Hosts, please review bad guests!

1

I have now had the experience twice in a row of renting to unpleasant jerks who, after reading their reviews complaining about things that are clearly mentioned in our listing, I went back and looked more closely at their profiles. Both have been members of airbnb for over a year with no references or reviews by other hosts. I think it’s a safe assumption that they’ve used airbnb before but hosts have been too polite to review them badly. I know I’ve been guilty in the past of simply not leaving a review for a less than stellar guest, but I realize now the reviews are tools for future hosts and I should worry more about that and less about being impolite. We need to know who we’re renting to, especially if we’re renting out our own homes and not just a rental property.

Please, fellow hosts, I encourage you to always leave an accurate review of guests so hosts know who they’re inviting into their homes.

I will no longer rent to people who don’t have multiple good reviews–not references, because you can usually find someone in your personal life to say something nice about you, whereas reviews from hosts will be more objective.

2

Luck of the draw. The vast majority of our guests (over 30 sets) have been great, and very few have had any reviews at all. I base my decisions on the initial email exchange. One set, although basically very nice - fun even - showed up six hours late on a five-hour drive, with no heads-up at all, and then there was a whole lot of confusion vacuuming & gassing their rental car in a panic so they could return it that evening. And they gave us the worst set of star ratings we’ve received. But they had several good reviews from other hosts. Incidentally, I’d given them detailed instructions for the five hour drive from Ottawa to our house in Toronto. The bulk of it is dead simple: drive south from Ottawa on the 416, turn right on the 401, arrive at Toronto. The tricky bit is finding the best route to our house. The only explanation they offered was to shrug and say they “got lost”. Yeah, sure.

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3

I have to chime in with Mo - At least 90% of my guests have been new to airbnb with no reviews.

However, I once gave a guest a special offer because they had good reviews and I was so happy to finally have an inquiry from a reviewed guest - ugh. Not horrible, but very loud, even very late at night, left beer bottles all over the area, even areas of the house that they were not renting. Not horrible as I said but one of the worst we’ve had.

So for me, I still won’t even trust reviews and will continue to rent to new users.

Also, just fyi, I joined airbnb in 2012 looking for a place to stay in Shanghai, but never booked, so never used air until 2015. So it’s not a safe assumption that the guests were jerks and the hosts didn’t review.

4

It was much better back in the day when you could read your guests reviews before
you reviewed them, and vice-versa.
I notice that if I reviewed them first, and wrote something kind, I always got something nice written about me in return.
Now they don’t know what we are going to say about them until they write their review,
so everything is much more sterile and careful.

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5

Wimdu is still like this… which is why I am a quote SUPERHOST on Wimdu, and not on Air. :slight_smile:

6

Same Experience here. Guests positively reviewed but awful guests who then write you an awful review because you call them on their atrocious guest performance. Don’t be kind, be truthful. It is unkind to other hosts to not be truthful.

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