Hosts need to start leaving honest reviews!

I recently had a nightmare guest which I allowed as a last minute booking. When I read her reviews, they were all very good.

Upon arrival, she had a whole list of demands for my family and I.

  1. Refrain from using any perfumes or deodorizing sprays while I’m here. I’m sensitive to scents.

  2. I’m not a cat person so make sure the cat doesn’t go near me.

  3. There are other guests here? Oh I didn’t know, that presents a whole list of other issues. (The listing states there are two airbnb rooms in the house).

  4. I need space in the fridge as I bring my own food and have to prepare it here.

  5. I need to know everyone’s shower schedules and when do the other guests come and go. (The other guests have their own bathroom but she still wanted to know).

Lastly…What got her kicked out the very night she arrived is that she told my son that he needed to get off the xbox early because she might hear the t.v from her room. Her room is upstairs and very far from the living room.

I don’t know what she did to my cat but my cat was so terrified she was clinging on to the couch with her hair standing up and would not more.

There is no way these other hosts had a great experience. I have only had 2 4 star reviews ever…Almost a perfect star rating (got two 4 stars on location) and absolutely no negative reviews. I have a child at home so it really helps when I see honest reviews. We as hosts do this because we enjoy hosting and we have to have a certain type of thick skin but it is not right to leave ravishing reviews on people who don’t deserve them.

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maybe other hosts didnt mind her requests, they all sound quite weird, especially for a shared house but if she was renting my whole house i could certainly accommodate the requests, were the other ones she stayed at in her other reviews shared accom?

what did you write in your review?

i would put something like “this guest has very particular needs that are not suited for a shared airbnb, she brought a large list with her with special requests and rudely told my son off” something like that
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dont think you can mention the cat. :sweat_smile: cant cats sense fear or something? im allergic, so cats tend to stay away from me and give me evil looks, i read its because you naturally tend to give off stay away vibes or something

I actually was not able to write a review for her because we cancelled her reservation all together so its as if she never booked my place. I was kind enough to let her sleep in the room for 5 hours.

My cat is mentioned in the listing as I want to make sure people who are allergic to cats do not book. I have listed everything in detail in my booking so, she wasn’t speaking about any suprises.

My cleanliness has always gotten a 100% rating as I am very particular about making sure there are no cat hairs anywhere. Also, my cat generally stays away from guests unless they call her. She is not the type of cat that rubs up on people she doesn’t know.

What is odd to me is that she needed a place to stay last minute (at 9pm), I have a feeling she may have gotten kicked out of somewhere else which is why she wasin town, with no place to stay, at 9pm.

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Really? The guest bosses the family around, did something to the family pet, all the other stuff…sounds like you’d give out 5 stars! You must be very easy going

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This woman sounds an absolutely nightmare. I’m glad you had her removed. I recently had a family leave suddenly, 20 mins after my usual check-in, although they had arrived early at 3.45 pm. I still received notification to review them so perhaps you will too.

She claimed a cat allergy. Hadn’t read the listing…

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She gave me all these demands in the living room as I was chatting with my other guests. She made everyone feel uncomfortable and the last thing I wanted was for my other guests (who where wonderful people) to feel uncomfortable. Her vibe was making everyones hair stand up. I forgot to mention, that the entire time she is listing off her demands and as I am replying to her, she was rolling her eyes at me. I honestly do not know why anyone would feel so entitled especially because I allowed her to book at 9pm at night. I’ve never seen my cat so afraid. My son went straight to his room. I will not tolerate someone coming into my home with that kind of sense of entitlement and negative attitutde. We are great people and always accomodate people as much as we reasonably can.

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Sorry you had to deal with this. What a nutter! Too many people in her life have let her walk all over them and now she thinks this is how she can treat people.
Well done for handling it so well!

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I so agree with you! We’ve had hundreds of guests and almost all have been great. There were a couple that were really difficult and demanding. Yet, they had glowing reviews from other hosts. We left honest reviews. Nothing emotional or mean, just stated the facts. Guests like these need to be in hotels and weeded out of the Airbnb system.

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Often I come across the advise to leave a vague review like ’ guest better suited to a hotel environment rather than an airbnb’ as a coded coquelicot shaded flaggy warning.

But I really want to know ‘why’ :thinking:

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People are just scared of retribution. In just the past year I’ve had 5-7 guests who were so bad - crazy, dangerous, or just assholes - that I had to kick them out or cancel their stay. Airbnb deleted their review AND my review citing their assholery in at least 3 cases, even though I didn’t break content rules. In some other cases I was limited in what I could say in the review, and while I was honest I couldn’t go into the kind of detail that I wanted to. This is one reason why I’m adamant about carefully screening guests and hate the new 48 hour rule. Some Airbnb users are crazy, dangerous, or just assholes, and I want as many opportunities as possible to identify them and prevent them from causing me harm. Airbnb too often protects these bad guests at the cost of the hosts.

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Sadly the review system is quite flawed in many ways. As has been pointed out she probably got other bad reviews that were removed, or people just didn’t leave her reviews or they were afraid to leave bad one. There is a Chrome extension you can install and see reviews that guests can leave for hosts. That will help tip you off to potentially difficult guests. For example I had one who gave picky reviews to several hosts so I knew what to watch out for when she stayed with me. Still I got no review with her first stay and a 4 star and a one sentence review with her second stay.

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I don’t think that is fair to hotels. I am not a fan of that sort of review. Let’s hear the details. Why sugar coat it?

I would have asked that person to leave the minute they started pulling that crap. You should have called Air to do it, rather than initiate the cancellation yourself. Guests can leave us reviews if they cancel. I also was tempted to leave my Christmas cancellation a review even though she never set foot in my place. I didn’t. But you should have been able to.

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As I noted once a long time ago, leaving a scathing review of a problem guest can be a very worrisome ordeal depending on the situation.
For those of us who have hosted as house-shares, the guest knows our name, our home phone numbers, our usual schedule of when we work. And that’s just the basics. If they see your nametag (if you wear one), or if you use a company car that is labelled as such and they see that, they also know exactly where you work. The fear of these crazy guests making retributions is totally real.
Which is one of the reasons I no longer host.

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I work from home so I am rarely gone. I am also in the legal field so none of that is any worry to me. One thing is for hosts to be afraid of leaving bad reviews another thing is to leave excellent reviews. In essence lying to other hosts relying on your review. I recommend anyone who shares in the same fears as you do, to do what you did and not host. But for Hosts who do decide to continue to host, they should really be honest for the sake of everyone’s safety.

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my post said, i could accommodate them as mine is a whole house, I was pointing out the other good reviews might be from hosts that rent the whole house not shared, the list of things would be easy to solve if you weren’t sharing!
1.the fridge would be empty anyway, 2. most entire house listings dont have pets, 3. there would be no other guests there 4. no perfumes as she would be the only one there. and 5. they could use shower whenever they wanted!

but certainly, i would give a bad review if she requested those things in a shared situation like this host.

Did you kick here out​:joy::joy:?. What did you say to her?
My god , the woman is a nutcase

Yes, I did. I told her she could sleep for the night, as it was already 1am, but that she had to be gone by the time me or any of my guests woke up in the morning. I was up at 7am and she was already gone. I was extremely firm with her. I said “How dare you come into my house after I accomodated you at 9pm, and start making demands?, Your vibe is off, you disrespected me, my son and even my cat. You need to get your things and leave before anyone wakes up in the morning. I do not need your bad vibe lingering around in my house. You can find another Airbnb who will tolerate your behavior.”

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I applaud to you ! Very well said.

I leave honest but “positively worded” reviews that detail weird or potentially annoying behavior and let the next host decide. (however, I’ve never had a nightmare guest like the one you described).

“X is very tidy and detail-oriented and meticulously followed all check-out instructions, which is a rarity! Her eye for detail caught that 2 small bulbs were out in our kitchen cabinet lighting system and that some pictures needed re-alignment, etc. A fine guest for hosts with high reviews.”

If this kind of OCD behavior (which can lead to lower reviews) might irritate a host then I put it out there. If a host has thick skin and just wants the booking, I wanted to communicate that she left the apt very clean.

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