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I charged about $160/night, plus a $50 cleaning fee. For a check-in Thursday/check-out Wednesday stay, I pocketed $896 after Airbnb’s fee. I started off at a higher price-point, but after a couple weeks with no bookings, I decided to come in lower. This might have been a mistake in retrospect, since as @ajmartin correctly points out, people tend to value more that which they pay more for.
The guy who did the booking appears to be late-30s, from San Diego. He has LOTS of reviews for his own rentals, basically all of which are glowing. He also has several reviews of him as a tenant, and it’s the same story - they are all glowing. This is adding to my bewilderment. Did he just happen to pick my house for his first less-than-stellar renter performance? If I left him a bad review, mine would be the only one.
He wrote me a review yesterday, but Airbnb won’t let me see it until I write him one. And I am totally stuck. I don’t know what to do. As interesting as this thread has been, there is a pretty wide range of opinions about these guest’s performance. I still am having a hard time gauging whether this is deserving of me leaving a bad review.
As an aside, a couple more things I discovered/forgot to mention in my initial damage report:
I have no idea what they were dragging across the front porch (which is painted concrete), but they left lots of major scratches and scuff marks on the paint. I will need to re-paint it.
They took the bulb out of one of my living room recessed lights, and screwed it into one of the sockets of the decorative string lights in my backyard. Not sure if this maybe blew out a couple of those bulbs, but two of them on the string are now fried.
The shower heads in both bathrooms (both of which are aftermarket, pretty sweet with handheld/rainfall two-way diverters etc.) were halfway unscrewed and hanging down weirdly. We got a crescent wrench and tightened them back up into their proper places, but I can’t figure out for the life of me why they would have been unscrewing the shower heads.
@airking32 Fascinating. A very inexplicable set of guests as to behavior.
About all I can add (re-iterate actually) that I have noticed that in my case 6 people vs 4 people is a huge difference in behavior, it is like when there are only 4 its is a communion of sorts with close dear friends, but perhaps when it is 6 it easily lends itself to a ‘party’ atmosphere. Also noticed that when 6 book, they tend to be younger.
I have made the cost of extra people beyond 2 now about 1/4 of the base price; i.e. $400 for 2, extra people $100 and is now cutting down on the ‘big group scene’, when it was $50 for extra persons I feel it was almost an incentive for bigger groups to form (6+). Now I am toying with the idea of raising the extra person fee to $150, but not yet comfortable with that.
Of course, each place is different. This phenomenon (and added stress) of 6 vs 4 was so apparent in my case, it has indeed influenced my thinking. and I have come to the conclusion that my particular place is ‘perfectly’ suited for 4, logistically, and best to leave it there.
Firstly, you need to quote on your experience, don’t let what other people have posted in the past sway you.
You already had a lengthy list of reasonable concerns at the way he left your house. Add the three you just mentioned to that list and I’d say that all together he makes for a pretty bad guest. A couple of these things you might let slide, but this is really quite a lot for one group over only 5 days.
Now that he has written your review you might consider sending him an email and tell him how you feel about the way he left your house and that you’re struggling with how to review him. Don’t make it sound too picky, and don’t say that you’re overly sensitive about cleanliness or he may dismiss your comments.
Tell him that you know he is a host, and as such, ask him what he thinks is a reasonable settlement to compensate you for having extra time and cost into bringing the house back to the state it was when he arrived. You can also remind him that this is your first rental so the house was pristine for him (if that is true). Some things you might have to “let go” like the scratched pans if they are still usable.
I think it would be good closure for you to hear from the guest and perhaps give them a chance to apologize and try to make up for the inconvenience and damage. And maybe he will think twice about how he leaves other homes in the future.
If he comes back with something unreasonably low or “that’s the cost of doing business” let him know that you’ll settle it through Airbnb instead.
I have a great story of how this worked out with my worst Airbnb experience last year… but perhaps that’s for another time.
This is a total waste of time and lousy advice. No way is he going to compensate the OP for a damn thing. If he was this inconsiderate to begin with, he will just laugh if the OP offers to settle. Also it could be misconstrued as an attempt to blackmail the guest into paying up in exchange for a non negative review. No …the way to handle this is take it to resolution. Hopefully it’s not too late.
Now for the review… Let it fly since he already reviewed you. And with the things you just added!!! Nuts!!
Would you recommend this guest to others? Would you have him back? If not, simply write what you told us here! I don’t want this loser booking my place!!!
Something like:
Unfortunately xx is not a guest I can recommend. He and his large party left the kitchen a mess from grease, improperly washed dishes and scratched up pans. Then xx or someone in his party inexplicably unscrewed light bulbs and fixtures from our recessed lighting and also unscrewed shower heads. These guests dragged something heavy across the concrete porch and we have to repaint. There appeared to be more guests on the property than I allow. There’s even more but I’ll stop here. Bad experience. We are still cleaning up. Stressful and nervewracking. Thumbs down, cannot recommend.
There are several times that I’ve reasonably tried to settle with guests who have done damage or left enough cleaning for me to warrant charging more. I’ve found that, with few exceptions, people are very willing to work with me.
Here’s my story from last year… there was a group that booked our home - I was appalled at the amount of damage they did which was the worst in 27 years - over $1000 worth.
First I tried to work through Airbnb to get it resolved and wasn’t satisfied with their response. Actually, they recommended I tried to work this out directly with the guest. Since I had good results doing this with direct bookings, I contacted the guest, explained my concerns and ask him to work with me to resolve the substantial damage. He apologized and reimbursed me in full for the damages. He knew I wasn’t trying to “ding him” - he was aware of the damage they created - it’s all in the way you approach them.
I like to think that most people are reasonable - maybe I’m just lucky. I could mention a handful of other incidents that ended up the same way.
My review on Airbnb stated that the guest had created a lot of damage but that he settled it to my satisfaction. I’m not suggesting that @airking32 sugarcoat the review. Yes, other hosts do need to be aware of these guests.
The next guests that get out of line, I am going to scare them by asking them: “You want me to get KONA to handle this?”!
Seriously, I have also addressed a few issues with guests that broke something significant, and all paid the cost without fanfare. I have yet to go to the Resolution Center, heck, I won’t even know where to start.
I’m actually SO NICE!!! Really I am… I am just FIRM… so that there are no misunderstandings! I learned the hard way… like everyone else. You know? I was a naive pushover and faced the consequences! No longer!
I’m afraid that when hosts DO let guests get away with all sorts of nonsense, then it’s actually a disservice to other hosts and even guests. Firstly, the guest becomes ‘trained’ to believe that their behaviour is acceptable. If they get away with their misdemeanors, then they don’t realise that it was unacceptable. (After all, if we have a three year old who is constantly picking his nose or something, we train them by letting them know that their behaviour won’t be tolerated )
Then the guests wonder why they get bad reviews from future hosts because ‘Mrs xxx didn’t complain’. They get a thumbs down and wonder why they can’t use instant book if people who use IB have ‘recommended by other hosts’ in their settings.
If hosts don’t want to write an honest review of the guest, then simply write ‘So-and-so stayed here for four nights’ or whatever and other hosts get the message,
My kind of ‘killer’ review. I left exactly that review to an exceptional obnoxious pushy woman, who even the other ladies that came with her (5) got to dislike her immensely by the end of the trip.I ignored her from start to finish. Upon return, we were all hugging and kissing when I dropped them all off, except her, which of course drove her insane as she watched the spectacle in total disgust. One of my favorite bookings to date.
I’ve never understood the strategy of writing reviews in code language. If I read that in a review, I would think the guest was ok. If they weren’t, the review would say they were bad.
Hahaha kona. We have covered this many, many times. That type of review does two things: leaves a lot of room to the imagination and yet makes it crystal clear the host would rather say nothing at all than harp on the negative, a quality which future guests appreciate. Picky type of reviews always run the risk of spooking potential guests. It is a type of review best suited for ‘borderline’, but annoying type of guests.
Disagree. I just received a spartan review that was cryptic.
K showed us the apartment and gave us advice about things to see.
That’s it.
My star ratings are the same, so she gave me good marks. But this kind of review would lead other guests to think there was something bad she didn’t want to report?
I don’t follow this. I hear this often on the forum. How likely is it that a potential traveler is clicking around on previous guest reviews and scrolling through to see the reviews a host has left other guests?
So many hosts using the site, aren’t even aware how to do this. Plus, wouldn’t the “bad guest” have to leave their own review, in order for a potential traveler to click through and see the negative review left by the host?
I don’t know. I just don’t see this being a common thing that travelers do. I really would think over 95% of travelers only look at the reviews left by other guests. Many guests aren’t even curious enough to see what kind of review a host left for them. With the reviews being blind, you would think it would prompt someone to write a review when they see someone else left one waiting to be read. But so many guests aren’t the least bit interested.
Now as a host, I will hunt around to see if my potential guest has left any crazy type reviews for previous hosts. And this is time consuming, as even though the host leaves them a review, it’s possible they never left one for the host. But I have much more at stake with allowing crazies to enter…
When I mention reviews, I am also including host responses, which tend to follow the same mentality and tone. Those everyone sees. My clientele tends to read everything btw; they got 1 year+ to do so. I been told by many of them that hosts that come across uptight (and picky), they tend to avoid like the plague, because they are hesitant to book a place where if they screw up it would turn into an immediate hassle. The ‘home sharing’ scene does have a higher degree of familiarity level then a hotel as is, thus inherently a higher chance of human interaction and potential confrontation, so perhaps hosts that come across cool is indeed important to potential guests.
I have another reason for leaving this - a selfish one admittedly. That’s because I want to be quick about it and avoid the time and trouble many hosts take in deliberating just how to word their less-than-great review. It takes seconds and I can move on to the next guest.
The other option would be to not leave a review at all but that’s not fair to other hosts. After all, I think that most hosts can recognise that this means ‘I have nothing nice to say’, not even ‘friendly people’ or ‘nice and quiet’ or whatever.
I do want to leave a review, even if it’s just a few words, because it lets me give them low star ratings, a thumbs down and send private feedback to Airbnb.
I am just FIRM… so that there are no misunderstandings! I learned the hard way… like everyone else. You know? I was a naive pushover and faced the consequences! No longer!
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