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I’ve been feeling more than a little weary of high maintenance guests. Did a same-day turn yesterday. The ones who left were a pain before and during. After? I must not have let on how annoyed I was with them because she left a 5 star review with very nice public comments. I feel like a jerk complaining about them here, but the note with a long list of constructive criticism that she left, weird tourist requests and her unenthusiastic and very picky husband kind of wore me out. The guests who arrived after them are nice, but are already complaining about the prices in the restaurants here. There is a list of recommended restaurants in the binder I leave for them that has a section describing some budget spots (including some seriously cheap options). We went over the pros and cons of each one by one, something I haven’t ever done before but it made me think about a different way to describe them in the book . . . maybe a project for a rainy day.
I blocked two days in early January so the property can take a breather and we can address any maintenance stuff that goes awry between now and then.
Ah, well, our tree is up, the baking has begun, and there will be some quiet days in among the madness of the season AND guests arriving and departing.
We should have a vent section!
4 young girls just left, I found a curtain hanging off the rail, they turned up 30mins early, so I had to stand there dripping in just a towel and ask them to come back, which their grasp of English took a while to sink in. They moved a rug into the bathroom, and seemed to have emptied their water bottles on to it. Left an hour late, and had moved the massive chair up against a wall, which has rubbed paint and plasterwork off. Got in at midnight, chattered and showered noisily till 2am.
Don’t. One of the disadvantages of being on site is that sometimes you have a little bit more contact with guests than you’d prefer. The vast majority (in our case) have been fine and on the odd occasion during the warmer months, at their invitation, we’ve shared a glass of wine (or sherry!) with guests on one of the patios.
Then again, there are those like you described. When the conversation starts with “I’ve got some feedback and I know you’ll take it the right way…” you know it’s not going to be a 5min chat.
One such chat ended up with a list of such minor inconveniences (like no spare kitchen roll) that if we hadn’t already known there was no chance of them rebooking they’d have been blocked. The final complaint (and they were complaints not feedback) was that we should really have it in the listing that there is a school nearby as “she could hear children playing during the day”. We are a city centre listing! She still left us a five star review but mentioned the kids - the private feedback was all her previous moans, plus the kids again.
After the turn of the year we’re likely to be fairly quiet for about six weeks, then it all starts again with the Flamenco festival in February. Like you, maintenance and “us” time is forecast.
I agree!!! My most recent guests in NC left me feeling deflated.
It started 15 minutes after check in when she declared it was not clean because she found a cat toy UNDER the TV stand and sent me a picture of a pill found on the floor under bed (I didn’t see it when I made bed or did the final cleaning walk through inspection).
There were recurring problems with her family not obeying parking rules. There was ample parking close by.
After checkout I found where someone had taken apart the dining table & chairs & loosely reassembled and the dining light fixture had been taken down and loosely reinstalled.
This rant is just going on way longer than I want to type and this is only about 1/4 of the concerns. I’m just glad it is over.
Thanks! One of her suggestions was that I should “do something” about our neighbor’s messy yard. You can see it from one of the upstairs bedroom. WTH? Yeah, it’s messy, but he is the best neighbor ever…and she mentioned that the dishwasher is very loud. She’s right, it is. Ha. It does a great job, however.
Sounds like that guest thinks as a host you should be queen of the neighborhood! Can you imagine what it would be like to be her neighbor? Wonder if she tells them to clean up their yards?
I’m sorry this happened and I can relate to those few and far between exhausting guests. It always baffles me that these type of guests always comes with a husband who is either equally obnoxious or completely unable to do even basic adjustments to help his wife out. For example: we had a woman complain that she didn’t care for the auto setting we have set on the lights in the bathroom. She found it “annoying.” There is a simple switch located ON THE LIGHT to turn the setting off. It is not even worth opening the phone to type a complaint. Some people cannot be helped.
Mr Rigsby would have barged in at 1am to fix the curtain rail. “Don’t mind me ladies but I think this rod is a little tight and needs some loosening”. Or maybe that is Carry on Up the AirBnB? Different times.
That was my thought too. I had an uncomfortable encounter with her brother in-law and wondered if he was involved. I also wondered if one of her family members thought the dining table & light would look good in their home and something stopped them. (Her family was local. She was visiting from Germany).
That is a fair point, however to give a bit of context - while we are in a fairly quiet residential street, our property is in the centre of a bustling Spanish city, a few minutes walk from the main commercial area. I think she would have found fault no matter where we were located.
I’ve seen this statement in other places on this forum. I’ve been an AirBnB host for 17 months and have never figured out how to do this, though I’ve had a couple guests that I’d really like to block. How do you block someone?
