didn’t ask if it was convenient.
No. He’s been here several times already. It’s unusual, but it seems he likes India.
Actually, I lent it to him again. This time impressing upon him that he should not switch it off. Though I don’t think I’m going to do it again, it’s too risky. It’s not the risk of physical damage so much as people snooping through your stuff. And some web services, like Airbnb (I think), aren’t good at logging you out when you close the browser. Their lousy security is in line with their lousy programming. 
Nope, I’m just going to write one review for both stays. No sense in writing two. And it’s impossible to predict what he’s going to write, so why try?
Now that you mention it (re reviews), I did go and look. And found two guest reviews (both positive) corresponding to 5 host reviews (all very positive, and 2 from India). Airbnb makes this as hard as possible by not putting dates in the reviews. I wonder if that’s why they do it…
Extract from the one review:
The managed to create a very friendly atmosphere for a French couple in a very hostile position
This was for a stay in Cambodia.
Hi @cabinhost,
No, I’m not sure either. But the guy is not a great commicator. Mostly he just responds with Ok.
This goes back to what you said about trying to head off potential negative reviews by being clear about things. Obviously it’s hard to say anything about negative reviews that didn’t happen. Ok, let me ask this - did you feel in general that you had success in educating clueless guests about how Airbnb is supposed to work and what your rules actually say?
I can certainly see where you are coming from with regard to communicating things clearly to people. And I do try. But written communication is time-consuming. And spoken communication is subject to misunderstanding, and doesn’t leave a record. And I’m not being paid enough to spend tons of time on this, anyway.
I am still not following your question. Feel free to throw a hypothetical situation out there, and I will try to answer.
Hi @konacoconutz,
Maybe I’m missing something, but neither the guest and the host can see each other’s reviews before both have submitted reviews, right? And after the reviews have been submitted, the guest can write a response to the host review. But he can do that anyway for 14 days after the reviews have been posted. So, what’s the point of waiting till the last second to submit a review? They can’t see what you’ve written.
But given that there are two scheduled stays, I clearly shouldn’t post a negative review for the first stay, because he could then post one for the second stay.
Not just a pretty face here…
Hi @Paul_Janaway,
Thanks for your thoughts. I respect your point of view. If the check in and check out times stop being convenient for me, I’ll stop doing it. And that may happen at some point. I guess a lot of you guys have full time jobs and other things going on, so I realise that you can’t accommodate whenever people choose to turn up. But right now, I’m relatively open.
Hi @smtucker,
I don’t think it is a good idea to let people use my computer. Not because of physical damage so much (though given that people do crazy things like drink liquids while using computers, that is a concern), but more because of security issues. People snooping through your stuff - that’s a real problem. I hadn’t given it any thought before that thread, but the possibilities are quite alarming. So I won’t be doing it again.
If/when I write such a review, I’ll be back here, possibly on this thread. Asking for advice from you good folks. And you do me too much credit. I’m as irrational/emotional as the next person. You should hear me yelling at my family members. Though perhaps more aware of it than some people.
Thanks for the thoughts.
Hi @cassid,
I agree, one should try and give people allowances in a foreign country. Though I do think this gentleman could/should be a little better prepared for his Indian trips, at least. Is there a polite way to say - go buy a smartphone and learn how to get on the internet?
And like I’ve said elsewhere, he’s already made several trips here. He should be an expert at this.
Security is a large concern. In fact, I spent the morning trying to hack into all my computers on the network just to confirm that guests, who are on the same network, can’t get in. Though I have considered creating a Wifi second network just for guests, one of the features that I offer is ethernet drops for serious financial or VPN work. I am hesitant to take that away given the types of people I hope to attract during the school year.
One of my great frustrations when traveling is printing boarding passes, museums tickets, etc. So, they can use my printer to do that kind of work. So far, guests have always asked before using, mostly because they have no idea which printer to choose.
Since I am pretty good at cracking into networks, it was prudent to try since I noticed a “foreign” device on the network this morning, and had a ‘d’oh’ moment. I hate it when I am stupid!