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I’m a newbie host and just had first 2 stays. The first guests were excellent, however the second guests left the house dirty (food crumbs on floors, unwashed dishes), swapped one of my fishing rods with theirs (mine only cost $25 and theirs is worthless), left fish smell on some of my towels. They only stayed 2 nights and just from viewing the cameras, they may have more than 12 guests allowed. My questions are:
Is there a way for me to know if they left me a review? I have not post my review for them yet.
Should I consider it a loss and move on? I know they will give me a good review.
If I give him a sub par review, can they go back and edit their review to give me a bad one?
My current plan is to send him message and only tell him about the fishing rod. But if I do that he may not want to leave me a good review. What to do?
@Slingster, if your guests left you a review already, there will be a notice about it on your Airbnb Host page.
The review you leave should objectively reflect the condition they left your house in—provided your house rules and/or checkout instructions specify that they are to sweep, wash dishes, etc.
If you decide to message the guest about the fishing rod, I’d wait to do so until after you and the guest both review. If the guest doesn’t review, I’d wait until the 14-day review period has expired to do that. But as another host mentioned below, I wouldn’t consider that a big loss. If you have valuable (either in monetary value or value to you) items at your location, I suggest removing them or replacing them with less valuable ones that you can easily afford to lose.
Also, while it’s important to review honestly (mainly for the benefit of other hosts), nothing that you’ve mentioned seems really bad to me. For example, the fish smell on the towels should wash out, right?
I also agree with @Helsi below that this is a good time to learn more about the basics of hosting. We all had to do that at one time.
If your guests had more than the maximum allowed, you or your cohost could have asked Airbnb to cancel the booking
Please familiarise yourself with the basics around how Airbnb works to help you manage your listing. Airbnb Help provide you with Q and As that will answer most of your questions. For example this is how reviews work
I would be much more worried about extra guests than a fishing rod. If you have evidence of guests staying who haven’t booked and paid then send the guest a request for payment for them. You should really have done this on the day they checked in rather than post their stay.
He checked out yesterday and I haven’t received a notice yet. He did say he will leave a great review so I’ll wait. I hope he did not intentionally hold off on the review until I give mine. I did not state that guests have to sweep the house or wash the dishes and I don’t expect them to, so I’ll just have take it. I don’t think he read the house rules since it was a same day booking. He also used the elevator without authorization but it’s for his dad with stage 4 cancer. I would have been OK it but no big deal. My cleaner said that the towels have to be washed twice to get rid of the smell. I have no definite proof on number of guests but it’s hard to prove that on the video since none show more than 12 in one shot, but I can only guess. There’s also 7 cars on the driveway but no gotcha moment. When I saw his dad in a wheel chair I just forget the whole thing. I’m glad they have a good time together. I’ll consider this part of doing business. Thanks for all your reply.
If you haven’t yet been notified that it’s time to review, then neither has your guest. Neither of you can submit a review until Airbnb prompts you both to submit a review.
I received the notification yesterday that the guest left a review. It was a very nice and long review, which helps a lot since it’s my second review of the listing. I was conflicted because he gave such a great review but he left the place dirty and did not follow the house rules. I left him a 3 star review on the cleanliness and following house rules, and a 5 star on communication. I wrote 2 sentences giving him prop for good communication and something like “there were issues but they’re willing to make it right” (he did offer to pay for the missing fishing rod)…nothing major. I also gave him a private feedback on the issues. After submitting the review I realized that may be I was a little harsh on the 3 star reviews because the booking was for his dad with cancer, but upon digging further, I realized that the star rating does not show up for guests for everyone to see, which is great! I don’t want to punish him too much since it could be a one time deal. I’m glad I did not put him down too much in writing, since it shows up in their profile. Airbnb should at least let the hosts see the star ratings that the guests have.
It wouldn’t make any difference if the guest holds off on reviewing you as both reviews are left blind (please do have a look at the information I linked you to as it explains the review process).
Did you ask the guest in advance of his stay to confirm the numbers?
Sounds like it would be a good idea for you to remove IB and vet each guest before accepting a booking until you become more familiar with how Airbnb works.
I would also suggest you get your co-host to meet guests in person to ensure more than the paid for numbers don’t turn up.
According to the info on the link: “Reviews are posted only after BOTH parties have completed their review”. So if a guest post a review and the host doesn’t, does it mean that the guest’s review will never be published? Or if a host post a review and the guest doesn’t, then the host’re review will never be published? Maybe this is why we rarely see bad reviews on the host and guest posted, because if one knows they will get a bad review then they will not post their review.
The house rules already stated no more than 12 guests, also no unregistered guests. Apparently they don’t read or failed to follow.
No as it says on the information I provided you with a link for @Slingster
To encourage impartial and honest comments, reviews are posted only after both parties have completed their review, or when the 14-day review period has ended.
