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I provide my guests with an array of snacks, soda and bottled water. Usually the snacks and water are gone through, but this last guest drank ALL the coke. They even took the 24pk I use to fill the fridge in for the next guest. Wtf. I know I shouldn’t put it out if I don’t want someone to drink it, but it was in the pantry. She also ruined my white towels with her make up, even though there is a “make up towel” directly on the counter and extras in the linen closet. Not to mention individually wrapped & disposable make up remover wipes under the bathroom sink. I think I officially have my first pissed off by a guest badge. Rant over.
And took an entire case of Topo Chico Seltzer from the pantry.
I only provide a snack basket. I buy the goodies a few days before their arrival. I don’t keep any extras there. Only extras there in the pantry are: tea, coffee, hot chocolate packets, cream and sugar.
I don’t provide any beverages except for special bookings. If I know it’s a birthday I’ll leave a bottle of wine with chocolates and if it’s an anniversary I’ll leave a bottle of champagne.
I also leave wine and chocolates if they’re European guests and I don’t provide the snack basket because from past experience, I noticed they never really eat any of it.
I think you’re being too generous and this past guest took advantage of you. Just leave snacks and don’t offer any beverages.
Thanks for your reply.
I guess I’m trying to figure out if I leave a negative review. Especially since the items were in fact there & not locked up. The guest had great reviews, so its going to look off if I say something bad. Not to mention there were several guests and no way to tell who did what exactly.
Also, I appreciate you saying I’m too generous. I probably am. But we host lots of race car drivers and they work late and get up early & they often eat much of what’s in the basket. But never have I noticed them getting into the back stock.
I agree. All pre packaged, in date items. I guess I just never had someone clean me out of all the sodas. They usually take a few. Waters usually gone. But it’s Florida and I expect it.
You’re right… the towels are just part of it, but she tried to hide them under a pile. I don’t know, just not the way I would conduct myself
Thanks for your comment.
It’s hard to understand the thought process of people who do this. Like you or your cleaner aren’t going to notice it when you do the laundry.
I once did a sofa upholstery job for a client, who insisted she wanted white fabric, even though I tried to talk her out of it. The very first set of renters spilled red wine on the cushions, never mentioned it, just flipped the cushions over, as if no one would ever remove the cushions and clean under them, or take the covers off to wash, and therefore never be aware of the damage.
If you are certain that the number of guests and the number of days they stayed couldn’t possibly have resulted in them actually consuming that many drinks during their stay, and just made off with your extra supplies, I wouldn’t be shy about mentioning it. No direct accusations, just something like, “I was rather surprised after the guests checked out to see that my storage area where I keep supplies for upcoming guests was completely absent of an entire case of seltzer, an unopened 24 pack of coke, in addition to the unpackaged ones stored there and the soft drinks I had provided for this group. Either they drink a great deal of soft drinks or they assumed that everything in the unit they didn’t consume could be taken with them.”
But I will say that if you simply assumed no guests would do this, without making it clear, with a note on the storage cupboard or a lock, that this is private host storage, you could let it go and just take it as part of the hosting learning curve.
While some guests might figure it’s okay to take the 3 unused rolls of toilet paper out of the 5 you left, just like they’d throw the unused hotel soaps or little bottles of shampoo in their bag, guests who help themselves to cases of stored supplies either know they are stealing, or are incredibly stupid to assume it was all left for them.
Just sharing a similar story here. I provide a drawer of quick snacks that I regularly refill with discount items at the store. I also provide 8 of those small ice creams cups in the freezer. During check-in I do say to make yourself at home and I have had 150+ reservations at this property, buuuuuutt one group of guests ate all the snacks and ice cream, I also sell beverages which they drank all of, then told my cleaner they thought it was too expensive ($104 total) and left her $18 and told her not to tell me. Then they left me a 4-star review and said they wouldn’t come back, it was too expensive.
Lol. After just 6 months of hosting, I’d have to agree. We have another STR out of town that someone else cleans for us & she said the same thing. We aren’t ALL wrong
My head is spinning! I can’t believe they would have the audacity to choose their price with the cleaning fee. I would’ve been outraged. I’m sorry you had to deal with that. I guess someone has to make up for the guests who barely touch a thing.
I have to admit… on top of already being told I’m too generous… I love the ice cream idea!
One thing I would do for sure, even if you let it go as far as mentioning in the review, is private message the guests (after the review period is over, so they don’t leave a revenge review) to tell them that “shopping” at an Airbnb, in the form off walking off with the host’s stored supplies, isn’t okay. That it should be common sense to realize that cases of products in a storage cupboard aren’t meant to be packed up and driven off with.
People can be the worst.
We had a business friend stay at our Airbnb when it was first up and running. He told us to supply more towels. I’m like how many more than 12 sets of towels do you need for 2 nights?
He never even opened the linen closet right in the hall way, next to his room.
Can’t imagine someone would break into anything.
Yeah, but they do. I’ve read many posts over the years from hosts who had guests break into locked cupboards and locked rooms. Some of the time the guests didn’t even take or use anything, they just apparently were uncontrollably burning with curiosity to find out what was behind the lock.
On the other hand, I’ve been renting a private room/bath in my home, with shared kitchen use, since 2016 and even though nothing is locked off, even my bedroom, I’ve never had a guest help themselves to anything. Occasionally they might say, “Hey, I used some of your milk this morning, I hope you don’t mind- I’ll replace it when I go to the store later”.
I could tell from the Ring doorbell she was kind of miserable person. She was complaining about ants and bugs (outside) & her husband said “well, I guess that’s how things are in Florida on a lake”. I was thankful the guy made some sense of it.
We have a different STR out of state and in the listing it specifies that there is a room behind a door that is labeled “private” and is under video surveillance. It even says that’s it’s private storage for the owners. People still open the door and look to see what’s in there. It cracks me up.
There is a hot water heater & another door in that room, we keep locked with our personal items & back stock.
Well, even if you mention it in the review, reviews are blind, so the guest can’t write a retaliation review because they don’t see your review until the reviews are published, or 14 days is up, and they have missed the review deadline.
So if you wait to contact a guest about something unacceptable they did until the reviews are published, or the 14 days is over, a revenge review is impossible.
The most revenge they could take is if they left you a nice review, to ask Airbnb to remove it. But they can’t change it.
Usually when hosts refer to retaliation reviews, it’s that the guests were called out on bad behavior during the stay, so just assume the host will leave them a bad review, and therefore leave a bad review for the host.
And if the guest assumes they’ll get a bad review because they know they left the place a disaster area or stole or broke things, and write a bad review to counter that, there’s nothing you can do to avoid that. All you can do is leave a response to set their lies straight for future guests.
I’m not sure about the optional comment to guest section at the end of the review… do you know if that portion is held back until after the other party reviews or 14 days?
That’s what I was referring to when I said revenge. I was using the term out of place bc I didn’t have a negative experience with her what so ever (until after checkout).
I don’t know when guests are privy to that “private feedback” when you submit a review.
If I wanted to let a guest know that their bad behavior didn’t go unnoticed, or educate them as to what is and isn’t acceptable after they checked out, I wouldn’t use that private feedback box- I would just send them a regular Airbnb message after the review period was over.
