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I just had a rather terse request late this evening for tomorrow through the next two weeks.
When I checked his 5 reviews, 4 of them were pleasant, but suspiciously short. You know what I mean.
His last review, however, detailed a 10 day hell best managed with a pressure washer. Guest responses to the host essentially backed up everything the host said.
Talk about dodging bullets!
Long live the honest review!
Thank goodness for hosts that aren’t afraid to leave an honest review!
I too was saved by honest reviews this morning. I was awakened at 5 am by a request for tomorrow night, my only open night until 18 June. I glanced at my phone and saw they had overall 4 stars as a guest. Ugh, so much for going back to sleep. I also see that they have marked check in as 2-4 pm; I have 4 pm as my earliest check in time. She had 19 reviews and is recommended by 12 hosts. All 19 reviews are from local hosts in April and May. I can only imagine how many hosts she stayed with who didn’t leave reviews. She says she is “traveling through” which is clearly a lie. The main problems are checking out late and leaving the place a mess. In particular more than one host says she left toilet paper and paper towels all over the place. One said she left a white powder all over the place. I can’t imagine she left cocaine but whatever it is, I don’t want it. I have a booking in for the next day and while I sometimes enjoy a challenge I can’t take a chance on losing that 4 night booking because this strange woman has wrecked the room.
So here comes my second cancellation ever (4 years/400 guests). I went to cancel online but I was unable to “cancel a reservation that has already started.” Here’s a shot of what it looked like:
Quite annoying as this reservation doesn’t start for another 33+ hours but whatever. I call in and get it canceled straight away. I went to block the guest but didn’t have the “something else” option at first (under the report this guest). I subsequently messaged Airbnb about blocking this guest. I got a reply within an hour and a reset on the report option. Now I was able to block the guest.
The good news here is that Airbnb worked the way it was supposed to. I read the reviews, wasn’t comfortable, had no problem getting it cancelled penalty free and got a quick response with the outcome I wanted from the messaging for support staff.
If there was an easy way to message other hosts I would message them all and thank them for the heads up on the reviews.
I share my home. This guy is a very heavy drinker. I don’t allow alcohol, and I’m sober. I even have meetings here, if you catch my drift. Would be a major league drag for him, so I stated that it “wouldn’t meet his needs”, which is technically true.
Oddly enough, however, the room he had in mind is self contained, and everything is protected against damage. If I tiled it and put a drain in, you could run the hose through it! Might be a thought for the future… 
PS - yes, I did try to contact the host. The idea was to find a listing of his, and press the “contact host” button. Unfortunately he is no longer hosting, but hats off to him!
Dusty, I don’t know which decline options are considered “penalty free”. I guess that’s why I’m nervous about declines. How can you tell?
Also, are we penalized for declining inquiries, or only for cancellations of booked stays?
Keeping in mind that this is one of the benefits offered to hosts who have IB, here are examples at this link.
Today’s guest had several bad reviews. The other one I cancelled questioned my pet fee. I had also hosted her 3 or 4 times previously so it was clear it wasn’t “discrimination.”
My guy gave it up in his intro message to the host…
“Your listing looks like a potential fit with one question and one stipulation. The question would be how far are you from a train station? I will need to use it on my stay there. The stipulation is if I am renting a room I will be the only one to occupy or go in or out of it while I’m staying there. Therefore the “rule” if that is the correct term that you may come in and out of it to check or change the windows will not work. Now, should you care to view the windows from the exterior and make a recommendation on how you would want them, that is a different matter. But I will not have a situation where someone can go in and out of a room I am paying good money to stay in at their whim. Thank you, “S””
After having enough guests leave windows open in the rain, I added it to my house rules, that I would close windows to mitigate the damage to my home.
I confirmed with “S” that he had read the rules correctly and let him know that this would not be a good fit.
“S” responded with “Not a good fit is one thing, legalities is another. I would suggest you look into them. Have a good day. :)”
To which I replied “Thanks for the confirmation.”
Then I read his reviews - two of the four he received since signing up in March were definite “thumbs down” reviews! Whew! I dodged a bullet on that one.
Why do people feel the need to bring their $#*t into someones home?
The guy just sounds very awkward and strange. Good that you had a legitimate reason for cancelling on him!
However, I am also one of those people who would not rent a room if the owner/host could come in at out at their whim (without 24 hours notice unless it was an emergency). I find it an invasion of privacy. But if you indicate that up front (and that’s cool of you!), then everyone knows what they are in for! I would have just said “so if my windows are evidently closed from outside, you don’t enter my rented space?”
But in any event, he sounded peculiar…and not in a pleasant way!
I truly don’t understand people who think they get to make the rules in homestay Airbnb’s. And on top of that threatening the host if they don’t get their way! So glad you don’t have to deal with that person in your home.
To make it clear, I have no interest in going into a guest’s room on a whim. As stated clearly in my house rules, if they trigger one of the stated reasons for me to enter because they have left the house in an unsafe status, I won’t hesitate to take corrective measures. If it happens, I also follow up with either a message or have a conversation with them about the infraction. Of course, if they are home, I would ask them to correct the problem, I wouldn’t just walk into the room. Since putting these things in the rules, I rarely have a guest that fails to close the windows when leaving the house, or when it is raining. For my long term guests, I have also disclosed in advance, when I will be going into the room to clean and change the sheets etc. There is no mystery or surprise here.
I too have window issues but it is due to blowing dust.
I texted my last guests that a blowing dust warning had been issued by the weather service and asked if they were in town and if they had left any windows open. They texted back “yes” and “yes” so I let them know I would be entering the house to close the windows. They had no problem with me doing so and thanked me. We’re not talking fairy dust here what we have is 40mph winds blowing dirt off fields that haven’t seen rain since May.
Can you please tell me where I can find the info on this?
It’s with the other information about the guest. When this woman first booked I looked at the res on my phone and saw she only had 4 stars I got up and went to my computer and started working on getting her cancelled.
I have never seen the “recommended by x amount of hosts info”. I do 95% on my laptop as I hate using the phone for Air. I don’t like the app and often hit send accidentally before I am finished.
It’s under the guest profile here in the US and it’s still there. This is on desktop.
For fun I went and looked up the guest in question and she now has 38 reviews/recommended by 27 hosts. She continues to get bad reviews and to leave reviews that show she is a problem guest. I wish everyone here could read the reviews she is getting and giving. It’s the kind of thing that infuriates me that hosts don’t leave honest reviews.
She has stayed with several hosts more than once so that partially accounts for the gap between recommendations and reviews.
I can’t see this in the UK for any of my reservations. That’d be handy. The guest booking this morning had a couple of 4.5 categories over 29 reviews. It’d be good to see the recommendations to highlight any real issues (the reviews seem fine).
This is also under the guest’s name on the left side of the message thread for me. Could you post a screen shot of what you see on the computer for an upcoming guests message thread?
That’s strange that the layout is so different.
The lack of consistency across their markets is frustrating.
