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It is rare that I am truly baffled with what to do about a review. The guests left the condo in OK shape and followed the house rules but were a PITA to deal with.
October 2018: Notified hot tub would be closed for repairs during their February stay. Husband wrote a terse message about it being unacceptable. I offered a full refund if he wanted to stay somewhere with a working hot tub. He didn’t cancel.
After arrival, the wife told me:
A. she didn’t realize the condo was the size of her dining room.
B. Her elliptical trainer would only fit on the porch. It was too cold at 70F /22C to use it outside.
C. Unhappy no weekly maid service. She did not come on vacation to clean.
D. Very unhappy we must take recycling to a center. However she didn’t want the address of the recycling center (8 min drive - very convenient, you pass by it when going to Little River dining & golf courses)
E. This condo was not acceptable by NY standards. (the rental is in South Carolina)
F. Her friends rented a larger, nicer place. Yes her friends paid more but I needed to know my condo wasn’t as nice.
I offered a full refund cancellation so they could find a place they liked better. They stayed.
My pictures are accurate. In the pre-booking message, I explained cleaning was not offered for long term stays and reminded them the condo was 650 square feet.
If it were not for the rude, spoiled behavior, I would leave my usual positive review. Technically they didn’t do anything wrong but I don’t want them back. Based upon my experience I don’t think they will be happy in any rental.
XX was unhappy with the size of our condo and would be better suited in a much larger place with daily maid service. Nothing but complaints from her I would not recommend hosting her.
That’s the part that tells you what to write. I would say exactly that - that the guests were fine in most respects but that they were complainers who probably wouldn’t like any rental they stayed in.
Sometimes you get a complainer when one partner was determined to try Airbnb but the other partner was adamant that they wanted a hotel but in this case, they both sound like pretty grumpy people. As a host, I’d want to know about their grumpiness and then decide from there how much I needed/wanted their business.
Yes—it looked sturdy but maybe 1/2 the size of a professional gym version. I was surprised. There are two very inexpensive gyms within a 5 to 8 minute drive that offer monthly memberships. They rented the full month of February.
I agree with RR’s review. I’d be shocked if you don’t have a bad one coming. I would have been so tempted to cancel the stay beforehand if I could do so without penalty, would the hot tub repair issue have qualified for a penalty free cancellation?
Maybe —-but by the time I was ready to be “done with them”, it was documented on the Airbnb thread they could “do without it”.
For me to offer a FULL refund on the 3rd day of their 28 day stay, I wanted them out.
In hindsight, I think @jaquo was correct…the husband wanted a cheap functional rental & wanted to try Airbnb. The wife wanted to stay at the more expensive & posh condos where their friends stayed. She was not going to be happy.
I pointed out that my monthly rental rate was very low compared to other 1 BR 1 BA condos in the area and I was probably going to increase my monthly rate.
She didn’t understand “southern smack down”. After she told me, my condo was smaller than her dining room, I asked if they had considered buying their own so she could have exactly what she wanted. Also I said something like, “Bless your heart having to make do in such a small space. After all, most people aren’t able to take 3 month vacations.” (Feb my place, March & April in Florida)
Did you offer to provide the service for a fee? Seems like a way for you to make a little extra revenue, maybe more than a little if you do it yourself. You should figure out how to make the service available for future guests.
I’ve had to do this before in Europe. I wouldn’t complain about it, but it puts me off. If a host can arrange for cleaning, they can arrange for garbage/recycle pickup.
Unfortunately, this is the real problem and there’s likely nothing you can do at this point to change what the guest is going to write.
I’d say you’re lucky she didn’t understand because if she did, it could only have made things worse.
You’ve proactively and accurately described your listing to the guest in the ad and through your MT communications. Size, cleaning, their opinion that it’s not up to par, etc is their right to state even though it’s completely a PITA situation and out of your control. All I can suggest is a review like KKC wrote will warn future hosts and if they post a negative review of your listing, be sure to accurately respond so other potential guests looking to book can see the issue and how you responded. Most guests, who actually read the damn listing, can understand some guests just keep their noses higher than others and won’t pay much attention. Best of luck!
B & B (I will use their names) stayed at my 650 sq ft1BR 1BA condo for 28 nights. They respected my house rules and left the condo clean & in good shape. Based upon multiple comments from B, they would have been happier in a larger condo, offering cleaning services, and offering more amenities.
In October after notifying them the Hot Tub would be closed for maintenance during their stay and after hearing B’s concerns, I offered a full refund so they could move to better fitting accomodations.
perfect! That is a very honest opinion that doesn’t “bash” either side of the conflict and shows future guests/hosts something happened during reso but was resolved.
Hot tub being down is outside of the host control. Call in to support, give them the reso # you’re concerned with and have them note the hot tub will be unavailable. They will reach out to guest and verify if they’re okay with it or not. If not, the reso will be CBA (no action against either party) and money refunded. Yes you lose a reso and payout, but you save your reviews if the guest booked property because of being able to use hot tub and you avoid a mid-reso alteration or cxl due to listing having an amenity missing or unusable. IF that were to happen then it would be a CBH because you failed to inform Airbnb about it and it was an issue the guest experienced that could’ve been avoided.
