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Hi guys, I was thinking about opening a separate topic but maybe it’s better not to clutter the board. If moderators want to separate it into an independent thread, that’s totally fine. Right now i’m having guests who are staying for only three nights. This is the last night of their stay. Communication has been good so far, I haven’t seen them much as they were constantly outside, trying to use their 3 days here to the max. However, they did some things that irritated me quite a bit. Today the guy parked in the driveway that we use with our neighbours (who are btw lovely and sometimes more understanding of our guests than we are) although I showed him his parking spot which is not on the driveway. I went to tell him to move his car as both our neighbours and we use the driveway, and he promised to do so immediately after he takes out the groceries. I found it a bit silly as his parking spot is only 5 m away, but said ok. It took him an hour to move the car and I had to constantly observe whether the neighbours might pass.
Tonight they asked to barbecue. An hour ago I realized that they brought an extra person who is from my country (probably a local friend, the guest seems to know the area pretty well), which they didn’t even announce, contrary to the house rules. Also, it is past 22:00 and they are still sitting outside and chatting without any kind of restrain or volume control. Normally I would go and warn them, but as this is their last night I don’t feel like doing it. It’s not because of the review, but I know I will get agitated by this confrontation so I’m trying to avoid it. I will go there only if I see they are staying well past the curfew.
My question is whether to mention this in the review or just warn them about it in the private review. So far I cannot say they are the guests from nightmare, but I have this feeling they would be difficult to handle if they were staying longer. In the same time, these are not really huge offenses so I’m not sure whether I should warn other hosts about it without giving them a chance to rectify their behaviour. Opinions?
Honestly, no. They seem as the kind of guests that you constantly have to warn about something as they are constantly being negligent/arrogant (I’m still trying to figure out what kind they are). This is causing me a lot of stress because I start feeling like a cop. Or a mean teacher.
Your house - Your rules… YOU have to live with the neighbours, not him… if he breaks the rules you have outlined before he arrived and he breaks them, then PLEASE write it into your revue, so we other hosts are for-warned… some people forget their manners when on holidays!
@Inna, you don’t have to be bad cop/mean teacher. You just go out and say quietly 'Hey guys! How has your trip been? … Oh that’s nice! … Listen, it’s getting kind of late and you’re going to need to keep the noise down because…etc. etc. ’ Seriously, it’s not that hard. The vast majority of people are compliant and understanding when you explain things. The truly arrogant selfish ones are a special minority breed and, if polite friendly reasoning doesn’t work, then you need to put the big pants on and get tough. Ultimately your neighbours are more important than your guests - they might be nice now but they’ll get really pissed off if you don’t keep your guests in check and you can’t afford for that to happen. Seriously.
Thank you, you’re completely right. In the end this is exactly what I did as it was past midnight and they were showing no signs of toning it down. What I was refering to when I said I feel like a cop are situations when I have to warn people about several house rules, several times per day. You really start feeling like an idiot after the third time you have to warn a grown-up person about something that is just common sense (like the thing with the parking). I know that one shouldn’t feel that way, it is them who should feel ashamed. But it really creates a bad atmosphere of me policing their behaviour constantly.
When it comes to neighbours - I actually have the problem of my neighbours being waaay too accommodating to my guests and letting them do some things that I wouldn’t allow and wouldn’t expect them to allow. Like when the guests were taking their kids to the swings in their garden - I warned them not to do it, but my nice old neighbour told them it is ok that they use it during their stay. He is such a sweetheart! I have no heart to tell him that he’s actually undermining my authority in such a way. Luckily these situations are rare so I don’t plan to talk to him about that. I’m really lucky with my neighbours!
Honestly. forget all about reviews. If guests piss off your neighbours and cause a nuisance the potential is there for you to have no business whatsoever so reviews will be irrelevant. Don’t be a hostage to reviews. Run your place fairly and professionally and manage your guests properly. Reviews be damned!
The dude has one good review. It would be good if we would know how many trips guests have taken and haven’t been reviewed… Many hosts decide not to write anything if they don’t have anything nice to say. Normally I would try to set boundaries immediately, but they’re here for only three nights and started acting up only today. I made a cost/benefit analysis and decided not to enter any debates with them that are not absolutely necessary (like the one with moving the car and keeping it down) in order to save some nerves. But you convinced me that I will most definitely mention it in the review. Especially after breaking the curfew by far and not even trying to keep their voices down.
Thex left this morning, surprisingly on time. They seemed a bit scared and apologetic. I found a huge sweat stain on the couch, luckily it was fresh so I managed to clean it with the steam cleaner. That gives me reason to believe that their local visitor “took a nap” at my place and probably left very early so that no one could see him. Quite a bold move considering that I live in the same house! I have no way to prove it so I won’t mention it in my review. But I will definitely leave a bad one in the last moment, if they don’t leave one first. Now I just have to come up with wording for the review… Otherwise they left place in the fine state, it wasn’t dirty as they barely spent any time inside. At least that.
As for the review, i was thinking about something like this:
X and his family stayed at my place for 3 nights. Communication prior to their arrival was good and everything was easily arranged. They left the apartment clean and tidy. However, they also violated some of our house rules. They brought an unannounced visitor and failed to properly introduce us to him even after we presented them with the opportunity to do so. They also didn’t respect our silence hours, chatting and laughing loudly with their visitor well after the deadline, despite the fact that we have neighbours and other guests in our house. We had to warn them to keep it down. Considering this, I cannot recommend them as guests.
I had guests bring extra unregistered friends, I messaged them that I was owed $x, which they paid. You can bluff saying, I note you had an extra person stay, they left a stain on couch. Please pay extra guest fee.
I really don’t want to go there as I cannot really prove it and I’m not 100% sure that it was the case. It’s water under the bridge now in any case. So I will let that go, but I will most definitely slam them in the review.
I think you have to mention that the loud conversations were outside, otherwise why could your neighbor’s hear? I would use “quiet hours” not “silent.” Violated is a really odd word to use in this context. Consider changing to Broke, Ignored, Disregarded…
My guest just wrote to me to ask whether everything was left in order in the apartment. He said that he noticed that a piece of wooden floor was sticking out and forgot to notify me. I have no idea why he’s writing about it now as I haven’t filed any request for the money from Airbnb, nor did I contact him afterwards regarding any sort of damage… Maybe he’s afraid I’ll slam them in the reivew and he’s searching for some flaws? I don’t even know what to respond. I don’t know why he doesn’t apologize for things that they actually did wrong. Any thoughts? What to reply?
I think your intuition is dead on! Looking for flaws to offset his bad behaviour. I’d say, “thanks for pointing that out. We’ll look into it.” (were you aware of that, BTW? or could he have cause it?)
I would also mention the sweat stain on your couch.
Regardless of how long the guest was there - whether a few hours or overnight - it is still against your policies!
Regarding the feeling of being nitpicky/policing many circumstances with the guests, I completely know how you must feel having to say multiple things. You might start with… “Until today you’ve been great guests, and I don’t like feeling that I’m nitpicking but I need to live with my neighbours, so I need to point out XXX”.
Well, he checked out yesterday, so I’m not sure why is writing today, as I didn’t contact him regarding any damage. One floor board is indeed a bit creaky, but there’s no way to repair it until the season is over, as I had not a single free day in the apartment, plus it does not present any hazard. I don’t want to mention anything about my dissatisfaction because I don’t want to prompt him to leave his review. I don’t know whether this is maybe a bit mean.
