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I’m a Superhost who went on snooze after Labor Day due to a last-straw experience of doing EVERYTHING possible to please guests who were young and arrogant and petty and who destroyed a beautiful piece of furniture, then left me a bad review because I dared to talk to mention it to them.
Nearly all of my guests have been truly wonderful, but I had “hosting fatigue” and didn’t know it until then. I couldn’t even find out from AirBnB what they said needed to be improved. Why would AirBnB asks questions like that if they won’t tell the hosts what the problem is? It’s so demoralizing.
I needed to rethink how I was doing things and whom I was letting in my home. I un-snoozed to have holiday guests. The first would-be guest asked me to take substantially less money. I declined her and politely wrote her that we think our price is very fair for what we offer but we wish her a wonderful Yosemite vacation, blah blah blah. I have learned the hard way that guests who ask for a cheaper rate are one long pain in the (body part of your choice).
While talking to an ABnB rep about another matter, I asked them to look and see if she had any reviews, because I couldn’t find any although the rep told me that the guest had stayed at other ABnB sites. I said I didn’t know hosts could just leave no reviews, because that says a LOT to me, and was told that it happens frequently.
From now on if I get a bad guest I am not going to leave a review. I am SO sick of giving bad guests good reviews because I’m desperate to keep my rating up. I think that we hosts should have the right to know if guests steal or damage things or leave the house unlocked (all of which has happened to me). Has anyone else not left any review for bad guests, and if so, were there repercussions from AirBnB? I don’t want to break any rules.
You’re not making sense…you think other hosts have the right to know this stuff but you are refusing to leave reviews for bad guests in the future so none of us know???
I would leave them bad review for destroying furniture and not reporting to you, scratches are fine but destroyed furniture needs to be reported. If for some reason, you don’t want to leave bad reviews, your choice of not leaving review sounds ok. My first guest left my place in a messy state, dirty but nothing destroyed. Only kid’s paintings on the wall, which I believe can be easily fixed. I’m thinking about not leaving a review, just like you, but my reason was they helped me to fix a hot water tap and they were very friendly, just not clean. I hate the kid’s paintings but I think parents can’t monitor their kids 24/7? Never raised a kid myself I don’t know what to expect.
Hosts need to leave reviews for bad guests. I don’t want to try to guess what it means if a guest is a long time Airbnb member or says they have used Airbnb before but has no reviews. Every community and organization has it’s fair share of free riders, i.e. people who take advantage of the benefits but don’t contribute back. Don’t be that person.
That’s a rather unusual attitude, if you don’t mind me saying. Reviews are for the sake of other hosts - and nothing else - and if you don’t want to inflict bad guests on other hosts then you must leave a review that is honest and to the point.
A review doesn’t have to be ‘good’ or ‘bad’ it should just be honest and to the point. New hosts might not realise it at first but not letting other hosts know the truth about poor guests is a bit anti-social and bad for the hosting community as a whole.
I don’t understand the part about needing to write good reviews to ‘keep your rating up’. I’m not sure what that means?
You don’t have to have raised a kid, nor birthed one out of your body to determine what is acceptable behavior. Are you saying this kid drew or painted on your walls and no one told you about it? Was it so unnoticeable the parents didn’t see this?
I was a kid once and I wasn’t drawing on walls at 5 years old. If the child isn’t behaved enough to not draw on walls/furnishings, then the parents should not be allowing the child access to drawing materials.
YES, you do have to leave reviews for awful guests. It’s not fun, it’s not easy, but it IS the only thing to do.
Do you want my crap-guests coming into your home? No, you don’t. I don’t want yours, either.
If you don’t leave reviews for bad guests, then, in a way, you deserve bad guests. Because you’re not protecting your fellow hosts, you can’t expect your fellow hosts to protect you.
As it is, if you have any of my prior guests, you’ll know which ones bring a 12 year old special needs kid that screams for an hour every night, or have small kids that are horribly misbehaved and scream all the time, or the ones that have a 2 year old that was very fun but cried all the time as well.
Your label is too funny (“crap-guests”) but it says it all.
I’ve had about a half dozen of those in 6 yrs. and finally got up enough gumption to do a negative review last year on one of them after reading on this forum how it is almost a duty because it serves other hosts. So I spent the better part of two weeks composing three well-thought out sentences which would hopefully impart to readers that it came from an intelligent and reasonable person and that the guests were indeed crap-guests.
I timed the submission to just short of midnight in my time-zone which was the same as the guests (the rental itself was in a different time-zone) and I pushed the Send button with vigor.
It must not have been the right calculation for the deadline because it never published.
I have carried those three sentences in my mind ever since…forever memorized.
I have and he is an actual artist (just got into 1 of the top 10 art schools in the world) & was a bit hypo as a kid (now more sloth-like) & if he ever painted on someone’s wall, he or I would sure fix it.
I remember now that he ‘redecorated’ a very good friends white leather sofa with black marker pen life drawings when he was about 8-10 having a sleep over (he even signed it) WTF He said it was ugly and he was trying to make it better and thought it was a spare as it was in the spare room. (It was ugly)
I only found out when leather repair companies he’d contacted started phoning me with quotes…I did buy the friend (who was equal parts amused/horrified/baffled) a new sofa.
Remember too that when you leave a review for a guest, you also have the ability to send private feedback to Airbnb. Plus there’s the thumbs up / thumbs down thing.
Although I don’t understand why hosts don’t want to leave honest reviews at least the system gives them the opportunity to tell Airbnb about poor guests and give them a thumbs down. I’ve left one or two real stinkers in this section,
I didn’t notice the drawings cause they are at different corners of my lounge. My husband spotted them. So I’m not sure if my guest noticed these drawings. My guests’ family came from overseas and it seems at least for one time, they took train and went to the city for sightseeing (when I went to fix the tap). The guest’s boyfriend was still working during the first 5 days of their 7-day stay so he probably only there at night time. My guest probably needed to do some work and left her kid unattended… that’s just my imagination, i tend to think positively about people.
Anyway I just discovered I got a review but I couldn’t read unless I review back. So I’m gonna write a review and mention the drawings.
Your son was cute and you are a very responsible mother I heard kids like to draw on the wall and I completely understand that because they are kids. I hope my future guests with kids can be as responsible as you, fix the problem for me or pay me to fix it.
The kid drew on the walls? I thought the parent may have taped a picture on the wall as a way to thank you.
No, that’s not acceptable. I don’t have any children either but I was a child once (even though I’ve often been told I was born a 40 year old woman); have friends/family with children; etc. They know better than that, and if they did do it, their parents would not be pleased.
I would definitely contact the guests and let them know that their kid defaced your walls. I would also leave it in the public feedback to them.
I agree fully with @jaquo and @KKC about reviewing guests being part of your job as a host. Just bloody do it. Having said that, I admit that I have not left reviews for a few guests when I did not take to them. They didn’t do anything bad or break any rules or leave the place untidy. I just REALLY didn’t like them. Other hosts may love them. The review system is eternally flawed in that respect, ie. the match between the host and guest. Some things I read on here where people say ‘omg slam them in the review!’ would just be normal shrug-shoulders stuff for me. For example, I don’t mind helping out guests with questions so I could leave a nice review for someone that would be a “nightmare high-maintenance” guest for someone else.
The other thing is the wonderful option of private feedback. If guests are nice enough but did some crappy things, like turning up early or late without notice or leaving the place a bit messy but not irretrievably so, then you can point these things out privately. I do this a lot, particularly with newbie guests. I appreciate it so much when guests leave a nice review and mention a few things in private feedback rather than publicly, so it’s only fair to do the same for guests.
And one last thing! Don’t forget that guests may check the reviews you leave for guests as part of their vetting process on whether to choose your place. I know everyone keeps saying “guests don’t read” or “guests don’t care” but there are still plenty of good ones out there who are very careful in their research over places to stay (I’m one of them!). For example, I once read a host review of a guest that said
“XX was a nice enough guest. We hope the blood stains found on the sheets was not due to anything serious”.
Would you book with someone that wrote something like that? Hell no.
I heard kids like to draw on the wall and I completely understand that because they are kids. I hope my future guests with kids can be as responsible as you, fix the problem for me or pay me to fix it.