Another 3 star rating--for WHAT?

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I’m just now starting to get over this one. We had a guest a few weeks ago (who left a review at the very last minute) rate us as a 3 star. We’ve now gotten four 3 star ratings (out of 183 total) and all three of them were either bizarre or ridiculous with the real reasons being disclosed only in private comment while publicly we got lambasted on cleanliness or odors. I can deal with that–it’s annoying, but I certainly realize one cannot please everyone.

This one, however, pissed me off. Our place is dragon themed–dragon pictures, dragon statues, hell, even dragon salt and pepper shakers. It is mentioned several times in our listing and most of the pictures have dragons in them. There’s no way one could miss it. Even the blasted private rooms are named Dragon Retreat, Dragon Nest, and Dragon Dreams. It’s in the stupid title of the stupid listings.

AND YET…this woman apparently was caught completely by surprise and found it weird enough to rate us down on it. Her review was: "Dragons EVERYWHERE! (A little odd) and it smells really like catfood in the whole basement area… But it was really nice that they provide some breakfast utilities!!"
At first I was simply taken aback. There’s no cat food out in the basement and what we do use is dry food. Regardless, there are no less than 6 air purifiers, about 30 bags of charcoal odor/damp absorbers discreetly placed, damprid under every bed and in every closet, and never any cat food in the guest areas. I’m assuming that, as she apparently did not realize there would be dragons EVERYWHERE (something every other guest has found either delightful, awesome, or neutral), she also did not know there would be a cat in the basement (my sister’s) at times and was displeased by it. Let me reiterate–there is absolutely no way this person smelled cat food. She may perhaps have smelled someone’s cooking in the kitchen but, honestly, that’s about the only thing that survives the air purifiers for more than two minutes. We have gone to great lengths to make sure there is nothing to smell down there. Additionally, the guests of the other two private rooms on the night this woman stayed not only gave us five star reviews, but also raved about how great the attention to detail and cleanliness was.

Yes, I know one can’t please everyone. And one person’s clean is another person’s dirty squalor. Four people out of 183 reviews should not annoy me, but I most definitely felt the need to rant about it. It is surprising and irritating how many five star reviews one must obtain to offset one single three star review, percentage wise.

And to kick it all over the edge, I then got a nasty little email from Airbnb stating they would “temporarily remove” us from the search engine if we got another low review. Superhost status, 84% five star reviews, and they threaten to penalize us over four crazy buggers. There has to be another site we can effectively list private rooms on. Jeez.
/end rant

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Sorry to hear you are having a hard time with your guests. Yes there are lots of sites that you can list your rooms on, all have pros and cons - so why not give them a try.

Your place sounds lovely do let us have a link to your listing - I’d love to see it.

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It’s a shame Airbnb’s algorithm’s can’t take into account the 179 4- and 5-star reviews when considering whether or not to display our rooms in their search results. I have read articles about “review inflation” and it seems to be a thing. Of course there is always going to be an occasional unreasonable guest, but to be punished so severely for a statistical anomaly seems unfair. I only have 2 3-star reviews and a bit less overall (140-ish?) and I know one of them was an accident on the part of the guest, who misclicked in a hurry on the mobile app.

Would you be willing to share more of the content of the email you got? I’m curious how they word such a message to hosts, as it sounds a bit threatening.

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This is really upsetting to see. If you get another 3 star after a year will they punish you? - 2 years? If is hard to deal with a bully and a dictator ( ABB ) . They are the gorilla.
I operate in fear of the listing sites making a decision that would impact my life. Between Govt ( potential ) new regulations, and Listing Site Autocratic decision making, the sand is always shifting under my feet. Not a good feeling.

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I don’t want this to add fuel to your aggravation but if your 3-stars have all been for your basement room, you should consider taking it off the market for a while to preserve your listing.

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I’m currently feeling squashed by one of their gorilla toes. Have guests checking in tonight and have lost all will or gumption but I know I have to carry on and pretend like I am this happy host so thrilled to welcome visitors. Ugh.

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Unfortunately, almost the entire guest area is in a fully finished basement–the house is set up pretty much like a duplex, with the basement being a completely separate household–has its own kitchen, bathrooms, living room, three bedrooms (my sister lives in one of them, which has proven to be a blessing as she fields the majority of guest questions and concerns). It also has its own driveway and 2 private outside entrances. The open two bedrooms downstairs are airbnb rooms as well as one upstairs with its own private entrance.
It doesn’t seem to matter which room folks stay in–the majority are very pleased with their stay, but there are some few who do not seem to realize their are pets despite it being all over the listing. Where it not for the somewhat extreme measures we have taken to ensure a complete lack of odors, I would think we were missing someone. However, given all the air purifiers (which actually made a surprisingly huge difference in several aspects), the rather critical friends (hey, they were critical in mostly useful ways!) we’ve had examine the place, the charcoal air absorbers, and the vast quantity of damprid, as well as the fact that there is actually only one tiny four pound cat down there (the rest are primarily outdoor cats who nominally live upstairs) who goes outside the majority of the time, I would think we were missing something.
However, as it is, I am not sure there is anything more we can do about this short of eliminating all pets (not an option). We may just have to live with the fact that guests do not actually read the listing and don’t realize there are cats–when they arrive and actually see one, some of them are displeased and I genuinely think they see cat and instantly smell things that aren’t there. Maybe that is so and maybe it isn’t, but I am at a loss as to what more to do. The pets are never allowed in the guest rooms or the laundry area, but I just got this lovely three star review today:

“A good sized, quirky space in a nice neighborhood. Hosts was very responsive. Offered some luxuries (multiple bathrooms, common living room, kitchen with breakfast and coffee) but had a few issues concerning the exterior door and cat smells/allergies.”

Another person staying on the same night in the other room downstairs left a five star review saying: “Every bit what I expected! Had a great time chatting with Aunt Christa and meeting the cats. Lovely little home and a great nights sleep! Thanks again for being so awesome.”

That second review (which came it at the same time) is pretty much the only reason I didn’t break down in frustrated tears (hey, I work night shift and I’m pretty tired!) The guy that left the three star (now making it our FIFTH) was apparently allergic to cats and stated in the private review part: Your guest suggested that your space could be cleaner in the following areas: odors, towels and linens. Additional comments: “Cat odors/marks on pillow cases”. Given the cats are neither allowed in the rooms nor in the laundry area and that we change all bed linens between every guest and wash the towels literally daily, this simply isn’t possible.

I also find it very interesting that no one EVER makes a negative comment regarding our two large Siberian Huskies. Just the cat.

At least this time Airbnb didn’t send me a nasty-gram. Honestly, both my boys and I are so frustrated we would completely give this up if we didn’t need the money. We love most of our guests, my sister loves chatting with them, and we actually don’t mind cleaning the place for several hours a day. We’ve learned a ton, but given how much work we do, we are all getting a little tired and burned out but feeling like we can never be good enough.

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These are the two private rooms downstairs:

And this is the one upstairs:

They aren’t luxury by any standard, but what you see in the pictures is exactly what it looks like for each new guest.

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I wonder about this:
Dragon themed, pets are on premises

Perhaps, if the comments are always cat-related you might want to change this to:
Dragon themed, dogs and cats on premises.

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Would you be willing to share more of the content of the email you got? I’m curious how they word such a message to hosts, as it sounds a bit threatening.

I actually deleted the email Airbnb sent me–I’ll go through my trash folder as soon as I have a change to see if I can find it. It felt very threatening–as though we had been very naughty and were being sent to time out. Interestingly, they did not specify what “temporary” meant. A week? A month? Longer? I should have called them to address it immediately (hindsight is 20/20). On the other hand, I was so taken aback and feeling like they were just piling more insult onto injury (yes, I felt-- unreasonably, of course-- victimized) that I likely would have just lost my crap at whoever answered the phone. Not very productive, that.

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Perhaps, if the comments are always cat-related you might want to change this to:
Dragon themed, dogs and cats on premises.

Interesting idea–I’ll change it this evening because, really, it can only be an improvement at this point. That whole first section was put in a few weeks back in an effort to stop people being surprised about the pet and about the rooms being in a basement. Epic fail.

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@corvidae. Just grasping at straws for you, to be honest. Maybe it will make a difference; maybe not.

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@corvidae, just a thought but I think you might be experiencing a case of ‘infectious reviews’. I did read about this somewhere (sorry, can’t find a link) but it’s basically the theory that once somebody has mentioned a certain thing (in your case, cats) then others will pick up on it and mention it too. Because people are more like sheep than cats, unfortunately.

The good news is that the infection usually dissipates by itself after a while as long you don’t inflame it. You have SH status and the vast majority of your guests love your place. You’ve done your duty in checking out these cat complaints and concluded that no more can be done. The worst thing to do would be to get defensive!

My advice - ignore them and carry on! And be glad that you didn’t have to flea spray the entire property.

Is there a Bad Guest disinfectant spray, by the way? :rage:

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@corvidae

Do you really have only two cats (the one’s that are pictured) on the premises, or are there more? It just seems that you have an over-abundance of odor diffusers in your basement space.

If the cats aren’t allowed downstairs, other than your sister’s 4 lb. cat, it seems questionable that 6 air purifiers and 30 bags of charcoal odor/damp absorbers would be necessary. I suspect that they are necessary.

If your 3-star ratings are consistently mentioning cat smells, then that’s what it must be, whether you are willing to acknowledge it or not. However, if you adamantly deny and refuse to believe it is a possible cause, so be it.

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Actually, I’ve re-thought this. If sheep left reviews it would be 'Everything was grea-a-a-at. We all loved the b-a-a-a-rn".
If cats left reviews… holy crap… it would be '‘I suppose it was acceptable for a few days. Sigh. The host failed to understand when and how exactly I needed attention which was vexing. I left her a present so that she will know for next time. I tried sleeping on all of the available beds. Only one was vaguely satisfactory’.

Sorry, just amusing myself! Don’t let these silly reviews get you down. I remember reading host rules somewhere that said "Be nice to the cats. They were here before you. And they’ll be here after you’ve gone’. LOL!

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This is true, too. I only have one cat and his food bowls and tray stink if I don’t clean them every day. If it’s cat litter trays, those covered box things are quite good. (SOO glad my cat is an outdoor boy).

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Do you really have only two cats (the one’s that are pictured) on the premises, or are there more? It just seems that you have an over-abundance of odor diffusers in your basement space.
If the cats aren’t allowed downstairs, other than your sister’s 4 lb. cat, it seems questionable that 6 air purifiers and 30 bags of charcoal odor/damp absorbers would be necessary. I suspect that they are necessary.
If your 3-star ratings are consistently mentioning cat smells, then that’s what it must be, whether you are willing to acknowledge it or not. However, if you adamantly deny and refuse to believe it is a possible cause, so be it.

There is one cat downstairs (my sisters) and two upstairs as pictured. The ones upstairs, however, do not go downstairs and are primarily outdoor cats.
There is, in fact, an overabundance of air purifiers, etc downstairs (as well as a fair number downstairs)–all of them were put in place to try to eliminate any chance of malodorous smells, most specifically any cat odors–except the damprid, which is pretty much just common sense in a basement apartment to prevent musty smells. Whether they are necessary or not (and just FYI, your speculation came off a tad condescending, though I’m sure you didn’t mean it to), they were all put in place to kill odors that neither we nor other people who we had go through the house could smell. I figured just because none of us could find any smell didn’t necessarily mean there wasn’t one a sensitive guest could smell and why take the chance? That was a whole lot of money that went into GermGuardian air purifiers, but I just wasn’t sure the charcoal absorbers would be all that reassuring to guests. Apparently, nothing is short of the cat’s ultimate elimination.
The three star ratings do not, in fact, consistently mention cat odors and, when they do, they cannot agree on the kind of odor–one mentions cat food smell everywhere (hard to imagine as all the cats eat dry food), one mentions cat urine stains on his pillowcase (can’t begin to fathom that one, as I rather think we would have noticed such a stain).
My belief or disbelief that there is a cat odor problem is immaterial–what I can do about it (whether it is real or imagined) is the issue. The house is thoroughly cleaned (seriously, daily), that cats (and dogs) aren’t allowed in guest rooms or laundry areas, there are many options as far as air cleaning and odor absorbing in place, my son has been (for several weeks), we can’t find any smell, friends cant’s find any smell, and I am running out of options short of telling my sister to get rid of her cat as well as getting rid of our upstairs cats.
Perhaps you have useful suggestions?

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@corvidae

I took the facts as you stated and came up with how I saw the situation. I hoped my comments would be taken in the vein it was given. I didn’t expect to have a label attributed to me. Nice reaction.

Do I have a “useful” suggestion? Yes, actually it’s the same solution you presented on your own.

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Your listing is completely professional, and the wittiest I have ever read ! ABB is lucky to have you…they have it all wrong.
Having grown up in a home with a walk out basement, ( my bedroom ) , and having had multiple cats under my roof I feel experienced to give input.
I think all basements have a “musty” odor . I think it is unavoidable. Basement odors are somewhat similar to cat odors…earthy, unpleasant. Also, a concrete basement room tends to increase odors…I have no idea why. Maybe humidity in the foundation?
I think you can get guests who confuse the smells of basement vs kitty; but I am guessing there is “some” kind of odor…and they just point at the cats as a culprit. And also …cat food smells terrible.
I think I would make the cats a more primary focus of the description…“PET LOVERS ONLY please…3 charming cats and 2 ill behaved dogs live in this clean home, and they will visit and want to say hello.”

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Unfortunately, to those of us with acute senses of smell, cat food smells strong. It is very high in protein compared to dog food. This is why dogs are always trying to eat cat food. I can smell dry cat food. The only thing I can suggest is that you keep the food in a container that will contain the odor. When you and your sister feed the cats you can throw any uneaten food in the outside trash cans and wash the bowls.

You’ve mentioned using DampRid. I just bought some as we are constantly cleaning mold off of our shower curtain. The DampRid doesn’t seem to be having any effect in our very small bathroom. Is there some trick to using it correctly?