Afraid to leave bad review for a local but know I should

Thanks, that makes sense.

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This is when you say “So & so was here and clearly enjoyed his short stay”. Then where it says “would you host this guest again? They won’t see your answer” you just say NO. At least you’re safe.

No, there is no ‘code’ that hosts can see what you are saying. Always leave an honest review - and omission is not honest.

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That wouldn’t tell me anything.

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I understand if you choose to say little to nothing given the safety concerns.

But I wonder if you have anything nice to say.

Would it be accurate to say something like (I tried to soften it, add humor but convey the facts):

This guest communicated well and respectfully. Cleanliness was a challenge because the linens, towels, mattress pad were all badly stained but with hard work came clean. Happy ending. Now I have to figure how to get the TV working as this guest disconnected the TV wires. Yikes!

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That’s perfect. Thanks.

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I’ve been curious about the “Would not host again” field. It was changed/diluted during the latest revamp of the review area into the following:

"Would you recommend XXXXX to other Hosts?

Your answer will help us learn more about what makes a great guest. It won’t be published anywhere, and XXXXX can’t read it."

Does anyone know with certainty that a NO response would prevent guests from re-booking your listing?

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I wasn’t aware that they changed the wording. Thanks for the heads up.

I don’t think anyone knows for sure, as Airbnb seems not to disclose that information.
Since they did away with the IB requirements and now it just says guests have to have no negative reviews, I would hope a “Would not recommend” counts as a negative review.

It used to say “would you recommend” when I first started hosting about 5 years ago and then they changed it to “would you host again” at some point and now it’s back to “recommend”. I’m not sure that it really makes any difference though.

Here’s a post about “would you recommend” from 2018:

Apparently most of you have never had a bad scary guest come back. I had a guest who had a huge party - motorcycles up & down my street at 4 AM & if I didn’t live so far out in the boonies I might have called the police- plus I was afraid it would escalate the situation. Three times over the next month I had his party friends stop by the house wanting to rent the place. I do not like having locals rent for this very reason. I was so concerned I stopped doing Airbnb afterwards for 18 months (rented to a long term tenant). YOUR SAFETY IS FIRST. I have not left reviews the 2 times I’ve had local guests who I felt threatened by. I did leave reviews for the other 250+ guests. (By the way I read an article about instances of homicides with Airbnb guests/hosts.)

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I agree that them throwing a big party means they were bad guests, can understand you feeling intimidated about stopping the party and that the friends coming by wanting to rent the place again was annoying, but how is it threatening?

It seems to me that since you let the party go on, the others wouldn’t have any idea that it wasn’t okay, so asking to rent again, while of course you wouldn’t want them to, isn’t threatening or scary.

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“Decline” and “no” are appropriate responses to potential bookings you do not want to have. You can’t blame the advertising platform (airbnb)…

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Why did you allow this? Regarding party guests coming back, as @muddy says, they weren’t to know that you weren’t okay with parties. (Some hosts specifically advertise their rentals as party places).

Can you explain about the occasions when local guests threatened you?

You leave reviews only for good guests? I’m surprised that you do this and don’t warn other hosts about bad ones. :roll_eyes:

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I wasn’t sure thy you added that sentence but it’s just occurred to me that it could that you’re ‘explaining’ why you felt ‘threatened’ and therefore did nothing about this party?

It’s important to remember that the word Airbnb has come to mean short-term rental wherever they are advertised. (In the same way we use other brand names generically - Kleenex, Band Aid, Tupperware and so on.)

In recent years it has become hard to distinguish between genuine factual journalism and sensationalised articles.

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Actually, other than the all night party -they didn’t tear up the place as they wanted to return (& they did physically show up in my drive 2 times over the next 2 weeks). I nicely & firmly told them no - that it was taken by a long term tenant. I think it was the Nazi memorabilia & guns which turned me off - plus they were LOCALS. I have had over 250 normal nice people come through Airbnb, so I am not blaming Airbnb - but other than having a credit card, there is not much of a check on guests. And if you call Airbnb at 3 AM - their only advice is call the county sheriff (who may have had a brother at the party). By the way, Google Airbnb & homicide - it does happen & the article I saw was in the New York Times. I will restate that YOUR SAFETY SHOULD AS A HOST SHOULD BE FIRST, even if that means not leaving a public review. Hopefully, there are police where you are, but this was the only time as a host that I thought I might need something other than my Dads old shotgun (which I don’t know where the shells are or if it even works.) This is the rural South, so unless you have dealt with this, you are free to your own judgements. PS I still do Airbnb but am very careful - no IB & I require several prior reviews.

With over 6 million listings worldwide, I would be surprised if everything imaginable didn’t happen at some time somewhere. No reason to focus on the one in 6 million events, anymore than you would be afraid to get in your car and drive anywhere because people sometimes get in car accidents.

I do agree that your safety comes first and that a biker party with Nazi symbols and guns would be intimidating to break up. But I seriously doubt that any guests, even those, are going to come back and harm you over a bad Airbnb review.

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Did you miss that I came home from work TWICE to find one or two of them SITTING IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE!!! (How many times have you had prior guests of 2 nights drop by?) Even if I doubt I would get harmed, I am at the end of a county road & they could easily shoot out a window or two- so I am not doing anything which might piss these people off!

Did you (or anyone) ask them why they were there, and tell them that your property is not available for sitting?

No, I didn’t miss that. You said they were there to ask about renting the place, not to shoot out your windows, and didn’t say anything about them behaving aggressively.