Yana, we can always trust you for practical words. Thank you.
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Why? Justā¦ why? I guess to be able to fully enjoy that 2-star accuracy rating.
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The other hosts are correct. Send via airbnb messaging an explanatory assessment of what the unit offers. Thatās only so you can use her reply as a defense in case of a sucky review. Iāve had people knock a star off because there were stairs, and they were smokers and had to go outsideā¦it says ALL THAT i the listing description. And once they start on a road of criticizing, they can really light into you about every little thingā¦āThere was dust on the top of the 6ā high headboard in the gold bedroom. I wasnāt looking for it, but it was there.ā Amass as many five stars as you can, and donāt let āem off the hook, for the sake of other hosts.
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Let us know how it turns out after the review!
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Hi, I would message her and confirm your amenity and all your other concerns with her! I will also suggest to confirm these items with all your future guests before they book as well.
I also got a guest claiming my airbnb isnāt clean because of the dust on my baseboardā¦
So what happened? Refund, cancellation, bad review?
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The very first guest at my Cottage (I have a Villa and Guest House also) was a first time AirBnB guest and he gave me a 1 * for cleanliness. He was from Guatemala and didnāt speak a word of English, but my staff did speak Spanish thank heavens. He expected housekeeping on demand daily to sweep floors, make beds daily, wash his dishes, etc. He rented for 10 days over Christmas and New Years and gave me a 1 * for value and 3 * on everything else. We have 10 other 5 * reviews for everything now, but the cleanliness and value are only at 4.6 thanks to this demanding jerk. The place is constantly booked, but we have a booking agent who rents it out for a month or more at time for her work crews, so itās taking forever to bring those two up.
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All went very very well with the guest! Both my husband and I made a point of meeting her and chatting a couple of times. She loved our place and mentioned wanting to come back and stay again. She was nice and quite friendly. Iām now feeling confident that the negative reviews she left were probably earned. She said in a message:
āEverything is perfect! Thank you. I love this place and all of your thoughtful touches. You did a great job with the design and I love the layout of the rooms. Iām also surprised how quiet it is around the building, its nice. Itās more hospitable than any of the Airbnbs Iāve stayed in so far, and Iāve stayed in a lot of great ones. But this place just goes the extra mile!ā
However, no review yet 
Itās okay. I feel it was a real success either way, review or not.
And itās always nice when a little extra effort pays off!
Edited to say, I responded to the wrong post! oops. But wanted to update here.
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I saw a hostās response once to a complaint of dust behind a radiator. He told the guest, āthatās where I like to keep itā.
(I canāt remember where I saw the post, some forum, not this one I donāt think)
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I LOVE this and am keeping it for future use!!
Glad to hear all turned out ok with your guest. But yeah, as you say -no review yet. Maybe she told all the other hosts that their place was great too. Sorry, donāt want to add stress! Some guests do seem to think theyāre professional reviewers and have to find something to nitpick.
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Reading prior reviews are a great way to head of possible problems or anticipate the needs of guests. But every guest should be approached with a clean slate (and I know you agree). When Airbnb does away with pictures and reviews and is just like hotel booking Iāll be ready though.
I recommend thanking her for the great words privately and how much you would appreciate it if she would express those same sentiments in a public review as well.
Do you think theyāll ever really do that, though? It would mean losing their USP, wouldnāt it? What a dilemma for them!
But yes, Iām ready too if they do. Iāll just go back to what I did before, hosting exchange students and short-term tenants. Airbnb didnāt actually invent the āhomestayā concept.
I donāt think pics and reviews are the USP, itās the actual stay in a real home, even though they didnāt invent it. Google didnāt invent the search engine either. If Airbnb is in a strong enough market position it wonāt hurt them much. Iām just speculating that itās a move towards hotel like-ness. Most people doing āhome stayā in the pre internet era didnāt have pics or reviews either.
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But surely they are? People choose stuff online only because of reviews and photos, surely? I think the next thing to go will be reviewing guests.
edit I see what you mean now about the USP, yes itās the ālive like a localā thing.
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They will have a better idea of if it will hurt them than I do. They are already experimenting with the photo thing. They already donāt require a host to have photos. They already remove reviews, have fake review scams they know about, they already manipulate the order in which reviews appear. I canāt sort by star rating on Airbnb like I can on Amazon.
Doing away with reviewing the customer, which is pretty unusual in business, would be first to go of course.
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I agree. There are still lots of guests out there, though, still buying in to the original model. So personally, Iām ok for now! But yes, itās inevitable that it will change. Money is God.
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When you email her regarding her upcoming visit, welcome her to your spaceā¦ ( mention the three rooms) and the kitchenette that contains only the coffee maker, toaster, microwave etc.
well, I was a big upset getting the 4/5* cleanliness level from my guests so I decided to sent them message to confirm what went wrong. Turned out they didnāt think my place was clean because of the dust on the baseboard and the spiders scared them. I mean, my airbnb space is part of my house, and we have gardens. I would think spiders are common visitors in many houses. I did clean up the dust from my baseboard and I got the 58 for my cleanliness level after that. However, I also feel this really depends on the expectation of each guest. I recently got a 4* of cleanliness level but āsparkling cleanā compliment from the same guest, god knows what his measurement is based on.