Please help me respond to a retaliatory, false review from a guest who trashed our apartment :( (Rant & story)

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Edit: I’ve reached the daily post limit for new members, so I can’t reply for 14 hours. Just wanted to post an edit to thank everyone for the great advice!! I will definitely NOT be posting my draft response as it’s wayyyyy too long and detailed. I really really appreciate the feedback from you guys here and I will absolutely follow your advice. If I can’t get the review removed (I’m trying one more time lol), I will reply with the great short response I was given in this thread. Thank you all again so much!!

Hello! I’m new to this forum and hoped to get some feedback on replying to my first negative review.

I’ve been a Superhost for years and have 200+ positive reviews, but I just received a 1 star review from a vindictive guest. The guest was upset that she was asked to pay for the damages she caused to the apartment, so she left a 1 star review (1 star in all categories).

She left the place a complete disaster, worst we’ve ever seen by far. Almost every dish was dirty, pots and pans full of old dried on food, garbage on every surface, broken dishes, broken cutting board, pen on the wall, pencil on the blinds, stained bedding and carpet (had to buy a new carpet), towel rack ripped off the wall in the bathroom, etc. There’s more but I feel like that’s enough to get the point across…

The cleaning fees ended up being 6 times the usual cost, not even including the costs to replace all the things she damaged. I messaged her about the damages and sent a request through the resolution centre as was advised by Airbnb staff. She paid part of the damages and Airbnb ended up paying half of the extra cleaning fees (even though cleaning fees aren’t part of the host guarantee). I guess they felt bad for us after seeing how awful the place looked in the photos I submitted.

Anyway, she submitted a 1 star review and stated that her stay was horrible (she loved it before she was asked to pay for her damages though :thinking: ), and said that I kept asking her for money over every “little” thing.

I’m now trying to draft a response that will explain the situation and sound professional. I was hoping I could post it here for other hosts to read so I can get some feedback before I post it.

Here’s my response idea so far:

I have been a Superhost on Airbnb for years, and I hope that the 200+ positive reviews on my account are enough to disprove this one dishonest review. 99.9% of our guests have been totally wonderful - unfortunately that was not the case with this guest. *

*The guest was upset that she was asked to pay for the damages she caused to the apartment, and that’s why she posted a 1 star review. The guest was not asked multiple times for payment. She received an explanation of the costs and I made a request through the resolution centre (along with all the photographic evidence), as I was advised to do by Airbnb staff.

The guest left the apartment in an extremely messy state, causing our cleaning costs to be 6 times higher than normal. To give an idea of the mess, nearly every surface was covered in garbage, dirty dishes, food, even finger nail clippings. All the pots and pan were dirty and filled with old, dried-on food. Food was splashed onto the walls, stove, counters, and baseboards. There was writing on the wall in pen. The list goes on. On top of the extensive cleaning fees, we needed to replace the items she damaged during her stay (cutting board broken in half, damaged window blinds, stained area rug, stained bedding and towels, broken/missing dishes, etc). *

I only mention the mess and damages in detail in order to show that we weren’t trying to charge for small, insignificant things. We go out of our way to be great hosts and luckily we have great guests almost 100% of the time. Airbnb is built on honestly and respect, and unfortunately this guest chose to be dishonest with this review and disrespect with our apartment.

If anyone actually read this far, that’s amazing and thank you for your time!! I’m worried that the review response is too long, but I also don’t want to leave out important info…Thank you in advance to anyone who can provide some feedback/who actually read my huge rant!

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Sorry for the weird formatting, I’m not sure what I did there :grimacing:

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Sorry you had a guest like this. But that response is far too long and detailed. Future guests don’t need to know all that stuff.
“This is a retaliatory review given in exchange for being called out for leaving the unit in an unbelievably filthy state and being asked to pay for extensive damages. Our other reviews paint a true picture of our listing.”
FYI if you mention Airbnb involvement in a dispute, Airbnb may remove the response.

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First of all, you have 14 days after your checkout time to reply.

AirBnB CS has already been involved. Call them and tell them that you want the retaliatory review removed. Do not take NO for an answer. If it was posted after your damage claim, they should do so.

When they remove it you may not be able to leave a review of her. If you are able to do so please be honest.

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Definitely don’t mention the interaction with CS or anything about the resolution centre, she can have that removed as @muddy says.

It is too wordy, be concise and unemotional in your response.

JF

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600 words too long!! Best to follow the above advice and get it removed. Responding to a review is never, really, a good idea.

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If @lc_bnb is seeing the guest’s review, they have both already submitted their reviews. I do hope @lc_bnb left an honest review of this guest!

Otherwise I agree with what everyone else has written. Try to get the retaliatory review removed. If you fail and do feel the need to reply, make it short and sweet. Do not get into personal information or emotions and do not mention the resolution center involvement.

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Please read the information posted in other threads about the new review guidelines and review removal.

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Thank you!! That’s much better than what I had.

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Yes, Airbnb said they won’t remove the review because it’s the guest’s perspective (even though there is proof in our Airbnb messages that she is lying in her review). I wrote an honest review explaining how she left the apartment.

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Unfortunately the csr rep i spoke with said they can’t remove it because they need to follow the guidelines. I’m not sure what guidelines support retaliatory reviews though…I wonder if there are certain key words I should be using to get them to remove the review?

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I’ve been reading all the threads about review removal, unfortunately I’ve been unsuccessful with this review so far. Thank you.

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At some point your time is worth more than the value of getting the review removed. As long as you reviewed her honestly, you did your duty. I probably wouldn’t even respond because it just makes her review full size and calls attention to it. If you must respond go with a very short response such as the one suggested by Muddy.

I’m going to repost links here for the benefit of others who search the forum later.

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2673/airbnbs-review-policy

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/546/airbnbs-content-policy

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/548/airbnbs-dispute-moderation-for-reviews

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If you really must reply, then what @muddy wrote is perfect.

But really? Must you?

With 200 reviews you have probably been hosting for over a year so you know that a response will only make her review stand out more. You know that in a few weeks it will be buried on page two or three. Haven’t you spent enough time on this guest already?

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For the protection of the Community, this…guest needs to be reviewed.

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We only do long term stays now, so might get a review every 1-3 months depending on the length of the stay.

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Why are you using Airbnb for long stays?

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Then you know that long-term tenants often require more than the amount of cleaning than STR guests. Although my neighbour, who is now doing STR, had a long term tenant who painted the bedroom walls and the bedroom furniture. :roll_eyes:

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I would include and charge for weekly cleanings if I did long term, short termers do not have the time to dirty every pot and pan.

RR

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I left her an honest review stating all the facts of her stay. I don’t imagine she’ll be staying in another Airbnb anytime soon lol.

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