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Well, we certainly didn’t have a microwave when I was growing up, back iin the 50s and 60s, nor have I ever had one as an adult. As an adult, I have always had a kettle, and a stovetop one, not electric.
Even my oldest daughter, who seems to have every fancy kitchen gadget imaginable and certainly has a microwave, has an stovetop kettle, she doesn’t boil water in the microwave.
My other two daughters, who don’t have microwaves, also have stovetop kettles.
While some things are certainly cultural, I think whether most people are used to this or that appliance is probably a combination of where and how you were raised and/or live, your lifestyle and your generation. Dishwashers and microwaves are totally common in the US and Canada, and I’d say the majority of average people have them. I’ve never had them because I never felt the need for them and like simplicity. Just one more thing to clean and maintain and pay someone to fix when it goes on the blink.
And lots of people do things a certain way because that’s just how they’ve always done it, it doesn’t necessarily make any sense. Like people who put a “washing up” bowl or container in the sink, fill it with soapy water and wash the dishes in it. Makes no sense to me at all, because the sink itself is already a container that holds water. Why put a container inside another container- seems like just one more thing cluttering up the kitchen that you have to find a place for when it’s not being used.
Hi Rex.
There was no review as such, the issue is the ONE star rating he gave which caused overall rating to drop below Superhost status. And Airbnb refuse to do anything about it.
Teresa
@TeriGeri : @rexbanner ’s advice is good. If the guest gave you one star with the words “I did nothing”, the review does not provide information to help the AirBnB community make an informed booking decision. It doesn’t even make sense.
Things are going to get damaged. The comments on Airbnb guest groups indicate small back charges tend to make hosts look too picky & feeds into the perception of hosts adding too many miscellaneous fees.
Yes it is supposed to however in my area there is an abundance of rentals & an abundance of new rentals so the superhost status doesn’t help me be seen in the search.
Airbnb announced the intent to remove one-off stars & reviews. I’ll see if I can find it & post a link. I think most Customer service reps don’t know about it.
And hosts have to ask themselves - which would they prefer, a guest who leaves a single star or $30?
It makes little sense to spend the time and effort to get $30, especially if a host feels it could cost them their SH ‘status’ and a perfect star rating record.
As part of our annual expenses, we used to have a 3K cushion built in for wear and tear and breakages. We’ve upped that to $5000 since the period of time a few years ago when we had a broken window, a worn-out fridge AND a central AC system replacement. So I’d urge hosts to make sure that their cushion is enough.
My brother does that and it drives me crazy - like me, he’s English.
That article was last updated a year and a half ago, so it seems to be another one of Airbnb’s stated “intentions” that never comes to fruition or that CS didn’t get the memo about.
to be fair $30 isn’t buying you a good kettle… but perhaps it wasn’t a nice one to start with. And I agree I might have let it slide, but that depends on how annoying the guest was…
egads! surely the passport office needs to be informed ? revoke citizenship stat!
Can you elaborate on how this works, exactly? I don’t quite see how having multiple listings for the same property could help alleviate a bad review. It isn’t as if they ‘disappear’ on their own…if you stop using listing A because it got a negative review, and start using listing B – do you just never use listing A again?
Also, this seems like it would be easy for Airbnb to detect (address?) and I assume it’d be against their TOS?
Actually I have seen it done before and if I were a guest and saw a host’s profile with more than one identical listing for the same property, I would pass.
While rexbanner is doing it to hide undeserved bad reviews, it is most often done to hide deserved bad reviews on bad hosts’ listings.
There is a host in Paris who basically runs a flophouse for single men- 4 bunk beds to a room, 2 rooms, uo to 16 guests with only one bathroom, which I don’t think could even be legal. Guests have to leave the premises by 9am and can’t get back in until 7pm.
He has the most horrendous reviews I have ever seen.
“Bipolar host.”
“Run from this place.”
“Host as cold as a prison door.”
All his reviews can be seen on his profile, but he activates a new listing when he gets too many bad reviews, so only new reviews appear on the listing itself. Then he obviously gets friends to write fake good reviews because he’ll have a whole bunch from the same “guest” and there is another listing for a different place under another account where he and that host have multiple reviews from each other on their review pages.
The whole thing is outrageously scammy and I don’t know how he gets away with it.
And yes, I think it is very much against the TOS and as far as I’m concerned, unethical behavior, even if one is doing it to hide undeserved bad ratings.
My bathroom light you you can turn on by tugging on a pull cord inside the bathroom. We don’t have switches in a bathroom as it’s a safety hazard if water gets into the sockets
In my guest book I have a photo of each major appliance coffee maker, dishwasher, washing machine etc with a description of how it works. I also have a cafetiere as most people know how to use them. However I had never thought of leaving instructions on how to use a kettle as you just fill it with water and turn on. However I will now add the kettle to my visitor book with instructions it should only be used for water
We’re rarely empty – the Airbnb analytics says our occupancy is better than “similar local properties” – but not 100%. However – I’d still rather have an occasional empty week (we have a seven-day minimum) than go back to instant booking.
Yes- one of the reasons newbie travelers to foreign lands often have unreasonable expectations. So they don’t even install those GFI plugs in new, modern builds in the UK?
