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I know this needs work. I also know that when I am emotionally involved I cannot be objective. I welcome feedback and suggestions. They checked out on the 3rd so I will be leaving their review on the 17th. Suggestions on what TIME I can actually leave it without allowing them time to review would be appreciated as well. Feel free to ask clarifying questions as well. I’m trying to not give any up front since others reading it won’t have any either and then your questions might help in clarifying the review as well.
I do NOT recommend Christy or her husband, George. She booked same day for two nights but her husband arrived early without her. Christy only communicated by calling when she booked and then (at my request) by messaging when departing. She never responded to any of my messages before check-in or during their stay. I never met her and although they left the house tidy they broke several House Rules. They allowed their dogs loose in the house unsupervised even though I provided crates/kennels for free. They did not clean up their dog poop out of the side yard. Christy parked her SUV on the lawn. George regularly smoked on the non-smoking property. When I sent the initial claim for dog poop clean up (as stated in House Rules) George replied by the app that he had inspected the yard in the rain before leaving. I told him that it didn’t even rain the day they left and regardless of any inspection they did not pick up the poop. He then called and left a lengthy, very threatening voicemail. It took so long to resolve the initial resolution request I am having to leave this review before any response to the one for his unsupervised loose dogs in the house and smoking so I cannot comment on any future behavior. Save yourself the hassle of booking these two.
I’d cut it down a bit. Other hosts need to know the areas where they were challenging, but I think it’s fine to bullet-point rather than make it a narrative.
I do NOT recommend Christy or her husband, George. While they left the house tidy, they had problems with house rules and communication. Christy parked her SUV on the lawn. George regularly smoked on the non-smoking property. They did not clean up after their dog, as required by house rules, and left a threatening voicemail when I charged them for the additional cleanup. Communication was difficult, as Christy rarely replied to messages before arrival or during their stay. I would not want to host this couple again.
Some things, like her husband arriving before her, I’m not sure I’d mention unless that’s a house rule. Were the dogs left unattended while they were out? Again, I’m not sure I’d mention the dogs being out unless it caused some damage or was in violation of your house rules.
Don’t mention anything about the resolution request. That’s one of the reasons Air could remove your review.
Is there any mentions of fines in the description? I would not stay with a host who fines guests for stuff. If there is damage deal with it, dogshit fine? Bullshit if you ask me. As we know guests do not read the small print, this stuff should be VERY clear prior to booking, and maybe it is?
How do you know how often a guest has left their dogs outside of the crates so that you can actually determine the number of “instances” that your rule was broken and fine accordingly? I don’t think that “fines” are a good idea at all. Way too much aggravation for a 2-day stay. As for the review, way too long.
How much are your daily rates that you think it would be appropriate to “fine” guests $100 for breaking rules?
It is in the House Rules. Due to so many people blowing them off I started instituting accompanying fines for failure to comply otherwise they had no incentive. Also, I spoke with George explicitly explaining the rules to him once he said that he hadn’t made the booking and didn’t know the rules.
Yes, I will lose some bookings from people like you who don’t want to see fines. But it also stops people from booking who know they won’t comply (sometimes).
If you are stupid enough to book a place with rules with accompanying fines for infractions and then break them right in front of the cameras, you deserve to pay the fines.
And there are fines for breaking certain speed limits and red light cameras when you drive on certain roads. You either avoid those roads, obey the rules or get caught and pay the fines. Similar situation here.
Because the video doorbell camera shows them opening the door and the dogs running out. They never went inside to open the crates.
The rate is normally $60/night with a $50 cleaning fee and $20 additional guest fee after 1 for this particular listing. They booked same day when I had just had others check out (so I had raised the prices) so paid $100/night and the $50 cleaning fee.
The $100 fines are for each instance of smoking. (Which in George’s case is about $800). The fines for their dog poop and for their unsecured dogs in the house are $50 each.
Yes it is a hassle to get the fees but when I offer such low prices to respectful guests it is nice. I get the fines to help offset the hassle of disrespectful guests, and to incentivize disrespectful guests to just follow them anyways…now if i could get them to just book elsewhere and NOT disrespect me or my property I would have more space for the respectful ones…
Do you suffer bad reviews as a result of fines? So this guest racked up over $200 in fines, how much was the total booking cost? If I got fined for dog logs I would give a terrible review, not just on air, Tripadvisor and Google as well. This is just so out of the norm, hotels do not do this to their guests they want them to come back.
That being said I do have large extra guests fees and undeclared animal fees, I have not had the opportunity to test whether or not Air would go along with me on these, thankfully.
I do suffer bad reviews for the fines ONLY when the guest is charged them for breaking the rules. I actually have had some great people that have said they can’t believe how people leave the bad reviews complaining about being charged the fines that are in the rules when they break them. They are great guests that leave great reviews. Even the bad reviews that claim I charged them for their rule breaking behaviors in a weird way help reinforce that I will enforce my house rules and they still break them because they do NOT CARE.
Actually this trip was over $1000 in fines with a $250 booking plus Airbnb fees and taxes. Sadly this is not out of the norm for my listings. This is the first smoking guest since I instituted the fine for smoking instead of just being emphatic about it in rule one and putting pictures of the symbol on the listing. I don’t want the problem ones to come back unless they own up, apologize and promise they won’t do it again. That’s not happening…at least hasn’t yet. Most of these people do NOT CARE. They don’t even hide their rule breaking…doing it in front of cameras or leaving ashes and butts all over the house and yard.
My extra guest fees are only $20 for everyone over one. My unauthorized people and animal fees are an additional $50. I am raising that starting next month based on the $200 direct loss statement by the Insider.
Oh actually, this booking was $310 plus Airbnb fees and taxes because they declared their dogs and paid the $15/house trained dog fee/night (although because George showed up before Christy, it wasn’t until day 2 as she paid by Venmo. I will not do that in the future. I thought they would be fine as Christy was so nice when she called immediately after booking and they were coming last minute because their niece was having twins but needed an emergency c section so they weren’t prepared.
Why do you accept dogs if you don’t want to deal with dog poop? There are responsible people but there will be some who will leave poop behind and damage your property.
I for example don’t allow pets and it’s mostly because of people with allergies but also for fear of having furniture chewed or “sprayed”. Some dogs, whose owners don’t care, smell quite badly.
I don’t accept pets period. No matter what pets. Unless they travel with a tortoise and I don’t see it.
And yet I get requests from people who ask me to make an exception because their dog is the most behaved and doesnt bark and they will take care of picking up the poop and not leaving him alone in the house.
When I get these requests I block these people because if they book me they will sneak the dogs in.
Also for smoking, did he smoke indoors? Because if it’s outside, to me that is OK. That I allow, actually.
I think the solution to your problem might be to stop accepting dogs not to impose fines. There is no way to enforce them unless you ask for security deposit and also people don’t like fines.
I personally won’t stay at a place where in the listing there are “fines” cited.
You sort of answered your question. I encourage pets, actually, as Pet Friendly is in most of my listing titles. I am a responsible pet owner (and professional petcare provider) so want to offer my places to the same. The yards are perfectly set up for it as well as I lived there prior to moving. The bad ones need to pay for their bad behavior. You don’t let the guests stay at your listing and crap in your place for free and I’m not doing it for pets either. I have let them stay free when they are a fish though…because they declared properly. Had they tried to hide it and broken my rules intentionally I would have charged them. Honesty is the key for me. I even had one guest with a properly declared and paid dog that had an accident in the house. Guest informed me and offered to pay. Because of his honesty I thanked him and charged him nothing and took care of it myself.
He did both but mostly outside. However it is in my rules that there is:
NO SMOKING ANYWHERE ON THE ENTIRE PROPERTY! You will be charged $100/instance/cigarette/cigar/pipe for violating this rule. I prefer non-smokers due to the fact that even outside smokers have the smell in their hair and clothes.
And I have multiple pictures showing no smoking on the premises.
Glad you don’t mind outdoor smoking but what do you think about people that intentionally and blatantly break other people’s house rules? What about your house rules?
This might prevent the declared dog poop but won’t stop those bringing them unauthorized. It also won’t stop people from smoking, parking on the lawn, leaving the house unsecured when they leave, bringing unauthorized people, etc. I have fines for these things now too because I am sick and tired of people breaking the rules with zero consequences and causing me extra time and effort.
If your intent was to do the things that the fines are for then I would be happy. Otherwise, still no problem as there are lots of other places to stay for you.l where you will be happy. If only the people that don’t like paying the fines would either not stay or not do the fine-able offenses that would be nice.
Yes. As I have stated in other recent posts my success rate with the guest paying was about 50%. Then of the remaining my success with Airbnb was about 50% so about 75% success in collecting.
However, now that I have cameras (yes, indicated in the listing and only outside) my success with Airbnb is increasing. I am also increasing my fines starting next month. Maybe I will get fewer infractions. But if not, I will at least be compensated more for my trouble.
Oh, and when Airbnb pays, THEY are paying directly, letting the guest off Scott free…so teaching the guests bad behavior will be subsidized by Airbnb…
@Militaryhorsegal that is perfectly fine. Each host is different and Im glad there are people like you who accept pets. So I guess some of us accepts pets and some, people with allergies.
I am a former smoker and when I entertain in my own house I allow friends to smoke outside. That’s why I allow smoking outside in my rental too.
My listing has been setup to accept business travelers, so pets are not allowed per ABB guidelines. I think ABB calls it “the works”.
My philosophy of hosting is to trying to prevent things from happening because of Murphy’s law: if it can happen it will. That’s why I don’t have and will never have a grill for the guests. I have gravel on the parking area. Took away all the candles from the house. Don’t offer fire pit. Put the fire extinguisher handy etc… I also try to screen my guests as well as I can.
I do charge a deposit on vrbo. I think ABB will start to accept this too soon enough. If something is broken I’ll get that from the deposit (VRBO) or file claims with ABB.
So far in 2 years I had to do this 2 times with VRBO and one time with ABB. I’m talking about damages > 100$.
Cannot recommend Guest & Guest. Almost no communications except a lengthy and threatening voicemail when I attempted to get restitution for House Rule violations. Broke numerous House Rules including unsupervised dogs in the house rather than the provided kennels, repeatedly smoking on the non-smoking property, not cleaning up dog poop. Not a House Rule but guest also parked on the lawn rather than where indicated.
@KenH yes thanx. I knew it was which was why I posted here as I did. Thanx for the feedback. Actually, it he parking on the lawn was in the description but once I had my neighbors text me a picture complaining no of her parking on the lawn I have now added that too to the House Rules (so you are correct for this review). I am so sick of people doing stupid disrespectful S&$@ to my place and to me!! Oh, and after going back through the camera footage and seeing all the violations I also saw that the husband drove on the lawn too!
I am sodding the side yard tomorrow and eventually will probably need to place railroad ties along the driveway to provide a bit of a physical barrier more than the fine I have now instituted in the House Rules.
