I searched the forum and it seems like the consensus is to not reply to anything negative. However, I feel like I always feel better if I see that an establishment replies with concern to anything negative. I just had a young girl and her bf stay at our place. She gave us 5 stars in every category, but she mentioned that the shower was “finicky”, but that she didn’t mind because “she was used to stuff like that”. She told me everything was great when I checked in with her and no one has ever mentioned anything about the shower before. I genuninely want to know what the issue was and will message or text her privately, but I am debating responding publicly. My response would be something along the lines of, “I hadn’t heard anything about the shower but will contact you for further details and look into it right away.” Thoughts?
Maybe find out what the problem was, get it fixed, then when you respond you can say, “Thank you for alerting me to the finicky shower; the problem is now fixed and the shower runs beautifully.”
Oh that is good, and true, as I am genuinely concerned that there may be something wrong with it. Thanks!!!
There is another guest there now and we had a one day gap in between so I sure wish she hadn’t responded with “Everything is great!!!” the morning before they checked out. We could have checked it out then.
Hmm…so now she says “it wasn’t anything major, the temperature was sometimes hard to adjust but she doesn’t think there is anything wrong with it”. So now what do I do?
OMG the dumb bunny doesn’t know that sometimes it takes a few seconds or even minutes for the hot water to reach the shower? And then you have to adjust it accordingly? What a pain in ass people are. I would drop the communication with her immediately. If no other guests have complained then forget about the issue and do not mention it in a public response to her.
Oh brother. I wonder if this person wasn’t just here staying with me. 
I agree with J. Why would you put that in a public review. Such a little fool. Sheesh. I would not answer it. If you get any questions you can just tell the new ones that the old one didn’t know how a shower works.
I’d put something super condescending. Not that I’d recommend it - I’m sure I’d regret it afterwards. My little passive aggressive brain tends to act first and think later 
‘I’m sorry you had trouble turning on the shower. I would happily have shown you how to turn the tap and move it from left to right to change the temperature.’
the comment is more about who she is than about the shower.
You all are good therapy! I think I might not reply at all. The building was built in 1959 so there is a hot faucet handle, a cold faucet handle, and the diverter to get the water from the bath to the shower. I’ve never personally showered there but the pressure seems good and plenty of hot water. Anyway for more laughs here is the rest of what she said, “I was fine with it cause my shower at home is like that too but my boyfriend had a difficult time with all the knobs haha it also might’ve just been us being dumb and not adjusting the knobs right haha”
I have exactly the same set up as you do. We’ve had a few people over the years who can’t figure it out even though we demonstrate during the walk through and we have printed instructions in the guest book.
They don’t think when they write these things. They don’t think that future guests will now question your shower. That statement belonged in the private feedback. I wish that Air would do a better job of educating people on how to leave reviews.
So true. I’m not going to worry about it any longer. I can’t or it will drive me nuts. Hopefully I’ll get a few more good reviews and hers will be lower down and forgotten. She did give 5 stars in every category but still…
You might want to. There might be some strange idiosyncrasy that isn’t apparent until you are in the shower trying to get clean.
Some of the best advice I read on this forum as I pondered opening my rooms to AirBNB was to actually live in that space like a guest. I did. I actually did modify a few things since it became apparent that I could make the experience of sleeping and living up there a bit better.
I agree wholeheartedly. Don’t be a “slum landlord” – actually live in your rental for at least a weekend, preferably a week. It won’t take long to see what is working and what isn’t.
Yes, we’ve planned to do that but kept getting booked up! My elderly in-laws have been having a lot of health issues as well as some other things going on so it moved down the priority list. We will make a point of staying there soon.
A “slum landlord”? I hope you’re joking. We’ve owned and managed our own rental properties for 30 years and our tenants love us. We’ve only been hosting on Airbnb for a few months but the word slum implies the place is in disrepair or dirty, and that we only care about the $$, which is hardly the case.
Well since one of our totally happy guests, who even booked an extra two nights, put in his review “The only downside is the very loud avenue.” more people than ever are viewing our listing, but the smallest percentage ever is making a reservation. Now that I think of it, probably only the ones that don’t speak any English are still making reservations 
.
My hubby needs a job and we need to move to another apartment quickly.
Anyway, we didn’t react. I still wouldn’t know what we could have reacted.
I do not mean to justify her dopey comment in a public review. Most guests do not have a clue what a careless statement like that can do to your business.
That said, I had a shower in my residence like that. Water too cool, adjust a tiny bit, too hot, adjust a tiny bit again, too cool again, etc, etc.
Several trips to Home Depot and a couple of thou$and later, perfect!
I’ve done one out of the two in my rental, but it’s the master bath, the one that the people who pay use.
Thanks. Yes we will definitely look into it. I don’t know if we have the budget to modernize the shower, but there might be something we can do to make it better if that indeed is the case. Hopefully it won’t deter too many people as we are pretty low priced in a good location with an amazing view.