Just had a guest make a last-minute booking for 2 nights. We had a situation with utilities that was completely out of my control during a small part of their stay, but I bent over backwards to make sure they were comfortable and offered multiple times to help them find another place to book if they didn’t want to stay. They said it was fine, the situation resolved, and all was fine until checkout. (I even gave them a percentage refund without them asking because I knew it was quite an inconvenience, even though they were sleeping and/or out of the house for most of the time that there was a problem.)
The guest messaged about 20 minutes before checkout time (11am) to say that they were working hard to get out on time because they knew I had a strict checkout time. I thanked them and said to let me know when they were out, thinking that they were probably in process of leaving and might be a few minutes late. By 11:20, when I hadn’t heard from them, I just went over and knocked on the door. The husband said they were all packed up but his wife was in the shower. (Seriously?!) So I sat there for another half hour waiting for them to leave. The house was a mess, and it took me every minute of the 4 hours I had until the next guest arrived to get the house clean. I’ve already had to move my checkin time up to 4pm because I can sometimes barely get the house clean in the time I have, so when people leave late, it’s a major inconvenience for me.
I left an honest review that was polite, nonpersonal, mentioned what they did good, and then mentioned that they left an hour past checkout. Well, all the friendly went right out the window when she read my review! She completely flipped her lid and starting sending me message after message about why it wasn’t okay for me to give her a bad review. Seven messages in half an hour. I finally had to call Air to have her blocked so that she wouldn’t keep messaging me!
Have others had to block guests before? Tell me that this doesn’t happen often…