Finally happened, guest that needs a bad review

21

I am getting ready to write my first bad review of a guest too! But, for different reasons. He didn’t damage anything, left everything neat and tidy, and even brought us a gift when he arrived. Sweet, huh?

It was his clueless behavior and treating me like his 24-hour personal concierge/travel secretary that made him so irritating. The first – and the worst – was the first night he stayed. He came barreling into the house at around midnight after my partner and I had gone to bed (it was a weeknight) shouting ‘HELLO? Anybody home? Hello?’

Okay…he woke us up, but I pretended I didn’t hear him, hoping he would take the hint that we were in bed and shouldn’t be bothered, But, he kept shouting my name through the bedroom door.

‘What is it?’ I said finally opening the door thinking there must be an emergency. ‘Is everything all right?’

No emergency. He just wanted to know if I had a printer, because he needed to print his theme park tickets. Don’t have one, I told him. But, i am sure you can figure something out. Good night.

‘Oh, were you sleeping?’ he asked.

Yes, you moron. That’s what people are generally doing around midnight on a Wednesday when they are not on holiday.

‘I was…’ i said awkwardly.

‘Oh…sorry…sorry.’ He said and retreated to his room. So…did he get the message that I wasn’t thrilled about being woken up? Apparently not. About 20 minutes later, came out the hallway again and start shouting my name. ‘Hello? HELLO?’

‘WHAT?’ I said coming out into the hallway and this time not even trying to fake concern. He held us his empty water bottle and asked where he could get more water.

(Are you f**king kidding me?)

‘Uh…there is water in the kitchen,’ I told him awkwardly…just puzzled by the whole situation.

Needless to say after that I was counting the seconds until he left. And, he wasn’t done with me. Add to the list that…

  • He decided without asking me to give my mobile phone number to the Super Shuttle company because they needed a ‘local number’ (Huh? What the what?)…so i got all his stupid reminder calls all day and then sent him texts saying ‘hey…your shuttle is coming.’
  • When the day before check out came (thank god) I reminded him that i wouldn’t be home during the day, but he could leave his keys in the mail slot. Thanks for coming…blah blah…professional professional…then it got all awkward…he asked , because his flight to China didn’t leave until 10 PM…and I said ‘Well…I’m not sure I’ll be home…I have dinner plans…anyway check out time is noon, and I have another guest coming. Have a nice trip!’ ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Well, what am I supposed to do with my luggage?’ (Well…maybe plan a little better next time you idiot…this ain’t my problem.) Again…awkwardly, I said…well, I guess you could hold onto your keys until you need to come and get your luggage (GRRRRRRRR!)
  • Okay, usually I don’t mind if someone wants to leave their bags in my foyer if they have a late flight, but I hated this guy and only let him keep the keys, because i never wanted to see him again. But, of course I had no choice BUT to see him again. Usually leaving the bags means you come by with a taxi, zip in and grab your bags, and say goodbye. Not this guy. He comes back at 9 PM, an hour before his shuttle was due and decided just to lounge in my living room, charge his phone, use my restroom, and irritate me with small talk (I ended up having to hide in my room most of the time).

I just really, really, really, really hated this guy and cannot not in good conscious recommend him to any host ever. So…working on a professionally-worded review that doesn’t necessarily go into all this detail but still makes clear that this guy is clean and won’t damage anything but otherwise is a horrible guest.

Just thought I would share with y’all as I know you will appreciate it. :slight_smile:

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22

Oh, my gosh…words fail me!!! Good Bye Good Riddance!!!

23

Homesharing with strangers sounds very tough. It sounds like personal boundary issues are a recurring theme among those who host in their own homes. It’s a confusing issue, in a way, because there’s no real model for it. People are even called “guests.”

If an invited guest of mine (like a relative) was staying at my house and any of those things happened, I would not think there was any that unusual - I would really want them to make themselves at home. The very idea that paid “guests” are free to walk in and around your home at all opens up a whole bunch of gray areas.

The fact that a stranger has that kind of access to your personal space might lead certain personalities into thinking you have welcomed them (and maybe like them) more than you actually have - especially if you are trying to be nice when they first cross the line. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the situation is really confusing and I can see how it could snowball. It would so FREAK me OUT to have strangers coming to my bedroom at night that I’m actually feeling a panic attack creep up just typing this out. Breathe…

24

When i first started hosting more than a year ago,i had 3 people staying with me who were somewhat what Jackulas describes. Cooking for hours a day, shouting from first floor to the second, doing endless laundry with just few items of clothes, never taking their garbage out, sitting in a living room all evenings, watching TV. I was new then with only 6 reviews and i was heavily depending on this income from Air, and not only i was afraid to say something but also did not know how. The situation was so weird and exausting that the last 2 days before they left i slept in my friend’s house to just not deal with these people anymore.

I came on this site asking all kind of questions and being very much doubtful that i can do it al all.
I changed wording on my listing many times, cooking rules, breakfast and so on.

Now after 75 5* reviews, and 200 guests, i have no problem voicing my concerns right away.
I tell my guests to stop door slamming, read the rules when they ask me about cooking and laundry, keep in mind that we are living in a house too and they have TV in their room, (there is no need to sit in our living room and watch it). I say these things as this is the only possible way for me to keep on hosting. I need to be comfortable in my own house.

I just had a young woman staying with me for 2 days. She was really a very nice woman, but i am glad she only stayed 2 nights. She did so many things “wrong” and at the same time was so sweet and polite and pleasure tot alk to. S, how do you review someone like that??
She smoked on a backyard, ash all over windows, she used 6 towels within 2 days, taking 3 showers a day. She sharpened her eyeliner, pieces of it all over bathroom floor. She change her bed with sheet set she found in a closet without any reason, leaving me with no clean sheets for another guest. She would not check out though i gave her 3 extra hours, and wanted to leave her bags in her room while new guests were arriving.
She was trying to eat sitting on my couch, i sent her to dining table. She put hot tea cup straight on a night stand , not on a cover that was right there and left a permanent spot on it , i was glad i bought it second hand for pennies.
She asked to do several loads of laundry though my rules state only 2 loads a week, after 5 days stays to prevent exactly that.She warmed up her meal in little owen and never cleaned splashes from it and then spilled some on counter top and floor leaving it to me to clean. I asked her to please clean up after herself.
I told her so many times NO, that i was dreading her next question. ANd she did not have a car, so she stayed in a house most of the time, only going for walks and then taking a shower after every walk:)
At the same time she was so good natured, smiley, shy and soft spoken that i could not help myself but like her.
I was relieved when she left, but how do i leave a bad review for someone like her? The sweetest person who did so many things wrong.
Gray areas can stop being grey if a host speaks out. It might seem like it can be not polite at first but there are ways to point out to someone who walks all over house , shouts at night and hangs out in your living room. One of my lines is that there are other people in a house and they need their piece and quiet. I put in my rules even to give each other as much privacy as possible and use common areas sparingly. Guests do things like that mostly because they are clueless. Usually when they are told, the problem is solved

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25

Oh Jack… That’s horrendous… I’m speechless for once.

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26

Ha ha! And, you always know what to say. I shall wear this as a badge of honor. :slight_smile:

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27

It’s not normally this bad. 99% of my guests have the common sense not to behave the way this clown did. his behavior was just too unacceptable for me to leave the standard ‘read-between-the-lines’ type of review, i.e., ‘We thank X for choosing to stay with us and wish him well on his travels.’

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28

Oh heck… I wouldn’t leave a read-between-the-lines review.

But I would review this guest. What a nightmare… Wait the standard two weeks and do it right at the end. Let us know what you say. This should be good. :smiling_imp:

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Oh, I will. He booked on Mister BnB, and they allow up to 21 days to review. not sure if I can wait that long!

30

I wrote my bad review. The first time I wrote one this negative. I just couldn’t pull any punches with this one. I just KNOW y’all can’t wait to read what I wrote, so here it is:

I don’t think Daniel is well suited for the sharing economy. For some reason he thought it was okay to wake me up in the middle of the night by calling my name through a closed bedroom door (never mind that I had to work early in the morning). Thinking it was an emergency, I responded, and it turned out it was just to ask inane questions like ‘do you have a printer?’ and ‘where can I get water?’ He also took a lot of liberties like giving out my contact information to the shuttle company without asking and returned eight hours after check-out time while I had already checked in another guest to lounge in my living room, charge his phone, use the restroom, because apparently it was my problem that he didn’t have a plan for his what do with his luggage before his late hour flight. It was an awkward and irritating experience, and for that reason, I cannot recommend him as a guest.

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31

Well done! Honest and factual. Love the first sentence.

32

Thanks. In his private feedback by the way, I said ‘I think a hotel with 24/7 desk service would be better suited to your traveling style.’ Again…not mean-spirited, just honest feedback that I hope he takes to heart. Pray that he doesn’t harass me. I am not sure what Mister’s policies are on guests’ being able to contact past hosts. :slight_smile:

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33

I don’t know, if I’m going to be honest, I think that saying things like “inane” sound a little cruel and make you seem emotionally charged and could work against you.

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34

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback. Can you think of a better word to use to describe a question like “where can I get water?” from a guest who just woke you up in the middle of the night and who does not appear to be dying of dehydration?

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35

I would classify that as either inconsiderate or socially unaware.

36

I want to add that I think that your first sentence plus your last sentence covered it sufficiently and professionally.

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37

There are some extra words in that sentence; It should probably read something like “…didn’t have a plan what do with his luggage…”.

Regards, Faheem Mitha

38

I prolly should have clarified that I wasn’t looking for feedback, since this was already posted. Just shared for the hell of it. Thanks for your thoughts though. The type-o notwithstanding, I stand by what I wrote. This guy’s behavior was so egregious, it just wasn’t sufficient to do the usual polite review. Other hosts need to know.

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39

I don’t get what the extra words are? “Plan what to do…” is an incomplete sentence. Just an english major being silly.

40

Jackulas,

Your guest reminds me of a person who I used to be friends with that used to push boundaries in every area of her life. It was really passive agressive behavior. This person would get fired from every single job claiming to be the victim and how she did nothing wrong. It was like some sort of mental disorder where she would test what she could get away with. I don’t know if Narcisstic Personality Disorder would be the correct term. But this person would do intentional things and play the innocent card.

Example…OOPS I accidentally hit your vehicle bumper when I pulled my car into the drive…didn’t mean to do it. Or “Oh sorry…I forgot you told me not to call the landline after 10 p.m. since your roommate is sleeping.” Or “oops…accidentally just spilled part of my beer on the couch pillow of your friend’s couch who said it was okay to stop by and visit you” - one of the final straws was when I went back to my hometown and a bunch of people met at a Mexican restaurant. Many of the people didn’t know each other. But I was so engrossed in a conversation with my childhood friend that we kind of skipped eating and just kept sucking down Maragaritas. Well i went to the restroom and someone else told me she instructed the waiter to throw away my to go box. Well my to go box had my entire meal in it. I confronted her and she just played innocent. Finally I turned her onto facebook and voila! - Never heard another peep from her. Must be getting attention elsewhere.