Hehehe, I would if I could reach his collar. He is 6.6".
He has other problems too with drinking.
He did not have a single drink for 2 months, but then something happened at work and he first drank his whole bottle of techila and then half bottle of our vodka. I told him next time he will pay like in a bar. I am not supplying alcohol for him.
That book of mine is getting ready to come out
" hosting stories"
Yay!!! Yana is back!!!
Iām still writing reviews. I donāt wait for guests to write one. I generally write an entirely positive review if the guest is reasonable and there are no significant issues. The vast majority of my guests fall into that category. Iāve only written one bad review (the crazy Frenchman). In a couple of other cases Iāve not left a review. In one case, the guests left a bit of a mess, but it wasnāt bad enough (I thought) to justify a bad review. In another case, there was an overnight guest who seemed less than friendly. And so I abstained from writing a review, because I got the feeling if he wrote a review it would not be great. And indeed he didnāt write a review. In at least one case I left a favorable review, but regretted writing it, because the guest left a jerky review.
Itās frequently a chore to think of stuff to write in my reviews. This is having the curious effect that Iām trying to interact with my guests more, just to have something to write about. (Donāt laugh.)
Of course, Iāve been doing it a relatively short time; a few months. Iām sure Iāll experience the symptoms of burnout eventually.
i think it makes sense to leave reviews in most cases. If the guests are reasonable, youāre providing reassurance to prospective hosts that they arenāt going to defecate on the lawn or set fire to the cat. This is particularly useful if the guests have very few reviews, which is not uncommon. If they arenāt reasonable, then itās of course even more important to warn hosts of the evil guests. And no doubt Airbnb will make their own use of the information, but thereās nothing we can do about that.
Lol Faheem!! Defecate on the lawn !
Absolutely this. Most of my worst guests fall into this category. Thatās why I love newbies, they are generally on their best behaviour and donāt have anything to compare me with (as in āoh my last host let me bring friends round/ stay 3 hours after check-out / drove me to the airportā etc etc).
There is an inherent problem in the review process because different hosts have different places, different expectations about whatās acceptable, different tolerance levels and, of course, thereās the personality clash aspect. Thereās no solution that I can see. Iāve had a great time with guests that have been slammed by other hosts.
Glad you brought this up. I think a ānot so badā guest can sometimes be turned into a āgoodā guest once they are called out in a review. Thatās why for example, I think it is important to detail why the guest is better suited for a hotel. When you say āguest is better suited for a hotelā it doesnāt help the guest to improve their behavior (private feedback can be meaningless), and it doesnāt help the future host decide if they should take the guest.
But if you say you were disappointed to find out XXXX invited over guests without permission, or XXXX didnāt check out on time and you were rushed, or XXXX didnāt follow house rules of cleaning dishes, etc. - then that guest can sometimes change - some guests truly are clueless.
Now of course the really bad guest is one who doesnāt care anyway and there is no hope for them!
With ānot so badā guests, I tend to give private feedback, particularly if they are new. It seems unnecessarily harsh to give a bad public review when perhaps they didnāt realise what they did or didnāt do was such a big deal. And I never mention anything publicly if they were asked to moderate their behaviour and they complied, that would be petty and mean. I canāt stand guests who mention something something in a review that could have been rectified at the time if theyād said something to me. The same goes the other way. If you didnāt ask the guest to stop leaving the bathroom a mess or whatever, then donāt bloody mention in the review!
The reviews I find hardest to write - and I always write reviews - are those where I just didnāt like the guests very much. They didnāt do anything wrong or make a mess or anything, I just didnāt like them. It happens! But probably somebody else will find them perfectly nice.
And youāre right! Many of us who rent out whole homes do not get the guest interaction you do. This is why I have to be even more discerning about who rents my home. I am not on site to see if they are damaging the bathroom floors by not using a shower curtain.
Of course, good point and I keep forgetting! Thereās a very big difference between hosting in-home and separate properties. We all have to be discerning, though. I suppose for live-in hosts itās more about the person themselves, do they sound friendly and warm enough to share your house with, whereas for off-site hosts itās more about their attitude and willingness to follow and understanding of house rules. Thatās very black and white and many things overlap for both types of hosts of course, but you know what I mean?
If we decide to write a negative review we better say specifically what they did. Otherwise just donāt write it.
I have IB on for guests recommended by other hosts. Last month this guy made a booking request and he had many good reviews, almost 10, from different countries around the world. None of the reviews praised him, but they were all very general like ānice guestsā, āsuch and his group stayed for N days and were OKā, āgood guestsā etc. Despite all those good reviews he could not IB with me, which I knew, because of my requirements, it was because he must have been not recommended at least on of those hosts. And, in order for us to not recommend someone we need to leave a review. That host left a review and I have no idea which one of them was the host (or hosts) who did not recommend him because the reviews were all good.
After talking to him, and he was very polite and friendly in the messages, I accepted. 14 days of nightmare! I even thought of opening a thread here but I got busy those days. A woman stayed, I think she was just using a picture of a man in the profike, urinated on the bathroom floor and toilet top -every single time she went to the loo-, brought guests here and even we told her it is not allowed she ignored and continued to bring and we continued to complain, talked loudly on the phone until 5am then went to sleep from 5 to 2pm, everytime we asked her to tone down or respect our rules and home, she would turn the back and slam the door, r just cut us right off and say, I need new towels, new this new that, come clean my room. It was a nightmare but we have other 2 guests so we didnāt want to aggravate the situation even more trying to get her out because she was terrible and could make a even worse scene. There was muh more but I will not go into detailed.
If those hosts who did not recommend her were clear in the review, me and my family would not spend 2 weeks in a nightmare! Either write a factual review or donāt write at all. What can bad guests do to us after they have left? Not come back? Great! I donāt know why hosts are so afraid.
I never write a review unless a guest writes one first; always short, 99% positive because 99% turn out to be good guests. I also openly ārespondā to it with something personal to include about their particular stay. It only takes me a minute.
She would of been out on her ear after day 2 max!
I agree with thisā¦
I do. But Iām not as established as a lot of folks on the forum. My reviews read something like this. āA was neat and clean, quiet, and followed all house rules. Iād definitely host this person again.ā if they did something great or we got along super well, then Iāll say something like āand I really enjoyed playing rummyā or whatever. Sometimes I donāt even use their name. Just āthabks so much for your stay. It was a pleasure having you.ā If they all sound the same, Iām OK with that.
The real way to understand a guest is to read the reviews THEY have written - THATS where you will see if they are super picky and annoying.
Hosts usually write banal reviews or are too nice.
I had a request and looked back and saw how the guy had complained and slammed other hosts, so I told him we were probably not a good match
"based on your past reviews, I donāt think we could live up to your standards"
It was so liberating!
Then he wrote back a few days later saying
"Lady, would you pre approve me so I can book?"
CLUELESS.
That is what I do, I tend to put just as much stock on those than host reviews.
I do that too, always look the reviews they wrote. Some never wrote a review to their hosts. And the problem again is if their hosts didnāt write then a review then we can never trace back.
We write the same review - basically - for everyoneā¦ Most are not coming backā¦
I have been hosting for several years and I never left a review to a guest unless I receive one first. I personalize the reviews I donāt like write the same review for all the guests. English is not my first language so it is an effort to write a review and also I am lazy and I have better things to do. I have already many positive reviews I have a lot of guests that are new to Airbnb and do not have review. If they donāt care receive review why should I? My guests had always behave very well and I didnāt have any bad experience with them. I donāt know if not writing a review is affecting my status but Airbnb is only a part of my hosting so it is not so important