Guest left 5 minutes after checking in saying it was too small and not good value

I had the same thought. Since you are not there they might as well spend there a night.

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I thought the same thing so the owner went around today and said they had left and the place was untouched. “Inconvenience” is a bit of an understatement!

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Poppy this is just weird.
Who knows what was going on with them.
I am curious why did you remodels appartment for just couples. ? I would think it would be more difficult to rent it than for more people.

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This one was set up as a two bedroom for 5 guests. I had concerns from the beginning as I believed it was too small for 5 people, but the owner was insistent that it was fine. She said things like: we have had heaps of people here for parties etc and it has been fine. But they aren’t paying a lot of money to be there, however at the end of the day I am just the manager. Then the reviews started coming in with people saying it was too small for 5 people!

She then decided to re-brand the place as a couple’s place as the one next door was going gang busters and every week I had people complaining that they couldn’t get into it and could they go on a waiting list. She put in a spa and turned the second bedroom into a gym and it has been going very well as for two people it’s very spacious.

The couple’s market seems to be so big. We also haven’t had any “issues” since we started taking only couples rather than groups, plus the cleaning is so much easier.

Interesting. I never thought in this direction. I had couple times couple renting my 4/2 pool house. They always paid the full amount as I would rent for 8 people. But it happened only twice when I had a minimum at 3 nights and it was of course weekend.

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I had exactly this situation happen twice last year, both checking out almost immediately with similar reasons. In both cases, it was abundantly clear that they the couple had had a domestic, with one partner using their “failed” expectations against the other. I was glad to be rid of them, called Airbnb immediately and paid no refund in either case.

On another tack, I have recently been researching 2 bed LTRs houses in Sydney. ( Yes, I can hear a few “what/whys”? But, no, I can’t say more yet… just a potential opportunity/new door opening.) My point is that I have not seen the term “villa” used to describe any property, whatsoever. I can imagine it perhaps applying to 4/5 bed detached houses in lush, plush suburbs, but not what you do describe.

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Earlier this year I was away for 3 months (live inner city Melbourne) and I couldn’t stand the drama of cleaners like last time I was away so I listed my house for 3 months only - I didn’t get any takers.

I get the European use of the word “villa” but here in Melbourne it is a term real estate agents use to describe renovated units.

I manage three of them and copied the term from the real estate agents ads that managed each of them as LTR’s prior to me.

does your villa look like any of these, first page of googling Australian villa

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The first thing that came to mind when you wrote your description was that they wanted to have a party.

  1. Place was too small
  2. The unit wasn’t a stand-alone private space.
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I have a fragrance allergy (not just a sensitivity) but I don’t expect my hosts to jump through hoops for me. I look for places without carpet and leather furniture. Then about 2-3 weeks before I arrive, I send them a polite message asking if they could launder in fragrance and dye free products and not use room deodorizers. I also offer it to buy the products or wash them myself when I arrive. I also tell them that I don’t expect it to be perfect but it helps me to minimize the scents.

On my trip in a couple of weeks, the host wasn’t able to accommodate my laundry needs but her products might be ok, For this trip my solution will be to grab some linens from my mom’s house if I find the products to be a problem. Sometimes, I bring my own products and wash or if I’m driving I just bring my own linens. The thing is, I try not scare or threaten my hosts but I also don’t disclose until after I have booked about my allergy.

For my suite, I do wash in fragrance and dye free products but the suite is not completely fragrance free. I offer guests to use my own products for cleaning (I have a cleaner where we use less expensive cleaning products) and to not use bleach but clearly state that it’s not 100% fragrance free to cover my liability.

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Nope, absolutely not!

I agree, I said to her: were you planning to have friends over for a party, as our house rules don’t permit parties?

Are you implying the issue is with my use of the word "villa’?

As you can see I can also use google:

It’s an unfortunate part of this forum that people try to find fault/blame with the person who has the issue rather than supporting, or in this case just taking an interest in how Airbnb handles this situation.

It is certainly not a forum for sensitive souls. Sometimes I wonder why I bother as I seem to spend most of the time defending myself.

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Just trying to help. If you google image just the word ‘villa’ you get the most grandest looking buildings.

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So are you trying to discredit my legitimate use of the word “villa” or take an interest in how Air decides what to do about a guest who checks in to a VILLA that has 117 5* reviews for accuracy with a superhost with a rating of 4.9* and 550+ reviews? Your interest in finding google images of “villas” instead of googling " villa meaning Australia" is not supportive but combative.

No wonder “lurkers” are too scared to pop their heads up.

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@Poppy - It seems to me that most of the owners here are supportive that this person had some other issue than your property (I’m one of them). But there isn’t much we can do to help - that’s between you and the guest and AirBnB,

I looked up the word villa, and it mentions that the British version can mean a suburban semi-detached home (what we would call a duplex in the U.S.). So perhaps that’s the same for Australia. However, AirBnB encourages us to underpromise and overdeliver, and many, many people have the picture of a large stand-alone home when they hear the word “villa”. So we are pointing out that some people may have a higher expectation than you think they should.

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Perhaps you can show a picture of the villa in your photos. I have a picture of my home but it’s one of the last in the photo reel. It documents what you are renting so that guests can come back and say they didn’t know.

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In this situation I am not looking for support. I thought other hosts might be interested in following how Air manages this situation.

You might have overlooked the Australian google definition of a villa that I posted earlier:

As I have said before I am not willing to open myself or the places I manage to the possibility of online sabotage.

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I didn’t miss it. It just wasn’t nearly as clear because the definition you posted was for the word “unit” and not the word “villa”. As you can tell, there is a lot of room for interpretation.

And yes, we are waiting to hear what happens. But in the meantime, we are assuming the guest wasn’t happy for some reason and are trying to figure out why. There must be something odd going on, because, as you said, $600 is a lot of money to walk away from unless you are pretty sure you are going to get a refund. Most everyone would shrug it off and stay inside. I’m wondering if they expected to hold a party and realized it wasn’t large enough, and are now going to complain it “wasn’t as advertised” to see if they can get a refund.

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