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Last week I had my first bad guests. They were pleasant people to interact with but they did enough damage that I made zero money by accepting their booking. It could have been worse–if I had had another guest arriving the day they left I would have been in a real pickle because I could never have gotten the house ready in time!
They left me a review almost immediately. Whether it will be a good one or a bad one, I don’t know. There was an issue that came up during their stay…the bathtub stopper linkage broke which caused the bathtub not to drain.
Here’s a draft of my review. Some of you are so much better at cutting to the chase and wording things factually than I am. If you have suggestions on the review, please do share. I appreciate any help or advice y’all have!
“I cannot recommend Kurt and his team to other hosts. While they were pleasant people and I enjoyed interacting with them, they did some damage. In the end, their stay cost me more than I made by accepting their booking.
There was a problem with the bathtub which I’m sure was an inconvenience to Kurt and his team. The bathtub drain stopper linkage broke due to corrosion, causing the plug to drop down into the drain, which prevented the water from draining out of the tub. Unfortunately, one of the guests had purple dye in her hair, and the water that would not drain from the tub had been turned purple by the hair dye. The purple water stained the tub, ruined a new bath mat I had just replaced the week before, and stained the bottom of the inner shower curtain. The guest also left purple streaks on our white towel. Cleaning the purple out of the tub was difficult and took a lot of scrubbing and quite a bit of time. The bath mat had to be thrown out. Fortunately the shower curtain came clean. The towel did not.
In addition to the issues because of the purple dye, we found a one to two inch rip in the top sheet of the King size sheet set. The rip was close to the top of the sheet, right where future guests could not fail to notice, and so that sheet set had to be removed from service. The sheets were purchased within the last two months so they were relatively new, not old and worn out. A replacement set cost us $80.
To clean the problems caused by the purple dye and replace the items which could not be repaired or cleaned cost more than we earned from their booking so I cannot recommend them to other hosts.”
It’s a long review, I know. Help in making it more succinct while ensuring the details are clear and correct would be much appreciated!
I think this is a difficult one as the main issue you complain about is due to the tub not draining because of a fault in the drain stopper, which is not down to the guest.
Having said that I agree that guests shouldn’t dye their hair at Airbnb’s (maybe add into your house rules). The other issues I think it is fine to mention. You can ask for recompense through the resolution centre for the damaged towel and linen.
Many hosts though would see damage to linens and towels as a cost of doing business.
“Cannot recommend Guest. They were nice enough but caused a lot of damage with purple hair dye that ruined a towel and bath mat, and took lots of extra labor to remove from the tub. Also a brand new King top sheet was ripped. Between replacing items and extra time spent cleaning, their visit cost more than we made.”
Would the guest damage mat if you didn’t have problem with water? You said : she had purple die in her hair. You mean she colored hair in your house or she just shedded ?
That’s why I don’t buy anything expensive for guests room. Things happen, to replace 25$ sheet set is not that painful as 80$.
Sorry but I have to say that I don’t really see what the guests did that was terribly wrong.
As reviews are there for the benefit of future hosts and not for guests, I don’t see that explaining the situation would be helpful to me.
The stains were removable and wouldn’t have been there if the bathtub had been properly maintained - there was no suggestion that the guests broke it (and why on earth would they?) Shower curtain liners, bathmats and towels are all cheap enough and damage to them should be considered as a cost of doing business.
So is the fact that a sheet gets damaged from time to time. This being said, I can’t imagine how a guest would rip a sheet. A sheet of reasonable quality just wouldn’t rip. Did you ask the guests about how it happened?
‘A lot of scrubbing’, ‘quite a lot of time’ and throwing things out are all pretty normal from time to time.
Personally,I feel that, from the information given above, you’re being too harsh with these guests when the problem was beyond their control.
I don’t understand this. If one sheet was damaged what does that mean to replace ‘the sheet set’? Replacing a sheet from time to time is pretty normal.
Bad guests might be too strong a term. Even though the stopper broke a guest should not allow the water to run over the edge of the tub. He or she should turn off the water as they see it topping up and call you for help. The water should have flowed out the overflow before spilling over the edge.
This and using purple dye is worthy of a mention. You don’t have to say they are bad guests, just state the facts. Hosts who have no issues with replacing things ruined by dye and torn sheets can make their own decision.
I repeat for the fourth time this week: Honest reviews please!
By the way, I had someone get blue dye on a towel and it eventually faded and washed out.
The sheets were a melon orange color. I could not buy an individual sheet to replace the single sheet that was damaged. It’s very rare to find individual sheets sold here…they are sold in “sets” that have a top sheet, a fitted sheet, and matching pillow cases. I don’t put mismatched sheets on the beds.
I mix and match all the time. I get every good deals on sheets at Wayfair.com. I registered there as business and get discounts in top of regular discounts.
I replace sheets regularly anyway at least twice a year. They get stained . A kid spills juice or female accident or other bodily fluids or they just look heavily used.
On w I had a girl guest who has body bronzer on . That was an event of me cleaning sheets and all furniture and floor from it
Theses guests, who stayed only 2 nights (my minimum), ruined one bathmat that was only a week old, one towel, and one sheet. They caused hours of cleaning and scrubbing. I didn’t get into all the details but they left the dirtiest house of any guests yet. They used almost every dish (service for 10), pot and pan. The stove took an hour to clean all by itself as it was a mess of grease splatters. The kitchen stank of cooking odors. It took two full loads of the dishwasher to wash all the dishes they left dirty. some of them had to be cleaned by hand because they didn’t come clean in the dishwasher because the guests didn’t rinse them before putting them in the dishwasher.
Aside from the tub issue–which is our fault although it’s not a thing that has ever broken on a tub in my lifetime and not a part you can see so you wouldn’t know it was about to break–aside from that they caused a lot more cleaning than normal and used a lot more supplies than guests normally do.
I know some people consider replacing linens as a cost of doing business. At this particular house, this is the third set of ruined sheets in 5 stays over 2 months; 2 or the 3 times it was the more costly King size sheets that were ruined. If this rate of linens damage keeps up, I will have to raise our prices to cover the losses.
If I had another booking that same day, the incoming guests would have been inconvenienced because the house would not have been ready at check-in time.
Yes, I am moving to all white. I’ve learned that’s best to do. These sheets were purchased new, two months ago, when I put the house on AirBnB and before I knew better. In the beginning I was buying sheets to match the bedroom decor. Recently I’ve gone to all white.
It’s not really a case of ‘considering’ it a part of doing business, it is. Bedding and towels will need to be replaced, even with the most perfect guests. They are business expenses as far as your accounts are concerned. Yes, you will have to raise your prices to allow for that. (It’s similar to the way that stores have an element added in for ‘shrinkage’ )
Ideally incoming guests shouldn’t be inconvenienced because most hosts have duplicated of everything. There often simply isn’t time to do the laundry especially when some items need soaking or scrubbing.
By far the best way. We have two rentals and use white for both for bedding and bathroom stuff. No pieces ‘belong’ to either apartment - because they are all white we can mixand match randomly.
I think you should. And with a whole house you have a little bit more wiggle room. If you raise the price $5 a night and book out 200 nights a year that should be enough (after taxes) for 5 new sets of king size sheets a year and one new towel set per month. On top of that do charge the guest if it’s extraordinary or negligent. For example, spilling coffee is an accident. Letting your 5 year old finger paint on the bed or dying hair purple is on purpose. If the guest won’t pay maybe Airnb with throw you a few crumbs.
Please mention all the extra cleaning in the kitchen as well!! That would make me decline them! I might live with hair-dyed towels, but the dirty greasy kitchen would send me over the edge.
We have two rentals and use white for both for bedding and bathroom stuff. No pieces ‘belong’ to either apartment - because they are all white we can mixand match randomly.