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Sometimes after a guest I really wish I could leave a snarky review. I always rein in the impulse (mainly because I’m not a very funny person so my attempts at humour just come across as bitter and frustrated), but it is hard to not have an outlet. Here are a couple that recently came to mind:
“So glad that this guest considered our floors clean enough to eat their meals directly off of them! That’s the only explanation I can come up with for the amount of food on the floor.”
“I always learn from my guests – for example, from [guest] I learned just how high toothpaste can spatter in the bathroom.”
What are some of the snarky reviews you wish you could write?
And do you write them or do you opt for something blander?
We’ve agreed that we should save the snark and just vent here. So you’re doing great. However, I’ve seen snarky reviews as well as snarky responses to reviews on Airbnb. So some people apparently can get away with it.
@balivilla has written some great drafts of snarky reviews here. here’s one example:
I’ve never had guests that did anything that would earn them a bad review, but for the one and only guest who left a 4* rating for location, if I wanted to be snarky:
“XX was so appreciative of me answering her long list of questions, numbered from 1-20, one of which was how far a walk it was to the venue where her course was being held, which I answered accurately, that she rewarded me with my one and only mark-down rating on location. While I phoned around to various house-moving companies and perused real estate ads to see if there was an affordable lot I could purchase, within a 2 minute walk to XX’s course venue, it unfortunately wasn’t possible to move my house before her arrival date.”
Hi Lisanddavid, I agree with your dilemma with writing snarky reviews. My very first AirBnB visitors left skid marks in the toilets along with poo on the toilet flush button. And stole some items from the house. It put me off continuing to put my place on AirBnB. I wrote a very short review and made comment about messy kids but didn’t go into detail.
Like @muddy, I’ve never had guests who have warranted a bad review. Although I’ve had many weirdos and nutjobs - as we all have.
But it is important to write honest reviews which is something all of us should always do.
The trouble with snarky reviews is that if, like me, you get many guests who don’t have English as their first language, reviews that are humourous, sarcastic or otherwise not directly to the point, can be misinterpreted.
Even with English speakers, the general sense of humour differs depending on the country.
So I’d be too worried that anything I wrote that’s not to the point wouldn’t be universally understood.
Yeah, snarky is risky. If I think it was just inexperience I will give detailed feedback privately to a guest and a vague review (or none). But if it’s a clearly exploitive guest who is trying to get a refund (it only happened once) I will do my best to relay “look out!” to future guests without being defensive or nasty. (It’s quite the creative writing exercise.) Because it’s potentially perspective guests who are reading it (if it’s a response to a review) and I find I’m not as keen if a host is particularly defensive or snarky. And of course, I relay to airbnb that I wouldn’t host that guest again.
I had one couple from France (I’m in Florida). I have plastic glasses in the apartment for use at the pool, with a sign telling them not to take the real glasses in the pool area in English, which they could not read.
I heard a crash from poolside and foun they had smashed the other glasses. In the review I said there was a language problem and did not mention the glasses. Had a heck of a time making sure all the glass was cleaned up before the next guests arrived.
