Draft review - suggestions?

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Hi folks. Wanted to tap the awesomeness of this group and get some feedback on a draft review I’ve already written. The guest left a couple of days ago so I have plenty of time. I know she’s already left us a review and I expect it will be positive given the messages in Airbnb and our interactions.

Here’s the part that makes it a little different than the 100+ reviews I’ve done before. I will probably run into this woman in the grocery store and around our small town as she’s here a couple of weekends a month visiting grandparents, and their place is a half mile away. This town is SUPER small. I only found that out once she arrived as her town shows a couple of hours away, so she wasn’t a “local” and therefore my antenna didn’t go up when she booked her girls weekend.

The four women are all mommas and so they aren’t kids, but they definitely came to party. No problem, we don’t mind folks having a good time, and they did! Drinking morning to night and loud but not over the line…very close, but not over. Where they went over the line was when two in the party (not the person who booked) broke two house rules – smoking on the property and having an unapproved guest come over.

I saw the pack of cigs on our dock, so there’s my proof on that one. And as for the unapproved guest, we came home at 9:30 at night to find a dude standing outside our front door with his two kids and a case of beer. The worst part is my neighbor was in our shared driveway and witnessed the whole interaction of us (nicely) kicking them off the property. We have a good relationship with the neighbor and doing Airbnb is no secret but still…

Back to the mommas…here’s what I’ve drafted as the review. I will give her 3 stars for house rules. BTW, when I messsaged her (in the app) about the guy in our driveway and our neighbors concern, she immediately apologized and said she’d handled it. The ladies had gone to a local bar to party, so they weren’t here.

It’s clear to me the woman who booked didn’t go over the house rules. My lesson is that I will go over them with everyone in a similar kind of situation when they first arrive. I’m not surprised she didn’t, but even my 22 year old daughter said “when she emailed the link the house rules are there to be read!” Love her for that…she’s got a good head on her shoulders.

So here’s the draft:

“NAME booked our place for a girls weekend, left it tidy, and was good with communication overall. However, her friends broke house rules by having an unregistered/unapproved guest show up and smoking on the property. As a first-timer on Airbnb, with closer attention to house rules she could be an excellent guest.”

My husband and daughter think it’s a fair review, but is there something else we should consider? Does it provide enough insight for you, as other hosts, to make a decision? I had a young guest with several reviews, one was like this, and I took a chance, overcommunicated and he was excellent guest.

Thoughts? Comments? TIA

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Let. It Go.

Not worth the effort, they left the place in good shape and someone smoked on the dock, not likely to cause a fire. Not even the booking guest.

RR

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I think a lot depends on if you would host them again. If so, I wouldn’t give them the public shout out. I’d stick with “NAME booked our place for a girls weekend, left it tidy, and appeared to have a good time.”

Privately I’d mention that since Airbnb is different for a standard hotel stay, I recommend checking the house rules carefully and providing them to each of her guests. And thank her for choosing you as her first Airbnb! (end on a positive)

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Thank you both for your counsel; that’s why I put it out here. (edited to add: I would not book the same group again; maybe the booker and her family, but def not all four of them.) My first reax was to “not recommend” but in actuality the women were likeable, just a bit of a PITA (pain in the ass.) The smoking on the dock @RiverRock isn’t a huge deal; it’s more the guy in our driveway and when he said, “let me go get my stuff” after being asked to leave (which was the beer he’d hidden down the stairs). @Terryathome I like your approach. I will not let. it. go. completely as the booker needs some education in how to be a good guest. Maybe the private feedback is the way to go.

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I think that’s a great idea to go with the private feed back. The fact that the guest apologized and said she would take care of it says she wants to follow your rules and immediately acted. I would compare that to when we as a host have an issue turn up and deal with right away - we appreciate the guest not holding it against us. I personally wouldn’t ding any stars and would host them.

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[quote=“Atlnative, post:1, topic:33969”]
“NAME booked our place for a girls weekend, left it tidy, and was good with communication overall. However, her friends broke house rules by having an unregistered/unapproved guest show up and smoking on the property. As a first-timer on Airbnb, with closer attention to house rules she could be an excellent guest.”
[/quote]

I think this is a perfectly good review. It’s short, tells the facts, and is not emotional. You might change the phrase “However, her friends broke…” to something like “However, other people in the party broke…”

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Thanks @KenH for your feedback. I think other hosts should be armed with information to make decisions. My first reaction/review was more negative until I realized I’d see her in the grocery store, so I thought what would make me comfortable looking her in the eye? I know she can’t control other adults, but then maybe an in-home hosting situation is not what she should do again for her girls weekend the next time.

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So I decided to go with the tepid public response and clicked “no” on whether I’d recommend her as a guest and then used the private section to explain to her the implications of breaking house rules (cause for cancellation of her reservation and impacts hosts ability to operate when neighbors complain, which ours did.) Now that i’ve submitted my review I was able to see hers and thought those who had helped would want to see it too:

Beautiful place right on the water!!! Literally all you need to bring is your clothes. Mike and Peggy do an outstanding job making sure you have everything you need. Quick responses and outstanding communication!!!

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