Guest ticked at my review

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We’re going into slow season, and the last group was over Labor Day long weekend. Because there isn’t another group arriving for nearly 4 weeks, we came to the house when it was convenient - 1 1/2 weeks after they checked out.

Here is the list of rules not followed:
-I found 2 airbed boxes, though I made up 11 separate beds for 12 guests, including 3 queen.
-They had too many cars (there is a limit in our area). Additional cars parked illegally.
-Left the front door, 3 other doors and all windows open/accessible.
-Left many lights on.
-Left dirty dishes in dishwasher, pots/pans put away unwashed.
-Garbage left inside and outside (against bylaws due to animals).
-Noise after cutoff.
-Hot tub at 1:30am (hours are to 10pm)
-Left nearly 2 hours late. I allowed early check-in, they didn’t ask for late departure.

Based on advice on here, I waited until the last morning to leave a review. I only said “the group didn’t abide by our rental policies”. I gave 3* for condition of house because they left garbage inside and outside, and the kitchen had dirty dishes everywhere. 1* for obeying the rules.

I left private feedback letting them know they left the house unsecured for 10 days. There was mold in the dishwasher due to it not being run. Garbage and food on plates in the kitchen made the house smell. I also noted that bylaws have contacted me about their stay and our license is in jeopardy, and to be mindful of people’s policies when renting homes in future.

He didn’t review us. He’s new to Air, and his only other review came in after I accepted his. It is 2.5*

He wrote back to me and said "too bad you waited for 10 days to check the house. I paid $xxx for cleaning. He insisted he didn’t have additional guests, even though there at least unregistered children, if not more.

He quoted $200 more than what we charged, which doesn’t include garbage and kitchen cleaning. We subsidize the cleaning and it is lower than what most whole-home rentals charge.
He seems to think that it is our fault for not arriving earlier and cleaning up and securing the house.

I have written him a detailed letter with all of the other things that he didn’t follow that I didn’t mention previously so as not to look so picky. But his entitled attitude makes me want to let him know the many ways that he could improve. The worst thing is the many rules he broke, and the irresponsible attitude afterward.

He shouldn’t be renting vacation homes.

I thought I’d run it by here first to see what advice y’all would give on this. Thanks in advance!

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You have multiple issues here and are probably spending too much time on this one guest… Some of the disaster could have been avoided by checking the rental sooner. It doesn’t excuse the behavior but you might have saved yourself a messy situation. I don’t understand exactly how or when you became aware of the children, parking, etc. If you were aware when they were there, you should have addressed it then. Do the any residents who complain about things like after hours use know how to reach you to bring these things to your attention more immediately? The only thing I would cut some slack on for sure is the air mattress boxes. Some people use them if they find beds uncomfortable or they could have been preparing to go camping after leaving you. You just don’t know and can’t prove that they were used for extra people.

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I don’t quite understand what you are asking for here. You already left a review and privately messaged the guest. What more is there to do?
This certainly doesn’t sound like the kind of guest who is open to learning anything about being a good guest and taking responsibility, so don’t waste anymore time on him. He now has 2 terrible reviews and no sane host will rent to him again.

Waiting a week and a half to check on your property after a check-out, especially a long weekend holiday booking when people are in party mode, seems quite odd. If you don’t live close enough to go to your rental right after guests check out, you really need to employ someone who lives closer by to do so.

Also, it sounds like neighbors phoned the police or the city. Do your neighbors not have your phone number to alert you to bad things or disturbances going on? Do you not have cameras to see who and how many people are entering? No offense, but you sound a bit naive and lackadaisical about how you manage your rental. Maybe you’ve just never had a bad experience before, but it’s obviously time to tighten your systems up.

Also, you can ask guests to dispose of the garbage properly, wash their dishes, lock the doors, and so on, and review and rate them poorly if they don’t, but assuming they have done all those things and that there isn’t any rotting garbage in the house or dirty dishes and that therefore you can wait 10 days to check on the house is rather foolish.

You have mentioned before that your cleaning fee doesn’t include the kitchen and dealing with garbage, but I have to say I have never heard of such a thing.

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Ahhhh just like the good old days…

In the beginning, I remember coming to the forum seeking genuine help and getting nothing but snobby, condescending advice from the so called ‘experts’ loool.

OP the guest didn’t follow your house rules, you reviewed him and left private feedback. After that, no further engagement is required.

If they get hostile in any messages, simply block and report them to Airbnb.

Also if you have cameras, keep an image of the individuals in case they or a friend try to book.

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I agree with you on getting the “snobby condescending advice fro the so called experts.” My experience, as well.

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I don’t consider myself an expert, just experienced. I don’t think anyone here considers themselves to be an expert. If I were an expert I could run a youtube channel loaded with ads or make a course and charge $4000. Here, one gets great advice for free. Yes, it comes with a ladle of snark at times. But everyone here is trying to help their fellow hosts with the gift of their time to read and respond to the questions. When someone pays for advice, they often get told what they want to hear. One sometimes gets what they need to hear on the forum.

Waiting 10 days to check on a rental is not best practices for a host. Why should anyone post something supportive of that? No one is excusing the guest, we are simply saying to the OP and anyone reading who hasn’t made this mistake but might…don’t do it.

Back to @CanadianHost, if you are going to run a rental and not check it immediately at check out time, you are increasing your risks, possibly exponentially. This could have been so much worse.

I wish your review had been more detailed. As a fellow host I don’t know what your rental polices are. Lots of hosts have policies that don’t matter to me at all. But thanks for at least giving him the well deserved bad review.

In my experience, people with these kinds of entitled attitudes aren’t going to change. He doesn’t think he did anything wrong. Don’t waste any more time on him.

You might be better served by tweaking your house manual or check out message to make it clear to guests (if you don’t already) that they need to take the garbage out, turn off everything, lock windows and doors. Also, if you see on your cameras that a group isn’t moving to check out on time, then message them a reminder. If someone has too many guests, address it when they arrive.

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Are these ‘official’ House Rules or just a list somewhere in the home? “Left many lights on”? Do you have a House Rule about leaving lights on? The reason I mention it is that without guidance, sadly, guests ‘treat your home like they would their own’ which could be living like a hoarder or a teenager. My feeling is that you might have left a sheet of paper with these ‘rules’ somewhere; don’t expect a guest to memorize them.

If YOU left the house not secured (the guest has responsibility only until the end of their stay, not afterwards) and through your negligence let food rot and mold form, then I totally understand why a guest would reply “too bad you waited for 10 days to check the house.” Whatever happened after they left is sadly on you. An the guest, in MY opinion, is correct: “He seems to think that it is our fault for not arriving earlier and cleaning up and securing the house.”

Writing a ‘detailed letter’ is also bad airbnb host practice - keep all correspondence on the message app if you want it to be considered. He seems to understand where his responsabilites end and yours begin - you should use this as a learning experience so that in the future you have clear expectations of your guests - and a way to react to situations. Many here on this forum will tell you that the moment your house capacity was passed, you should have acted.

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Entitled people who obviously showed no respect for your property and give snotty retorts when called out on it are not interested in improving.
The type of guest who can benefit from and may be open to learning how they can improve, are polite, friendly 18 year olds whose mommies cleaned up after them and simply don’t know how to do so themselves yet nor what is expected of a good guest.

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We note most of these things in our policies which they sign before approving the rental. It is also sent in our Welcome Package, and a list is also left at the house. They’ve seen it three times.

So leaving the house secured is one of the things that was known (and should be expected) as was removal of garbage and cleaning the kitchen. It has been discussed on another topic about at least running the last load of dishes, and washing your cooking provisions - I don’t think we’re out of touch asking people to do this so it doesn’t attract insects and critters.

We live about 3 hours from the rental, and we while I try to come in a.s.a.p. or have my cleaners go in sooner, none of could be there earlier with fall gearing up. If that excuses a guest from leaving without locking up and not following rules, then we’d have to agree to disagree. I would NEVER do this to another host.

We have outdoor cameras, and yes, I did address the guest on the spot. Yes, the neighbors have my contact info.

It was helpful to hear from a couple of people that the guest will never take responsibility and it isn’t worthwhile saying anything else to him. I will leave it with him feeling that he did everything right while other hosts will know not to book to him.

Thank you for all of the input.

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I don’t think anyone would suggest that guests are excused from following the rules they agreed to and reasonable check-out instructions.

But it isn’t realistic to simply assume and trust that guests have done what you asked them to, because not all of them will, as you sadly found out. That is just one of the realities of hosting.

I think the point Rolf was making was not that the guest should be excused from being so disrepectful, but that since some guests don’t follow instructions, it doesn’t make sense to just assume the guests cleaned up and locked the place, and that waiting 10 days to check out the property was what caused the place to smell awful from the garbage and be left unsecured all that time. Obviously had you arrived the day of check-out, that could have been avoided.

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I agree- except for your “no sane host would accept him” piece.

That guest, with a 3star status can instant book any host. Host can only decline a booking if it comes thru instant book or get dinged on their superhost status……

AirBnB gets hosts coming and going. They work us hard to lower our fees, be more accommodating, etc but do absolutely nothing to vette or set expectations for guests.

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That is totally incorrect. Booking requests can most certainly be declined and Acceptance rate is not one of the criteria for Superhost.
However, if you decline too many requests, Airbnb will send warning messages saying you’ll be suspended if you continue to decline.

But there are ways to avoid declining a guest you don’t want, such as letting the guest know that their stated needs don’t jive with what you provide, and asking them to withdraw the request so they can look for something more suitable, for instance. Or in the case of the guest who is the subject of this thread, just be honest and say that based on his previous reviews, you will not be accepting his booking, and then hope he just cancels the request before the 24 hr. window you have to accept or decline.

And while I agree that Airbnb should do more to educate guests about proper guest behavior, it is up to hosts to learn how to vet guests and set expectations. I’m not going to rely on Airbnb to vet my guests- I rely on other hosts to leave honest reviews, I communicate with guests before accepting their booking, and make my own expectations clear, which may be different from other hosts’ expectations. And I have never had a bad guest.

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FACTS! “you can’t always get what you want”, now i’ve got that song going around in my head

and it’s not your place to help people “improve”. I absolutely hate that wording from ABB “tell your guests how they can do better”. it’s SO condescending. Of course in this case you did the right thing, an honest review, dinged him heavily and left a note, that’s enough.

I assume by your handle you are in Canada, even so, surely it’s still a bit warm at the end of summer, is there not an issue with leaving a house uncleaned for a week? even if they ran the dishwasher, unless you have the miele one that opens itself after it’s done, wouldn’t there be mould in it either way after 10 days?

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It is below freezing at night. :wink:

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Just block him. Don’t waste anymore time on him.

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Are you aware of how large Canada is and how many different climate zones it has? That elevations range from sea level to almost 4,000 meters? There’s a year-round glacier visible from the town I used to live in on the west coast.

I just returned a few days ago from my 5 week Canada trip, and while it was warm most of the time, both in Ontario and B.C., by 2 weeks ago I was piling on the layers in the evening and at night. And in coastal British Columbia, where it rains a lot, whenever it rains, it’s cold, even in the middle of summer.

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It is really disappointing that with all the emphasis this forum gives to writing specifics in reviews that this is all the guidance you provided to other Hosts. Admittedly the low numbers you provided would warn off Hosts but I would urge you to write more specifics in your reviews going forward.

Like some of the others,I don’t understand what you are asking since you have already reviewed this guest.

By the way, are any other members having a problem sometimes with writing responses because key parts of the site site are overwritten by ads?

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Yes, especially on my desktop. The ads are usually on top of the Reply button below the response window.

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Yes, same with me.

I copied the text of my response, reloaded the page, and the ad went away so I could hit the ‘Reply’ button.

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You guys apparently don’t use AdBlock.

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